If you are over the age of sixty and have not encountered Daniel Levitin, then you are missing exactly what you need. Wikipedia introduces him as “an American-Canadian writer, cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, musician, and record producer. He is the author of four New York Times best-selling books.” He is sixty-two years old.

Earlier this year I purchased and devoured his book, Successful Aging. I keep rereading it and trying to incorporate it into my daily life. It is my current Bible. Near the end of the book, Dr. Levitin encourages us to answer three questions first posed by Joseph F. Coughlin, director of MIT AgeLab. I find myself constructing my life around my answers.

1. Who’ll change my light bulbs?

I live in a house with a twenty-year-old interior. It has ten different types of light bulbs. I am serious. One such bulb, which I cannot purchase and will never be able to replace, is embedded within my chandelier. Some are tiny and some recessed. Two years ago, I replaced a lot of pot lights with what I call my terminal pot lights. They are guaranteed to outlast me! I was determined to do the job myself. It took a lot of YouTube instructional viewing and a tall ladder. With sawdust falling out of the hole in the ceiling into my hair and eyes, and balancing in mid-air (as my house has very high ceilings), I answered my ringing cell phone. My son was horrified when I described my situation. He suggested, no, demanded, that I needed a better plan. I did and now I do. I found Vic. He is a tradesperson who can fix anything. Too frequently it is the pesky lightbulbs in the rest of the house. And he fixed my laundry room door, my Juliet balcony and the floor boards in my deck. He is a treasure.

Coughlin/Levitin’s point is that we need to think about who will do repairs and maintenance as we age. It is very difficult for some of us to not do them ourselves. How many people do you know who have fallen off a roof? I know at least two.

We need to think about smaller tasks as well. If you develop a tremor, can you chop vegetables or open a bottle of wine? What if your eyesight begins to fail beyond the magic of cataract surgery? Most importantly, accepting that you need help is critical. How much will it cost and will you afford it? It is really more about “will” than “can.”

I have noticed that folk begin to say things such as, “I can put up with that wobbly door because I won’t live long enough to bother fixing it.” Then they live twenty years with a broken door, or even three years. I am one of those folk who keeps dismissing having my back door fixed. I hereby resolve before my next blog post to call the company that Vic recommended.

2. What if I want an ice cream cone?

This one is quite literal for me. I always want an ice cream cone. It started young and, given the ice cream I saw my brother and mother consume, I think it is genetic. This is my mom choosing the strawberry side of the brick of Neopolitan. My brother took the other two colours.

We were a church-going family, and I mean three times each Sunday. Sunday was a holy day in my childhood home. Everything was prepared on Saturday, including me. I hated the hair part. Saturday afternoon my hair was washed in saved rainwater, because it was softer, and then it was tied in rags that I had to sleep in. This was to perfect the beautiful ringlets that my aunt and mother formed out of my mop on Sunday morning before church. I was to look like Shirley Temple and God would be so pleased but, more importantly, all the other moms would nod approvingly at the prowess of my mom and aunt.

However, in the afternoon just my Dad and I went to Sunday school. On the way home we stopped at the Jewish deli which was open because they had Sunday on Saturday, my dad explained to me. The deli had the best ice cream cones. This became my dad’s and my secret forever. I had chocolate and he had vanilla. Before we got home he carefully wiped my face and swore me to secrecy. We had shopped on Sunday, a very bad thing in the eyes of my mother who did not quite accept that the Jewish Sabbath was Saturday. Consequently, I loved Sunday school, the Jewish Sabbath and chocolate ice cream cones.

You just have to know where to get an ice cream cone at all times and you have to be able to walk there. I have constructed a life in which, so far, I have always been able to do this. Literally I am on board with the ice cream cone question.

Of course, it is meant to be a metaphor inviting us to attend to the quality of our lives. It is the ability to do things spontaneously. We need to geographically locate ourselves where we can bring this off. For me, it means being able to walk to activities where I have fun and have people to do those activities with. It is getting up at 6:30 this morning to walk down the street and swim in the best outdoor pool in Canada at Kits Beach. It is about little experiences.

