All posts by Gina

The perfect day–Christmas starts here!

Art & culture, Christmas, Leisure, Museums & galleries, sport, , , , , , ,

Yesterday was one of those glorious days that nourish you to the core. Our first snowfall – really just a long flurry of motes mixed with the occasional feather dusting the ground – then blue skies; The AGO – Henry Moore (early works, full of the anguish of his response to his war-time experiences) and the Maharajas (fabulous, especially the Rolls Royce and the tabla player and Kathac dancer; too many pancakes (crepes) with delectable fillings (we ate the sweet followed by the savoury!); then on to Nathan Phillips Square for our first skate of the season, this year’s sole Cavalcade of Lights (the square is being refurbished) to launch the Christmas season, with live music, the lighting of the tree and some of the best fireworks I’ve ever seen – City Hall is a fabulous backdrop, the window reflections augmenting the show.

This was also the occasion of our first skate in Canada last year and looks set to be an enduring tradition – I felt the total pleasure and wonder of a six year old for much of the day – what a great start to Christmas!

Passionate aging.

Events, , , , , , , , ,

(CARP Conference 2)

Passion is a word I hear often in Canada. It was genuinely awe inspiring to feel an un-abating  wave of passion from speakers in their 60s and 70s as they talked about their lives and work.
Tod Machover
Image via Wikipedia
Tod Machover projects the energy of a much younger man. ‘Wired composer’ that he is, his most recent opera, Death and the Powers, addresses issues of mortality amid an animated stage, musical chandelier and a chorus of robots.
He has also made the composition and scoring of music accessible as never before  with his Hyperscore, encouraging a deeply creative and exciting relationship with music. Seeing a young man, Dan Ellesy, who is profoundly affected by cerebral palsy, performing his own music on stage using this software moved me to tears. (I would urge you to catch this performance as part of a TED Talk by Tod Machover – it is at around 13 minutes into the talk, all of which is fascinating!)
This links into another area of Tod’s work, Music, Mind and Health, a project in partnership with MIT that is exploring and developing musical activities to measure and respond to a variety of medical conditions and enhance lifelong mental and physical acuity.
Similarly, Charles Pachter, one of Canada’s leading contemporary artists, seems possessed of a youthful irreverence and zest. The whole audience sat enthralled as he significantly over-ran his time slot with a presentation of his life (so far) in images. Many of his paintings are dominated by the moose, the queen of the north, which in childhood became inter-twined with the confusing existence of a Queen with dominion over Canada but who does not live here. Nearing 70, this witty, challenging man shows no signs of renouncing this strand of irreverence or of stopping questioning the social order.
I have, as yet, little knowledge of Canadian actors – we do not watch much television and have as yet to fully embrace the wonderfully rich theatre culture here. If Eric Peterson’s virtuoso performance as Crankius Farticus (his own term for himself) is anything to go by, we have much to look forward to! I was snorting with laughter at his pitch of a TV series based around a Zoomer superhero. (For those who don’t know, a Zoomer is a ‘Boomer with zip’, a term that people seem either to love or loathe!)
William Friedman offered a rather different awareness. This intelligent, thoughtful lawyer found the need in his fifties to reshape aspects of his life. Perhaps surprisingly, this took the form of competitive bodybuilding and led to his son Bryan’s film, The Bodybuilder and I (Best Canadian Feature Documentary 2007). The transformation of his body (and, believe me, there are few men of 60 plus who can boast abs like his!) seems also to have re-shaped his relationships and sense of himself . The film was at one stage described to him as being about how much his son hated him –  and has led to the odd  inappropriate smile from a judge unable to banish the image of the bodybuilder in posing pouch. I have to admit to some difficulty reconciling the reflective speaker with the polished poser, yet the fundamental message of continuing to embrace life and self-exploration with passion and in whatever way is right for you was inescapably positive and valid.

Live long and prosper . . .

Events, , , , , ,

(CARP Conference 1)

If I took one message away from last week’s CARP Conference it is that aging, as with life in general, is very much what we make it.

Next time some young spark reckons you’re old, it may be worth remembering that the relationship between aging and mortality increases steadily from the age of 10, doubling every 8 years (Drs Leonid and Natalia Gavrilov). So from one point of view, by age 11 you’re on the slippery slope. Alternatively, perhaps it’s time to re-embrace our mortality and learn to live more comfortably with it.

