Shrinking

“Shrinking.” noun: a popular series on Apple TV.

“Shrinking.” adjective: becoming smaller in size or amount.

Lately, the word brings the TV show to mind first. Harrison Ford, Jason Segel, and Jessica Williams play therapists sharing a small private practice. I’m quite fond of it. It manages to be funny while taking on friendship, parenting, grief, and the frequent ethical angle. I really look forward to each episode.

But there is also a more personal meaning these days: becoming smaller in size. It turns out that is not just a definition; it is my life.

The older I get, the smaller my world becomes.

I traveled last fall to my high school reunion, only the second trip I’ve taken since the pandemic. Both trips have been to small-town northern Wisconsin. Travel has become such a physical ordeal that I now approach it with the strategic planning of a minor military operation. Fortunately, I had enough frequent flier miles to upgrade to first class both times. I am not sure I would have survived the cattle-car-in-the-back alternative. Or at least with not much dignity.

Closer to home, my world has settled into a familiar circuit. The UPS store for my Amazon packages. Three grocery stores in regular rotation. And then the medical offices. So many medical offices! I seem to have assembled a small team of specialists, each responsible for a different body part that is no longer performing as originally advertised. Most are in North Eugene. My ophthalmologist, pain doc, and therapist are in South Eugene.

Yes, I still have a therapist. At this age. I still have issues.

There is also my daily walk, which remains essential for body, mind and spirit. Not that long ago I was walking three miles a day, more than a thousand miles a year. These days I manage about one mile, often pausing halfway to stretch and negotiate with my spine. Spinal stenosis and its accompanying nerve pain have reset expectations. They have also reduced how often I attend protests or head out with a camera, both once reliable parts of my routine.

And then there is my height. I used to measure 5 foot 7 at my annual physical. Last month, even standing as tall as I could, I came in just under 5 foot 5. Apparently, I am not only aging, I am compressing: osteoporosis. I do not like this. In high school I was among the shortest in my class, often the last chosen for teams. I remember the feelings of inadequacy. I am no longer being chosen for teams, but the world is still a different place for a short man. It always has been.

What I am left with, I suppose, is a smaller map. Fewer miles traveled, fewer places to go, fewer things I can easily do. Even a shorter reach upward.

Still, despite everything, I seem to be getting a better look at what’s right in front of me.

And if necessary, I suppose, I can always stand on tiptoe.

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Soundtrack Suggestion

Well, I don’t want no short people
Don’t want no short people
Don’t want no short people
‘Round here

Short people got nobody
Short people got nobody
Short people got nobody
To love

(“Short People” — Randy Newman)

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Everything Continues

I just finished reading Everything Changes Everything: Love, Loss and a Really Long Walk. At first, I thought this to be sort of a rather odd title. But it turns out to be spot on.

The author is Lauren Kessler, who lives here in Eugene, Oregon, or at least somewhere in the countryside around our city. I have known of her, heard her name now and again over the years. She has written several books and is considered a local literary presence. I had not read any of her earlier works, but last fall I came across her three-part series on food insecurity in our new, local online newspaper. I was struck by the depth of her reporting and the vividness of her writing. She placed herself in the story, not as a distant observer but as a participant, and what emerged were word pictures that stayed with me.

At the time, I learned that she would be publishing a new book in February, so I reserved a Kindle copy to be delivered on the publication date.

So that is how I came to know of the book. But I admit that I was also drawn to it, and ordered it, because of its promised discussions of love and loss. If you know anything about my writing, you know that I return to those topics with some regularity here in Musings. As it turns out, those themes are inseparable from the journey she undertakes.

The “really long walk” that Kessler documents is her journey along the Camino Francés, the ancient 500-mile pilgrimage that begins in the south of France, crosses northern Spain, and concludes at Santiago de Compostela, a famed Roman Catholic cathedral. The “love and loss” in the title refer to the twin deaths of her husband Tom, to cancer, and eight months later, her daughter Lizzie, to a drug overdose.

After these back-to-back earth-shaking tragedies, she writes that she desired “a solitary, immersive adventure, a physical, logistical, emotional challenge that would catapult me out of my life.” Prior to this, she had little familiarity with the Camino. She did almost no research about its history or even about how to navigate it. She notes, somewhat wryly, that she had not even seen Martin Sheen’s 2010 film The Way, a story about this very journey that nearly everyone she met along the path seemed to know well.