Kits Pool at sunset. 137 metres in length!

My grandfather lived with us when I was growing up. Every morning at 10 a.m., he put on his boots and tied the laces, which had little buttons near the top. Then he strode out walking until noon when he returned for lunch. Sometimes I went too. It was an adventure of meeting folk and stopping to chat. It was exploring a new neighbourhood. For him it was a daily pleasure. His simple routine taught me a lot about how to age.

The cover of August 17, 2020 edition of the New Yorker says this clearly:

Wayne Thiebaud, the artist, is almost 100 years young and when interviewed about this painting, he commented that he saw the ice cream cone as a treat to be cherished in summer heat. It is a reminder of small pleasures that we need to keep accessible in our lives always.

3. Who will I have lunch with?

Got to love University chums at lunch celebrating a birthday.

Here the issue is both friends and a vibrant community. In the last third of life these become more and more important. I have found that maintaining my community is work. It takes effort to keep up with old friends and more effort to meet new people and try new things. Increasingly we live far away from our children. You may be blessed to live in a village with your children and grandchildren nearby, but many of us do not. You may be blessed to be living with your soulmate but many do not. Now we are all challenged by COVID.

How are you doing with keeping a circle of friends across age groups? Book clubs can help, but often they are a set group of dear friends of the same age. The Liberal Church was once a dependably cross-generational community, but it is no longer, as young people have left this church in droves. Sports activities are done more often than not within your age group and skill level. I find my women’s golf day ensures that I golf with different age groups. There are no easy solutions, but it can be done. I am wondering if I should learn to code. I think it would definitely engage me with younger people if only virtually. Music pursuits definitely offer multi age expoeriences. I have a friend in her sixties who is learning to play the piano. Her concerts, which I attend, are filled with youngsters. Choirs are another activity that promise a wide age range. I have the pleasure of having met new friends while travelling, and I know this to be true for some of my friends. My niece met many new friends, many older than she is, in a very active hiking community.

As we age, it is important to think about vibrancy when we decide where to live. At one point, as a family, we encouraged our parents to move into an apartment in a residential part of the city with tree-lined streets. It was quiet and private. They put up with it for about two years before informing all of us that this was enough. Then they moved to what we thought of as an industrial park. They loved it. Out the window that had so much to watch and keep track of: deliveries, who lunched where, different makes of cars and trucks and vibrant city energy. Birds and trees were fine for outings, but daily bustle was what engaged them. As their children we finally understood. I think their friends on quiet streets sometimes envied them their decision.

Light bulbs, ice cream cones and lunch are such a catchy mantra for guidance in healthy aging. Levitin’s book, Successful Aging, is a treasure trove of inspiration. Reading it I got very enthusiastic and began to think I could easily live to be one hundred. Then I crashed. My plans did not include aging beyond ninety. I got anxious and lay awake at night trying to figure out if I could afford to live that long. Light bulb. I needed to get help to sort this out, and so back to the financial planning desk I went.

In this phase I was chatting with my twenty-year-old grandson. I told him I could live to be a hundred. He replied that this would be absolutely wonderful. He approved. Such a grandmother whisperer he is. But I told him, I was not sure I can afford to live so long. Big pause ensued and then he replied, “Grandma, if you can get to be ninety-five, I think I would be able to take over by that time.” Now how sweet is that?

However, I thought this was maybe not the best financial plan, and so back to the broker and bank and accountant I went. It seems, with care, I am able to live financially to be one hundred. Now I am free to keep living by the Levitin map. I am finding so many gracious surprises along the way. He encourages me to stay engaged with meaningful work. I see my doctor regularly but not obsessively. I engage often in forest bathing. I have begun to value that as I age I am better and better at being able to identify patterns of behaviour. I am just about to engage on a nine day vacation with my twenty year old grandson and his girlfriend. What is not to like about Dr Levitin who supports all of these activities vociferously. You are most welcome to join me.