I really enjoyed this first visit to the senior center. Coming into it, I was definitely anxious, but tried to stay open and curious instead of writing off the experience before it even happened. I found that the seniors I engaged with came to it also seeming ready to write off young people, but quickly we found ourselves enjoying each other and defying whatever preconceptions we had held of one another.
We spent a lot of time laughing, which I really appreciated. I think there’s an idea in most media that old people are stoic, so jaded that they can’t (or won’t) have fun anymore, and that was quickly disproved by the folks in my group. Within the first few minutes, we were talking about laughter as a necessity in life–that people who don’t have humor or joy deteriorate quicker than those who do. Laughter as medicine is such a cliché but we all agreed that it was the truth. I think there’s also a gendered divide in who’s allowed to enjoy themselves, to be frivolous and silly, and it was beautiful to be in a room with women and non-men being absolutely frivolous and silly. I see that in my family in particular–there’s a pattern in which, at the end of the day, the men will sit down, have a drink, and tell stories and jokes among one another. Because the women have taken on the roles of the practical caretaking (cooking, cleaning, childcare), when men are engaging in this end-of-the-day relaxation rituals, the women are still doing some form of work. This dynamic has followed all of my grandparents’ generation into their old age. It was a refreshing change to be in conversation with women who are not stuck in their caretaker roles, who are largely just responsible to themselves now, and who can thus be responsible to their own experience of joy.
In that vein, I expected the senior center to be much more cold and sterile than it was. The building itself and the people in it had a warm and inviting energy–there weren’t undertones of depression or sickness the way there usually are when we think of places where old people gather. I think my conception of places where old people gather got stuck at hospitals and nursing homes, and so this was a welcome wake-up call that old people can and do continue to have healthy, rich experiences and social lives.
We digressed far from the readings, but we did touch on the experiences of joy in “My Man Bovanne,” that the idea that old women would want to go out dancing is actually not at all far-fetched. Dancing brings a kind of joy that has never been limited to any particular generation.
Outside of the literature, it’s really wonderful to have real-world interactions with real-world old women! It’s somehow simultaneously surprising and unsurprising that they defy so many of the expectations of old women.
Coming to Age 