I came to the book with some prior familiarity. I had seen the film, read Shirley MacLaine’s earlier account, The Camino, and at one point in my life had even considered making the journey myself. That background did not diminish the experience of reading Kessler’s account. If anything, it sharpened my awareness of what she chose to notice, and what she chose to leave unexplained.

The book is organized in a way that draws the reader in completely, or at least that is how it worked for me. Alternating chapters follow the chronological progress of her walk, interspersed with non-time-linear accounts of the lives and deaths of her husband and daughter. Early on we learn that her husband’s torturous path through cancer led him to make use of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act.

Kessler frames this work as a memoir, and that it is. But as I read, I could not help but experience it as something akin to a form of ethnography, an inquiry not only into a journey across a physical landscape, but into the social and emotional domains of grief. What emerges is a set of richly detailed first-person narratives, both of the walk itself and of the intimate, difficult terrain of illness, addiction, dying, death and loss. She observes not only the world around her but also her own responses, occasionally with a level of candor that does not place her in the most favorable light.

One passage in particular stayed with me. She describes her reactions to friends and acquaintances who attempted to express sympathy and support. She found herself recoiling from the superficial, hollow-sounding sentiments such as “sorry for your loss.” The observation follows from an earlier, critical blog post of hers entitled Performative Condolence.

I found myself sitting with her perspective for a while. Not because I agreed with it entirely, but because I recognized it contained some element of truth. Grief unsettles not only the person who carries it, but also those who try to approach it. We reach for familiar words, knowing even as we speak them that they will fall painfully short. Yet we offer them anyway because, for most of us, silence feels worse.

Kessler does not provide a tidy resolution to that discomfort. What she offers instead is something more useful: a sustained, honest account of what it is like to keep moving forward when the life you knew has been irrevocably altered. The walk becomes less a quest for answers than a way of continuing.

In that sense, the title is not strange at all. Everything changes. And then, somehow, of course, everything continues.

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Soundtrack Suggestion

As I walk this land with broken dreams
I have visions of many things
But happiness is just an illusion
Filled with sadness and confusion
What becomes of the broken-hearted
Who had love that’s now departed?
I know I’ve got to find
Some kind of peace of mind

(“What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” — Jimmy Ruffin)

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The Observer Effect

Can You Hear Me Now?

Here’s a rather timeless question: If a tree falls in a lonely forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? This issue has engaged philosophers for centuries and has given rise to considerable scholarly debate.

Lately I have begun to wonder whether the internet has produced a modern version of a similar philosophical problem, specifically with regard to blogging. If a person writes essays that remain virtually unread, does the blog really exist?

One might imagine that such a question could be addressed, at least somewhat marginally, with data. We live in the age of analytics, after all. Somewhere inside the mysterious machinery of the internet, numbers are quietly crunched: page views, visitor counts, geographic locations, and other tidy bits of data gradually accumulate in the background. Naturally, I occasionally check the available statistics here on Musings.

What I find here can best be described as modest evidence of human life. Sometimes one of my posts appears to have attracted three visitors. Two of those visits are almost certainly me, returning to see whether a typo escaped my notice before I published. The third might represent an actual reader. Or possibly a search engine robot conducting routine surveillance of the digital landscape.

But every now and then the analytics reveal something more mysterious. A recent visitor with an IP address from the Seychelles, for example. I try to imagine this person: someone on a small island in the Indian Ocean who has paused long enough to read a reflective essay about time, memory, or late-life philosophy written by a retired higher-ed guy in Oregon. It is a pleasant thought. Unfortunately, of course, it is most likely a bot.

These observations suggest that the deeper philosophical issue may lie elsewhere. René Descartes famously attempted to anchor human existence in a single undeniable truth: Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. The act of thinking itself confirmed the existence of the thinker.

Modern physics introduces yet another wrinkle. In quantum mechanics, the Uncertainty Principle suggests that the act of observation influences what is being observed. At the smallest scales of reality, the observer and the observed become entangled in curious ways. The observer becomes part of the phenomenon.

All of this raises an unsettling possibility for bloggers: perhaps a post does not fully exist until someone reads it.

For the modern blogger, then, a similar formulation might present itself: Scribo, ergo sum. I write, therefore I am.

