March 29, 2023
Tradition has it that as we age, we simultaneously slow down and get wiser. At some point, according to this tradition, we are supposed to stop focusing on our own future and begin to focus on sharing our accumulated knowledge with the generations that come after us.
There are some problems with this tradition. One is that even if we want to share whatever knowledge we may have, many members of younger generations don’t want or need to hear it. The world is changing so fast that some of our wisdom no longer seems very wise at all. In fact, we have much to learn from those younger folks we’re supposed to be guiding. And yet another is that no matter how old we are, we are still growing and learning ourselves. Yes, we often do have something to share, but that is by no means all there is to us.
One of the differences between doing new things, starting new projects, and undertaking new adventures as we get older is that each new activity frequently involves a powerful mixture of pleasure, excitement, joy, and sadness. In her book Bittersweet, Susan Cain calls this knowledge the “recognition that light and dark, birth and death – bitter and sweet – are forever paired.”
This is how it was when I discovered my new favorite summer activity of standup paddleboarding.
The first time I went standup paddleboarding (SUP), I went with my son and daughter-in-law to be. My husband and I had done a home exchange with a couple on the Massachusetts shore, and the kids joined us for a few days. I was in my sixties. Even then, my husband was suffering from some medical difficulties that made it impossible for him to join us in the adventure, but terrific sport that he has always been, he sat at the water and “spotted” us.
We rented the boards from a shop across from a quiet, calm inlet, with almost no waves, carried them across the street, and got into the water. My daughter-in-law was the only one of us with any experience, so she talked my son and me through our initial steps. The fact that the water felt, as the New England ocean always does to my southern bones, like ice, was probably the driving force for me. Well, and my daughter-in-law’s call-out that we make a contest out of it: the one who falls the fewest times was the winner.
The sport spoke to me. Partly, probably, because I love almost anything at the beach. The soft sounds of water lapping at the shore, the calls of seabirds, and the sounds of people playing in the water soothe me. The sun sparkling off the crests of waves warms up my always chilly body. Memories of childhood summers spent with cousins at my grandparents’ beach cottage are not all pleasurable, but bring me joy nonetheless. And the vastness of the ocean itself, the life going on beneath the surface, the connection to worlds beyond sight…all of these thoughts and feelings also connect me to my parents, who also were soothed by them.
SUP uses many of the muscles and skills of waterskiing, something I had learned as a very little girl. Amazing how many of those muscle memories come back – I was probably close to fifty the last time I waterskied, visiting friends on the Maryland shore. But those muscles and my dread of falling into the frigid ocean kept me upright on the board for the entire time we were out. That’s right. Nobody won that contest. The kids jumped in when they wanted to cool off. I stayed dry.
The summer after our son and his wife married, they joined us a house at a beach near the one where I spent childhood summers. We biked and swam but couldn’t find a place to rent a standup paddleboard. It was a wonderful week, so we rented it again for the following year, at a savings because we were renting a year in advance. But the next year was the first summer of the pandemic. We didn’t travel that year.
My husband and I were lucky. The house we had bought in the countryside, thirty years earlier, for very little money, turned out to be the perfect refuge during that terrible time. His health got worse, but even in that we were lucky. In a rural community with spotty medical service, we found a wonderful physician who took over his care, doing everything except making house calls. Our house is in the mountains, and I longed for water, so we visited all of the lakes within an hour’s drive. But no one had SUP boards for rent that year. Near the end of that first summer of the pandemic, it seemed safe to go to an inn on the Connecticut shore, about an hour and a half drive from our home. And there, I was able to rent a paddleboard. For three days, I went paddleboarding. My husband sat in a little cabana and read and chatted with staff. One day, with the help of the very sweet young men and women who worked there, we got him into a two-person, foot-paddled kayak. And after a delightful hour on the water, they got him out again.
The following summer, my beloved younger brother died. He was undergoing treatment for cancer, which seemed to be working, but it seems – although we’re still not quite clear – that his immune system was so weakened that either he caught COVID or the virus was still in his body from a bout with it earlier. Whatever the reason, he died, leaving a family and many friends bereft.
My husband asked me what he could do – besides hold me while I cried. After thinking about it, I asked if he could find a place nearby where I could do SUP. He took on the project, and we tried out a few places. The perfect one was about 40 minutes from our house. He went with me, sat in the outdoor canteen, read, chatted, and kept an eye on me. I was so nervous that I was actually shaking. What was I thinking? I was almost seventy, with osteoporosis, and not as strong a swimmer as I once was – never mind that this was still icy New England water and I didn’t want to fall into it! That first time I stayed in sight of the launch ramp, thinking that if I fell in and couldn’t get up, someone would see and come rescue me.
My brother and I talked frequently, but we had some of our best conversations on bodies of water. He was a conservationist and a canoer, and water was his soothing place as well. Seated in single-person kayaks, we would paddle and talk, share thoughts and questions, ideas and worries. On that SUP in the early summer after he died, I cried. And connected to him. And loved him. And knew he loved me.
I went again and again that summer and continued the following year. I got a little braver and ventured around the lake, but always hugging the shore. I also found a waterproof pouch for my phone and ID, and I started carrying a water bottle and a candy bar. Well, sorry, but who knows when you might want a little sustenance? I talked to people on the lake, and my husband made friends in the canteen. The young men who carefully set up my board offered me tips for getting better and more comfortable each week. Chatting with them before and after my foray on the lake, my husband and I learned where they went to school, what they dreamed of doing, and how they had managed with schoolwork, friends, and family during the pandemic. We offered ideas about college and scholarships and future employment. Maybe this is the best way for generations to share information – not in one direction, but both ways. Everyone has something important to say.
And this is where the bitter and the sweet come together. I paddle along on my rented board, now brave enough to be in the middle of the lake, under the summer sun once again, and I feel joy and sadness, accomplishment and loss, simultaneously. For Susan Cain, this ability to experience both the bitter and the sweet is the very definition of wholeness. For me, it’s the definition of life. And I think it might also the definition of aging.
Photo credit: 123RF stock image #176773599 Photographer: mikelitis
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With a warm, intimate, and lyrical voice, Diane recounts a transformative story offering solace and the wisdom of staying steady as we experience the duality that is life.