August 2024
By Richard Fleming
Photo courtesy of Francesca Tosolini
Since my last post, written three months ago, I remain as confused as ever about how to approach aging with calmness and grace. Fortunately occasional small insights and micro-understandings creep up on me, offering some measure of hope I will one day understand this journey.
Aging is a funny phenomenon. I hesitate to call it weird, for reasons I hope are obvious in this election season, but it is definitely strange. One example is how our relationship to physical objects changes as we move further into seniorhood. Consider chairs. Young people don’t give much mind to chairs. I know I rarely gave them a second thought when I was young. Back then, chairs served a single and useful purpose – they allowed me to sit down. They came in handy at mealtime, when talking with friends, when going to school, and sometimes at work. But they occupied little space in my head as I tackled my activities of daily living. Chairs were simple utilitarian objects I leveraged in pursuit of specific goals. Like eating, having discussions, studying. They were easy to leave behind when I needed to stand up.
I can’t say when my relationship to chairs first began to change; the shift occurred gradually. But as I move forward through my eighth decade of life, it has become apparent that chairs play an increasingly important role in my life. Let me explain. I will start by saying that sitting does not occupy all my time. I still like to stand and move around. My wife and I periodically take a walk for exercise. We walk when delivering food for Meals on Wheels. I need to be mobile to water our plants, sweep up leaves in the yard, and try to combat the fungi attacking our rose bushes. (So far the fungi are winning this battle.)
But I have to acknowledge that nowadays, sitting comes easier and occupies more of my time than it did previouisly. Take parties for example. I attend fewer than I used to. When they do occur I usually stand up for much of the time. But at some point I start scouting the room for an available chair. While I still have pretty good stamina for standing, sitting down can be really nice. Playing with my grandkids in the yard is fun and good exercise. But sooner or later I feel compelled to mosey over to one of the yard chairs to sit for a spell. There are any number of other situations where this same phenomenon plays out.
Another thing about chairs: once I am seated, it is a bit more challenging to stand up than it was in years past. I still can arise successfully, but it is now accompanied by a squinch of pain in my thighs and knees. Without being quite aware of it, I often find I’m using my hands and arms to help push myself up. It almost feels like chairs are applying some magical force, a suction, to keep me sitting down. More than ever before, when my body is at rest, it tends to remain at rest. I tell myself not to become concerned when this happens. It is simply one of the basic principles of physics, discovered by Isaac Newton in 1687.
My comments about chairs apply equally to couches, recliners, and other devices used for seating. These objects no longer go unnoticed and unloved, dwelling in the background of my life. They have assumed more importance and significance. They facilitate me being able to live my life to the fullest. I see them. I value them. I no longer take chairs for granted.
Why am I spending time thinking about this phenomenon? I feel it illustrates how older people live in a different world than younger people. We may move through the same physical spaces, but the environment occupied by older folks is different than the one occupied by younger people. Our relationship to many physical objects changes as we age. Older people view and experience stairways differently than younger folks. When we are driving on a busy freeway, the cars darting in and out of traffic and speeding by elicit different emotions for us than for the young. Uneven sidewalks can be daunting. We engage differently with common household tools, especially hammers and anything which plugs into an electrical socket.
So, my friends, growing old is strange indeed. It is a journey of discovery, an adventure. It requires self-awareness, caution, and humility. And aging requires a high degree of luck. Every morning upon awakening I am thankful to still be walking toward the nearing horizon. And I am grateful for the seductiveness of chairs.
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This 87 year old always enjoys your posts.
Write on, Richard!!
Welcome back! It’s good to read your essays again.
Having a genetic disease that has affected the strength in my legs makes the styles of chairs, couches, and recliners ever more pertinent. Hail to thee, oh sturdy arms on chairs!
Looking forward to your next topic.
I find I now make a noise both getting in and out of a sitting device, which I no longer take for granted.
Good to hear from you again, Richard! We had the final meeting of our reunion planning group today… there will be plenty of chairs (LOL) to take advantage of when we’ve had enough standing and milling around for awhile. (I think we all agree with your observations.) Looking forward to seeing you and your wife again next month! Safe travels getting here and back home!
Good to have you back!
I’m reminded of the popular 1 minute or 30 second sit/stand challenge, wherein the count of comfortable ups and downs decreases with age. Statistics are available for quite a few serious studies. The mean is around 12 for 80 year olds, but with a very large standard deviation, not surprisingly.
Myself, I probably prefer old fashioned straight chairs with firm cushions to enveloping couches and loungers.
“Older people view and experience stairways differently than younger folks.” FOR SURE.
Amongst the cacophony of most social media, a welcome area of thoughtful meditation, to which the reader is invited to pull up the chair of their choice.
Enjoyed your writing. Relating situations brings comfort to many. We’re at an age where living in the present moment is bombarded by sweet memories of the rear view mirror. As they said in the ‘60’s – “Keep On Trucking”…
Really enjoyed this writing. Real good “food for thought”. Thank you
Insightful! Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
It’s lovely to see an Older But Wiser notification in my email again, Richard! And I’m delighted that you look at these everyday objects and our changing relations with them as we age.
You compel me to pull a book off the shelf that I loved when I devoured it a quarter of a century ago: The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body, and Design by Galen Cranz (W.W. Norton, 1998). The jacket-blurb summary I would write for the book today would say that it’s a study of the cultural and physical anthropology of sitting. One of its brilliant (they all are) sections is titled “The chair as a health hazard” which, upon looking at it now, compels me out of my standard office chair and onto my Balans chair.
Thus am I reminded by you and Prof Cranz that as I get older I don’t have to regret or apologize for being increasingly uncomfortable with either extended standing or sitting. Perhaps sitting itself, in a chair, is culturally and evolutionarily strange. Aging merely is something that happens.
Speaking of choosing the right chair for comfort.
What about a TOILET?
Replacing my 45 year old toilets with a seat that now is over six inches taller, wider as our bottoms have also grown wider, and having to make a decision do I push this button or this one where “if its brown flush it down.”
Richard, sooo glad you are back, was so worried. Always enjoy your thoughtful subjects.
I enjoy your posts as they reflect a way of thinking about this journey we are on which is creative, insightful, and compassionate. With my spine issues and nerve pain, I, too, have changed the way I look at chairs and in fact always carry with me an extra padded seat to put in any chair I sit in. When I make reservations at a restaurant, without fail, I ask for a booth or its most comfortable seating so that I can focus on the people I am with instead of the pain that escalates and takes me away. Thank you.
Very happy to see one of your blog posts today. I spend entirely too much time sitting. I even ignore my Apple Watch when it tells me to stand for 1 minute!
Thanks, Richard, highly entertaining and affirming of our changing world as we age. Getting up out of a chair the other day, I nearly fell over when my foot caught on the leg of the chair. Am I getting clumsier as I age? Oh, and… about those aging toes! Kicking the leg of a chair or the bonging into the immobile hardwood foot of a bed will cause an explosion of pain in an ingrown toenail or a bent-over rheumatic arthritic toe! In the middle of the night, you can bet I move around the bed with extreme caution! Hmmm, some other time we can talk about the number of times for getting out of the bed in the middle of the night. 🙂
Glad you’re back…..c’mon in and have a seat.