But writing on the internet introduces a complication Descartes never had to consider. Descartes lived in an era when publishing assumed an audience. In our era, it is entirely possible to write something, place it carefully on a beautifully designed website — yes, I am talking about TechnoMonk’s Musings here — and discover that the universe has responded with a deafening silence.

This raises a subtle question. If writing is placed before the world but no one encounters it, what exactly has occurred? Is the blog an act of communication, or merely a private journal that just happens to possess a URL?

Perhaps the older philosophical puzzle offers a clue. A tree falling in the forest still disturbs the air, shakes the ground, and settles into the soil whether anyone happens to be standing nearby to hear the sound. The event takes place regardless of observation.

So let’s consider this: Writing may work much the same way. Thoughts take shape. Words accumulate. A small archive of a life gradually forms, essay by essay. Whether the audience is large, small, or occasionally located in the Seychelles may be only an incidental matter.

Descartes had certainty: Cogito, ergo sum.

I think, therefore I am.

Physicists have uncertainty; and so do I. Scribo, ergo sum.

I write, therefore I might be?

Whether anyone can hear me now is another question entirely.

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Soundtrack Suggestion

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-shiny day
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-shiny day

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I've been prayin' for

It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-shiny day

(“I Can See Clearly Now” — Johnny Nash)

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The Executor Dilemma

A Boy Scout’s Guide to Late-life Logistics

In my previous essay, I found myself reflecting on the subject of time. Writing it left me thinking much more seriously about how much of it I may have left. At my age — I’m now in my 79th year — existential angst is to be expected. Many friends and colleagues are now gone, while those of us still here seem increasingly occupied with managing one physical malady or another.

Ah yes, the maladies. They arrive in clusters at this stage of life, don’t they? For example, my walking regimen, once integral to both my physical and mental health, has become disturbingly limited. Chronic nerve pain from spinal stenosis now restricts my mobility, and more recently I have added compression stockings to my wardrobe to deal with peripheral edema. It really is no secret that a senior-citizen’s body is a full-time maintenance project.

Now, as it happens, I was a Boy Scout in my youth, and the motto drilled into every Scout was simple: Be Prepared.

Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, did not mean that only in the sense of carrying the right gear on a camping trip. He meant it as a way of approaching life itself. Think ahead. Get things in order before the moment arrives.

So. Let’s get real. It definitely is time for me to get serious about preparing for my Final Exit.

The pandemic, of course, had previously served to sharpen this realization. In 2020 I was well into the category of people considered highly vulnerable to COVID. Although we did not know the precise statistics at the time, we now know that people over 65 accounted for the vast majority of deaths from the disease. I behaved cautiously and, for whatever reason, never contracted the virus.

However, during that unsettling time, I did make a few modest strides toward “getting my affairs in order.” Ever since then, a white 9×12 envelope labeled “Important Stuff” has been attached to my refrigerator door, quietly waiting to be needed. Inside it are my Advance Directive, which I prepared back in 2014 (upon retirement), along with some basic information about my finances and where funds should be directed upon my death.

Of course, one rather obvious detail remained unresolved. Who exactly would carry out these wishes? I never actually completed a Will.

Not that I didn’t try. I went to the FreeWill website and started working through the prompts. Everything went smoothly until I reached the section asking me to name an Executor. Who would that be? I do not have a spouse or significant other, and most of my relatives live far away. Asking friends to take on the administrative burden of settling someone’s affairs felt like a rather large favor to request.

So the process stalled.

But I have just recently discovered that there are professionals who can perform this role. Licensed Professional Fiduciaries can serve as a Personal Representative, handling the various financial, legal, and logistical details that follow a person’s death. In cases like mine, where the estate is modest, the process may even be handled through a Simple Estate Affidavit rather than a lengthy probate proceeding.

I am still learning about how all of this works, of course, but I have already contacted a local firm that provides fiduciary services and requested an initial consultation.

None of this is especially dramatic; it is simply the quiet work of tidying up important details. It’s the kind of effort that is easy to postpone because the moment requiring it always seems far away. Yet eventually the time arrives. Deep down, we all know that.

And so I find myself returning to bits of advice first learned long ago in the Boy Scout Handbook. The lessons were about life. And now death.

Be prepared.