Which brings me to another key theme; we choose how we perceive what happens to us. Dr Elizabeth Lombardo exhorted us to ‘get a smaller but’, that is, to let go of all the ‘buts’ that stop us from doing what we really want, alongside all the ‘musts, shoulds and oughts’. Her recipe for long life and happiness also includes cultivating a positive perspective, learning how to overcome obstacles, applying your strengths and focusing on what you enjoy, gratitude and appreciation and exercise. Elizabeth’s primary focus is happiness – she has a web site full of free resources and a book, A Happy You I – as well as a lovely, smiling presence that suggests she really does practice what she preaches.

Having worked in the field of dementia research, I already knew the importance of using your brain in new ways. Dr Elkhonon Goldberg brought a fresh understanding of why this is the case. The part of the brain most prone to atrophy is the pre-frontal cortex. This is the area that fires up when we are presented with the novel and unfamiliar. As we age, by definition, there is less that is new to us. Therefore, unless we seek out new experiences, the pre-frontal lobes (and linked right brain) receive less stimulus and so succumb to aging.

Interestingly, although we know that brain processing in some areas decreases with aging, there is strong evidence that, in their own specialist areas, the problem solving capacity of older people exceeds that of their younger colleagues – Dr Goldberg terms this the ‘paradox of aging’ (see his book The Wisdom Paradox).

Dog
If Stanley Coren had his way, doctors would be prescribing dogs! There is good evidence that pet ownership in general and dog ownership in particular can help to keep us healthy, especially after the age of 55. The benefits include lower stress, cholesterol and blood pressure as well as improved mood. Older dog owners visit their doctor less frequently and are more likely to take regular exercise, with increased social opportunities thrown in. A number of studies have suggested that ‘pet therapy’ can provide huge savings on public health spending.

The day was neatly drawn to a close by inspirational speaker Dan Trommater, who just happens to use magic to challenge his audience’s assumptions and make the point that we choose what we perceive and how we respond to it.

Which takes me back to where I started . . .

Recent highlights and milestones

Being Immigrants, Festivals, Garden, , , , , , ,

What a wonderful roller-coaster ride! New experiences come thick and fast and I often don’t get around to blogging – the living is more important! So hear is a summary of recent  highlights:

  • Nuit Blanche – an amazing Toronto-wide all-night street party based around weird and wonderful happenings (see my other blog, Passage to Joy, for our impressions).
Nuit Blanche - Smile
Nuit Blanche - Smile
  • Our first Thanksgiving – we were very busy working on our garden and deck, but still managed to celebrate with a walk amidst the fall foliage (very much part of the custom here) and the traditional turkey (sweet potatoes with maple syrup, topped with candied pecans will definitely be adopted for future years), followed by pumpkin pie (we prefer butter tarts, another Canadian sweet treat). In Canada, Thanksgiving is earlier than in the US (beginning of October) and relates very closely to harvest festival.

Back garden
Back garden

  • Our ‘Canniversary’ – one whole year in Canada (and only two more before we can apply to become citizens). We celebrated with a party for over 30 of our friends. Even though it was October, we were able to sit outside on our newly completed deck and begin to have a sense of our back yard as the garden it will become.
  • Halloween Canadian style – although we were here last year, we were still in B&B accommodation and didn’t really experience Halloween. Ours is a young neighbourhood, so it swarmed with small and not so small people in strange costumes, not all of them scary (a football field stands out!).  We hung out with our neighbours at the front of our house, enjoying the spectacle and dispensing candy (ours ran out way too soon – we’ll know better next year, though one young friend spent $120 and still didn’t have enough!). Joining in the spirit, Paul fashioned an expert Jack O’Lantern whilst I delved into the traditions of Samhain to create an incarnation of the blue faced crone for our door.

Blue-faced Crone
Blue-faced Crone
Jack O'Lantern

  • CARP (Canadian Association of Retired Persons) Conference & Zoomer Show – I volunteered for both of these as a way of developing links within the field of re-visioning aging (Paul joined me at the Zoomer Show). I was given the key role of presenter liaison at the Conference and a similar role on the activity stage at the conference (I will be writing these up shortly!). The events are produced by the same organization as IdeaCity and the conference in particular was similarly inspirational.
  • This week, our first frosts of this winter; the grey-green of the grass lit up by the blaze of fall trees in the hazy morning glow took my breath away!

Coming soon . . .

  • Winter – in an El Nino year, rumor has it that we may be in for a particularly cold and snowy winter. The first flurries are expected in Toronto tonight. We are very glad we had arranged for our snow-tires to go onto our car this week and are looking forward to getting our skates on . . . ! I wonder how we will feel by April?

After the whirlwind . . .

Garden, our home, , ,

I spent last weekend creating a front garden, doing all the planting, following a whirlwind week of landscaping by the professionals – lots of rocks!

Continue reading After the whirlwind . . . →