I was sitting in my wheel chair
at the table, eating my breakfast, when unbidden this idea came to me. It was a
name. Grandolescence. I had recently
started writing about the stages of human life. You know: childhood, adulthood
and elderhood. I had commented to myself, when writing about the adolescent
shift between childhood and adulthood, that there ought to be awareness of the
even more difficult shift between adulthood and elderhood. Then, some days
later, the name grandolescence came to me. Suddenly, I realized that the
crucial and challenging transition that gave one entrée into elderhood had
opened before me. This Slow Lane is dedicated to reflecting upon this natural
occurrence, that is so misunderstood, and nevertheless, is so powerful and
transforming.
I felt glad that the name
that came to me, seemingly out of the blue, had so much to do with adolescence.
I remembered being struck years ago, when I heard someone say old folks where
just grey teenagers. Then I thought there was something right about that. But
now, I think it is more than right that old folks are like teenagers, but in
ways much more worldly. Old people are trying to find their place in a world, which
has morphed into something complexly alien. There is a physical awkwardness
that comes with less functional bodies, that are suddenly (thankfully) bereft
of hormonal surges. But, even more importantly, there is the awkwardness of
fitting into a world as strange as the one that appears in later life. Old folks, like teenagers, are being grown
into something—involuntarily.
I also liked the appellation
“grand.” There is something marvelous and awe-inspiring about Life carrying one
to a stage where it is possible to get a glimpse of the big picture, the grand
design of it all. The association with grandparents came immediately to mind
too. It seems that in almost every account I know of, wise one’s have been
called affectionately ‘grandmother’ or ‘grandfather.’
It seemed ‘grand’ was the
right choice to me, because it signified the enormous complexity of this
transition, and the magnitude of the change that Life puts us through. It blew
my mind that this enormous change had no rite of passage to mark it, nor was it
well described by any culture or person that I knew. I was simultaneously
despondent and elated.
Grandolescence is the time
one spends coming to terms with the actual limitations and possibilities that
Life has determined for us. It comes to us inevitably while we are alive, or as
we die — usually both. We exercise some choice about facing it, but it is
always facing us. It asks us to grow into full, ripe, human beings. Life saves the best for last, or faces us with a stunted existence
tied to the past.
Strangely Grandolescence comes
wrapped in losses and death — a macabre masquerade — which one must pass
through to grasp the gains that this season of Life offers. Hidden within it
all, even at the core of one’s being, is an integrative force. This force works
despite us, to bring about alignment. Nature is taking us all in.
There is something
spectacular about a life course that includes a period of having the childhood,
cultural, and personal preferences stripped away. This time, which is marked by
loss — is painful — and seems to take away hope (especially hope for the wrong
thing). It drives one deeper within,
where one begins to find out the reason for one’s existence. The journey from doing to being is one of
going against the grain of modern culture, and re-claiming the natural aspects
of who one is. Grandolescence is a kind of fore-play. No wonder old people tend
to be happier. It isn’t because they are so physically well off. It is because
there is ecstasy involved with joining more passionately with Life.
Grandolescence is too valuable
of a phenomenon to be obscured by prejudice (ageism) and misinterpretation, the
presumptions of those who came earlier constructed our notions of what old age
is like. Too often younger folks, with their tendency to see only the outside
surfaces of aging, have seen it as a time of physical decline. The truth is
that there is something going on inside, not easily viewed from the outside,
which ennobles the game. Grandolescence takes one there, inside, to the place
where the Universe has planted itself.
Grandolescence is my formulation
of a process that I do not own,
can barely describe,
unknowingly depend on,
and cannot direct.
Incredibly, it is Nature at
work. I’m just thankful I’m connected enough that while eating my breakfast,
ideas like this one can come to me. Even more thrilling, for me, is that I
realize that grandolescence is coming to others too.
