Seeing spring as a foreign country

Spring is a time to notice things you may not have noticed before, or talk about things you may not have talked about, in a place you perhaps never knew existed.

Posted 10:34 a.m. May 1, 2019 — Updated 10:53 a.m. May 1, 2019

Liisa Ogburn

Tonight, when I really should have been writing a very practical article, the one I intended to post yesterday. It was on my “To do” list, something about reverse mortgages, with an open bubble next to it. I love the satisfaction I get when I can color in that bubble. (I got that habit from my dad.) But I did not get to that today. I wish I could say it was because I applied myself only and entirely to the more important bubbled items above that item, items that have been screaming at me from the top of my to do list, but no. Sadly, no.

Instead, tonight I went on a long dog walk and watched the sky change from misty periwinkle to indigo blue.

It is spring. It’s like walking into a crowded room in a tropical country. You can’t help but notice the color, especially with dogs that stop at each hostas, peony, or clump of iris.

My friend Liz Fischer took me to a Pop-up café called “Beautiful Edge” this morning—I had never heard of such a thing--at her friend, Laura Swayne’s house. In its fifth year, it has become an institution at this time of year, Liz told me, when everyone finally comes out of their houses in shorts and miniskirts, wanting to brush elbows with the neighbors and friendly strangers.

And while we were having coffee cake on the back porch, my friend also told me about Wallace Stegner’s concept of boomers and stickers. In a Jefferson lecture that writer Wendell Berry gave about his mentor’s concept, Berry explained that "boomers" are “those who pillage and run,” who want “to make a killing and end up on Easy Street,” whereas "stickers" are “those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in.”

It was a timely topic after the New York Times spread this past Sunday on the gentrification of South Park, an historically African American neighborhood, in South Raleigh.

Liz and her husband Ben Fischer, who run The Fischer Clinic with Zane Lapinskes, are certainly stickers. In a presentation I recently gave, a spry, sharply-dressed attendee came up to me afterwards to tell me of the time Ben and Liz came to sit with her and her husband, as he was actively dying. This attendee said, “they just sat with us and gently held my husband’s hand or rubbed his arm. I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.”

What does this have to do with spring, much less aging, as this column is supposed to focus on? Good question.

I suppose it is to nudge you, young or old, wheelchair bound or not, to go outside and marvel at Barbara Wishy’s foxglove or possibly things you may not have noticed before, or talk about things you may not have talked about before in a place you never knew existed.

How wonderful. One need not travel far to feel as if you are in a foreign country.

If I must throw in a practical bit about aging, then this is it: Some days are less productive than others, or maybe simply productive in different ways that are also important.

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