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Soundtrack Suggestion

I’m not scared of dying 
And I don't really care
If it’s peace you find in dying
Well, then let the time be near

If it’s peace you find in dying
And if dying time is near
Just bundle up my coffin cause 
It’s cold way down there
I hear that's it’s cold way down there
Yeah, crazy cold way down there

(“And When I Die” — Laura Nyro; Blood, Sweat & Tears)

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Meditations on Time

Here I am, at age 78, seemingly surrounded by stories about time. These stories naturally have a way of turning my thoughts toward how short my own time may be.

I just reread a novel in which every adult on the planet receives a box containing a string that reveals exactly how long they will live. And I’m recalling the television comedy about a moral accounting system that tracks a person’s life here on Earth. Finally, there’s the recent film that imagines we get to choose the precise form our eternity will take.

I did not set out to braid these snippets of our popular culture together. They braided themselves. At this age, time insists on being the subject.

The reminders are constant. Obituary columns, for one. My personal calendar, for another, which now includes far more medical appointments than it once did. Routine blood work. MRI, CT and DEXA scans. Follow-ups, with each visit carrying the distinct possibility that this will be the one where the doctor pauses too long before speaking. Most of the time the news is ordinary. “See you in six months.” But the suspense never quite disappears.

In Nikki Erlick’s 2022 novel The Measure, a mid-life character suggests that a string long enough to reach age eighty would count as good news. When I read that passage, I felt a small jolt. Eighty no longer feels like a distant horizon. It is a number that is uncomfortably close.

If I opened my box today, I would automatically have a long string. The real question would be: how much longer? A year? Five years? Ten? More? Though If I died today, surely no one would lament that I was gone before my time.

All of which leads to other concerns. How many more years would I want if they are shadowed by increasing pain — or other physical or mental decline? Longevity, at this stage, is not automatically the goal. There are conditions.

The Good Place, the four-season television series originally airing on NBC (and now available on Peacock), begins with a moral scoring system; every human action or interaction earns positive or negative points. An endless array of cosmic accountants supposedly keeps track of these tallies someplace up there in the sky, and when you die your final count decides your destiny. It is morality, and judgment day, rendered as a dispassionate spreadsheet.

At 78, that premise feels less like satire and more like a quiet audit. I find myself reviewing my own ledger. Have I been good? Not necessarily accomplished. Nor productive. But good?

My entries must be mixed. I have lived and loved imperfectly. I have hurt people I did not intend to hurt. There are relationships that did not endure. Some ended gently. Others did not. Even now there is sadness attached to those chapters, a sense that certain conversations might have gone differently if I had been wiser, braver or simply more skilled.

I sometimes wonder whether those endings count against me, or whether they merely show that I kept trying to connect and sometimes failed.

The show ultimately dismantles its point system, though. Life, it suggests, is far too entangled for simple math. Growth matters more than totals; it matters more than being flawless.

What lingers for me now is the series’ ending. Even paradise becomes hollow if it stretches on forever. In the final season, the characters are offered an exit. They step through one last door when they feel complete. Eternity with no ending, the show suggests, flattens meaning.

So, I wonder: How, ultimately, will I measure my existence? Will there ever be a time when will I feel complete?

Those questions followed me into the 2025 film Eternity, now on Apple TV, where humanity is invited to choose the form one’s forever will take. The idea sounds appealing at first. Pick your paradise. A tropical beach, for example. Perfect weather. Endless calm.

But what would that mean after a thousand years? Ten thousand? How could any single scene, no matter how beautiful, sustain significance without limit? Without scarcity?

Part of what makes a late-life conversation more vivid is precisely that it may not be repeated endlessly. Scarcity is what gives weight to life’s ordinary moments.

If I knew the precise length of my string, maybe I would live differently. I might rush to repair what remains frayed. Or I might grow cautious, conserving energy. Uncertainty leaves me in between. Aware of the limit, but not of its measure. Isn’t it that uncertainty that keeps life from becoming either frantic or complacent?

If there is a ledger somewhere, I hope it records effort. That it shows I kept revising myself. That I tried to mend what I could. That I did not stop growing simply because the horizon drew closer.

I am not eager to open the box. And I am not certain I want a tropical eternity with no horizon. I only know that the ticking is audible now. Doctor visits. Quiet evenings. Old relationships to ponder. Meditations on time.

Age 78. Still adding to the ledger.

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Poetry Selection: The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

-Mary Oliver

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