Aw, Go Fly a Kite

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help retirees, those soon to retire, baby boomers, and seniors reinvent themselves in this new stage of their lives called retirement. Her blog, public lecture, and new self-help book on senior reinvention are titled: Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire. Her memoir is: Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class. Books descriptions follow her blog below. Both books are available at Amazon.com by clicking here and here. Her website is: LeeGaleGruen.com

Now, on to my blog:

I was walking in a lovely park on a beautiful spring day with my son recently. What a treat! His family was occupied with other activities. Usually there is someone else around competing for his attention, but this time I had him all to myself.

After strolling through pristine nature including along the waterline of a Pacific Ocean bay, we came upon a section filled with kites and their handlers. They were of all sizes, shapes, colors, and persuasions, both aerial gliders and grounded pilots. There was even a mobile kite shop housed in a truck to fulfill all one’s kiting needs.

I guess the word had gotten around to the local practitioners and aficionados as to the location of the kite happening. New arrivals steadily joined those already there, with many launching their prized entrants.

The gliders battled in an unofficial competition, vying for the originality of their designs and the skill of their operators. They sported elaborate patterns, long tails, and a human at the other end adept at manipulating the thin string that separated them. I witnessed complicated maneuvers including swooping, soaring, and a variety of loop-the-loops. One acrobatic combination outdid the next with the tails forming coils, snakes, figure eights and the like.

Kites bring up many thoughts. “Go fly a kite” was a provocative taunt used by young people which began over 100 years ago. It was also blurted out to encourage an irritating person to leave. Of course, I must not forget to mention the most famous kite flyer of all: Benjamin Franklin. In 1752, he proved the connection between lightning and electricity by attaching a wire, a hemp string, a silk string, and finally a metal key to a kite which he launched during a thunder storm. For more in-depth details of Franklin’s experiment, google it.

We humans are like kites. We soar to great heights, swoop to great lows, and our wobbly path through life definitely consists of loop-the-loops. Yet we are tethered to our responsibilities: family, children, jobs… The leash keeps us secure, but it should not stop us from flying. Always be a kite. Just because you are grounded and stable does not mean you can’t reach for the sky.

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SYNOPSES OF BOOKS BY: LEE GALE GRUEN

Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy, Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire (self-help): Not a one-size-fits-all approach, this self-help book for retirees, those soon to retire, baby boomers, and seniors offers an individualized, detailed guide to assist readers in discovering activities and pursuits in this new stage of their lives called retirement, based on their own likes and comfort level. I learned the secret the hard way transitioning from retired probation officer to actress, author, public speaker, and blogger. Audience members at my lectures on senior reinvention requested a book on the subject. This is the result, and it contains the content of those talks and six years of posts from this blog. CLICK here TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.COM.

Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class (memoir): After retiring at age 60 from my 37-year career as a probation officer, I mistakenly enrolled in an acting class for seniors.  A few weeks later, my mother died, and I invited my grieving, 85-year-old father to come to class with me.  This is the true story of our magical journey attending that class together for three years, bonding more than ever.  I wrote the comedy scenes we performed onstage twice a year in the acting class showcases, and all six scenes are included in the book.  I eventually transitioned into the world of professional acting.  As my fledgling, second career started going uphill, my dad’s health started going downhill.  I would recount to him each of my new experiences while I sat beside his bed at the nursing home where he resided in his final years. CLICK here TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.COM.

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Please forward my blog in its entirety to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at: gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.

Loss, Loss, and More Loss

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help retirees, those soon to retire, baby boomers, and seniors reinvent themselves in this new stage of their lives called retirement. Her blog, public lecture, and new self-help book on senior reinvention are titled: Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire. Her memoir is: Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class. Books descriptions follow her blog below. Both books are available at Amazon.com by clicking here and here. Her website is: LeeGaleGruen.com

Now, on to my blog:

A friend recently asked me to write a blog about death or decline as is happening to many friends in her life and certainly in mine. She talked about the sadness she feels as she deletes yet one more contact from her address list. That reality also hits as she sees names she recognizes in the obituary column or hears about the passing of celebrities in the upper age ranges.

When we reach the category of senior citizen, we are supposed to enter our golden years. The prize is to be wise, content, and find purpose. Yes, we may have those feelings some of the time, but like all ages and stages, life is cyclical.

One of the low points of being a senior is how losing peers seems to be accelerating. This ranges from significant others to mere acquaintances. The number of collective deaths increases dramatically as more and more age plateaus are reached.

Living in a senior retirement community of thousands, I hear ambulance sirens more often than before I moved here. News of someone in my sphere dying has sped up, like the counter on the gas pump as you squeeze harder on the nozzle trigger. So many close friends or relatives are gone. Those who are left keep wondering which one will be next.

Many years ago, my longtime friend, Maya, and I had a similar discussion. She had been slowly deteriorating as her Parkinson’s disease progressed.

“You’re the last man standing, Lee Gale,” she told me one day, while comparing my robust body with her frail one.

I lost Maya a few years ago. She was four years younger than I. Her husband allowed me to choose some of her belongings to keep. Although they don’t match my decor, that’s not important. They enhance my home, reminding me of her and of our friendship, which is so much more important than lack of color or style coordination. Other rooms display belongings from family members and friends who are now gone, too. Those treasures comfort me and make me feel connected to the ones who have exited my life.

I’ve written before on loss and death. See my blogs of December 9, 2018: “A Tandakoan’s Reflection on an Obituary,” and December 4, 2016: “The Death of a Friend.”

