Auditioning for That Bare Ruin'd Choir

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

English majors will recognize the choir reference from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73, a wrenching ode to aging and death. His “choir” meant the space between the altar and the nave in a long-abandoned cathedral, not a group of singers. But I couldn’t resist misappropriating it because . . . henceforth I want to write about that unmapped, fraught-with-peril and often hilarious road trip guaranteed to end badly - getting (gasp) old.

In less than a month I’ll be freaking 81, which is seriously old, and I’m waist-deep in issues only experienced by others who knew actual milkmen and can recite the entire radio intro to The Lone Ranger by heart. Issues like, no one on earth seems to want your twenty-six place settings of Golden Wheat dinnerware given free in boxes of Duz laundry soap in the sixties. Nobody. But maybe if you put those gold-rimmed relics up on Ebay or Etsy, somebody in New Jersey with a retro-dish fetish will buy them and even pay for shipping? Or else you could just bury them in the yard.

So why are you dumping those plates anyway? Because you’re downsizing, right? Even if you’ve decided to “Age In Place,” you need room in the garage for your new electric trike. For the rest of us, the time has come to select living arrangements reflective of our current status.

That means, “While seeming to be in perfect, bubbly health, I’m statistically likely to be struck at any moment with a cataclysmic and possibly fatal medical event. Therefore, to avoid my dead body being eaten by raccoons, I must move someplace where somebody will notice that I’ve been lying motionless in a pool of blood in the parking lot for ten straight hours.” It’s wise to do this long before it’s really necessary because when it’s really necessary you won’t be in any shape to do it and somebody else will. Whether relative or social worker, that somebody will not know or care that you require proximity to an art house cinema and have an intense aversion to receptionists. Don’t wait! Do it now!

That is, if the idea of “Independent Senior Living” is even bearable. For some, it isn’t. My friend Eleanor, a college professor in her 90’s, still teaching and publishing historical novels, wouldn’t go near one of those places if you paid her. Instead, she’s selling her house and moving to an organized mobile home community. Another friend, a retired attorney, regards all senior living facilities with abject horror, saying, “They’re like prisons!”

I had no strong opinion either way other than imagining how spectacularly cool it would be to be served a nice dinner every night and then just get up and walk away! No meal shopping, no prep, no washing greasy pots and dishes, no leftovers in Tupperware until mold forms and then having to sterilize the Tupperware. You can see where this is going.

I dived into researching and visiting senior living facilities with perhaps a tiny positive bias based on nothing but my dinner fantasy. I checked out ritzy places with string quartets and marble floors where I could afford to live for about a week, and less ritzy places where I was invited to play Bingo (No.) or recite the rosary every day at 7:00 a.m. (No.) Some had elaborate security with locked doors and curfews (Oh, please, not a chance!), where others were more like free-wheeling college dorms (Okay!). I was introduced to classes in quilling, Mandarin Chinese and tournament bridge among many others, and everywhere a domino game called Mexican Train that’s apparently all the rage with the senior living set. I mean, every single facility from the top down boasted scheduled games of Mexican Train, a fact that practically demands analysis. Social science researchers, here’s a topic!

Stay tuned for the next posts in which I’ll explain everything you (or your Aunt Fran who’s afraid even to think about moving out of her 70’s apartment with all-avocado kitchen appliances because she’s deeply attached to her cat – no problem, she can take Miss Kitty!) probably didn’t know about independent senior living facilities. They’re frequently (although not always) Big Business, complicated, slick and sometimes ridiculous, but somewhere there’s a perfect place for everybody. Including me!