Such considerations can cripple us and plunge us into fear and depression. We must fight against harmful emotions by trying hard to emphasize the wondrous parts of our lives. Of course, it’s restorative to mourn our losses. However, at the same time we must preserve what brings us pleasure and purpose: friends, family, activities, learning, exploration, and so on? Don’t let those valuable nuggets slip away. Hang onto them as if your life depended upon it, because it does. Continue to immerse yourself in those pursuits, and let them heal you.

SYNOPSES OF BOOKS BY: LEE GALE GRUEN

Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy, Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire (self-help): Not a one-size-fits-all approach, this self-help book for retirees, those soon to retire, baby boomers, and seniors offers an individualized, detailed guide to assist readers in discovering activities and pursuits in this new stage of their lives called retirement, based on their own likes and comfort level. I learned the secret the hard way transitioning from retired probation officer to actress, author, public speaker, and blogger. Audience members at my lectures on senior reinvention requested a book on the subject. This is the result, and it contains the content of those talks and six years of posts from this blog. CLICK here TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.COM.

Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class (memoir): After retiring at age 60 from my 37-year career as a probation officer, I mistakenly enrolled in an acting class for seniors.  A few weeks later, my mother died, and I invited my grieving, 85-year-old father to come to class with me.  This is the true story of our magical journey attending that class together for three years, bonding more than ever.  I wrote the comedy scenes we performed onstage twice a year in the acting class showcases, and all six scenes are included in the book.  I eventually transitioned into the world of professional acting.  As my fledgling, second career started going uphill, my dad’s health started going downhill.  I would recount to him each of my new experiences while I sat beside his bed at the nursing home where he resided in his final years. CLICK here TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.COM.

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Please forward my blog in its entirety to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at: gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.

Photo credit: Tobyotter on Visualhunt

Full-Time Half-Mast

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help retirees, those soon to retire, baby boomers, and seniors reinvent themselves in this new stage of their lives called retirement. Her blog, public lecture, and new self-help book on senior reinvention are titled: Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire. Her memoir is: Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class. Books descriptions follow her blog below. Both books are available at Amazon.com by clicking here and here. Her website is: LeeGaleGruen.com

Now, on to my blog:

An American flag flies at the entrance to the community where I live. These days, it seems to be perpetually at half-mast. The practice started several centuries ago and referred to such an action on a ship. When done on land, the term is: half-staff. Currently, both terms are used interchangeably. There is also strict protocol on the raising and lowering of a flag to this position.

The half-mast tradition is to show respect, distress, or mourning. Many years ago, I remember it only being used following the death of someone of great importance such as the president of the United States. Nowadays, more and more it is to honor those killed in local mass violence  incidents.

In recent times, such occurrences seem to be a daily happening in our nation. I no longer even ask why the flag is flying at half-mast. Too many people have become angry, disenchanted with the life in this country, and are looking to take out as many people as they can, often committing suicide as an encore to their finale.

I’ve never understood why such an act seems so compelling. What is it about murdering a bunch of humans before doing yourself in rather than just the latter alone that motivates these mass murderers? Perhaps what I should be asking is why such behavior has become so commonplace? Is it the ease in obtaining weapons that makes it quick and effective? Is it the trendy “way to go” which rubs off from one to another? Is it the making of some grand statement before exiting with a flourish? We can’t just chalk it up to mental illness as some propose. There are a lot of mentally ill individuals who do not commit mass murder. Conversely, there are numerous mass murderers who are not mentally ill.

Of course, it’s impossible to know why any one individual stockpiles weapons and ammunition, singles out their Homo sapiens of choice, and goes at it. Sometimes, we can surmise the reason when their prey consists of significant others, or the deed is carried out at a workplace where the assassin had been castigated or dismissed from their job and is looking for payback to targeted victims. However, so often the crime is executed against total strangers. Perhaps they represent something in the perpetrator’s mind as ideal for a symbolic act of revenge.

Whether or not we figure out the motive, the fact remains that the scourge is increasing. Domestic murder has grown to epidemic proportions right along with COVID-19. No longer can children just go out and play in the streets as they did when I was a child. Today, it’s supervised play dates with friends or being accompanied by parents wherever they go.

Grab life while you can, folks. You never know who’s going to go off when you or your loved ones randomly happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

SYNOPSES OF BOOKS BY: LEE GALE GRUEN

Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy, Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire (self-help): Not a one-size-fits-all approach, this self-help book for retirees, those soon to retire, baby boomers, and seniors offers an individualized, detailed guide to assist readers in discovering activities and pursuits in this new stage of their lives called retirement, based on their own likes and comfort level. I learned the secret the hard way transitioning from retired probation officer to actress, author, public speaker, and blogger. Audience members at my lectures on senior reinvention requested a book on the subject. This is the result, and it contains the content of those talks and six years of posts from this blog. CLICK here TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.COM.

Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class (memoir): After retiring at age 60 from my 37-year career as a probation officer, I mistakenly enrolled in an acting class for seniors.  A few weeks later, my mother died, and I invited my grieving, 85-year-old father to come to class with me.  This is the true story of our magical journey attending that class together for three years, bonding more than ever.  I wrote the comedy scenes we performed onstage twice a year in the acting class showcases, and all six scenes are included in the book.  I eventually transitioned into the world of professional acting.  As my fledgling, second career started going uphill, my dad’s health started going downhill.  I would recount to him each of my new experiences while I sat beside his bed at the nursing home where he resided in his final years. CLICK here TO PURCHASE FROM AMAZON.COM.

***

Please forward my blog in its entirety to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at: gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.