Category: Mentoring

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

by Marika Stone, posted in Elders, Mentoring

 

oldyoung
(Photo credit: Ralphiesportal.me)

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Perhaps it brings to mind a cherished elder in your life – grandparent, family member, teacher, mentor – as it does for me. Specifically, the bond I formed with my maternal grandmother, Daw Thant, a Burmese woman born in a small village in Northern Burma, who came to live with us when I was 16 and she about 58 (I know, that barely qualifies as an elder these days!)

Adding a fourth generation to our household wasn’t as much of a stretch as you might think. Burmese live in multigenerational households as a matter of course; besides this, even families of modest means like ours, had live-in servants. Ours included, for instance a driver, a gardener, and a maid. Two were married with small children. We also had a Hindu cook who lived elsewhere but was on call every weekday. This made for a lot of people of different ages, with different needs, all sharing if not the same roof, the same compound and accountable to the heads of household. The difference was, the arrival of my grandmother introduced an elder in residence, someone whose mere presence added a certain gravitas to our sometime chaotic household.

Granny moved into a small porch-like space on our second floor. With windows on three sides, it was the breeziest and coolest room in the house. She had arrived with a small suitcase and one cloth bundle as if this might be a short visit when, in fact, she had come to stay. She unpacked quickly. One shelf held all her neatly folded clothing. Another became a shrine, with tiny clay Buddha figure on a cloth napkin and an offering plate that would hold fruit or sweets — the little ones were fed these treats at the end of the day.

Because I had no memory of my grandmother, I had been anxious about how this reorganization of our family could cramp my new-found autonomy: a driver’s license and very little adult surveillance beyond a weeknight curfew. I needn’t have worried. Granny had no interest in policing me. She proved to be adoring, funny, kind, mellow in temperament (perhaps there was more than tobacco in those fat cheroots she smoked). She was patient with my struggles to communicate with her in what was for me a second language. We became the best of friends. But there was more.

She let me into a secret: the power of meditation. She had a twice-daily sitting practice that she never skipped, even when unwell (a rare occurrence). Decades later, as contemplative practices like yoga and meditation have taken root in my own life, I better understand how the practices of her Buddhist faith could have supported her through a difficult life of multiple partners and precarious finances; long separations from her two, boarding-schooled daughters; shortages of every kind during wartime; the foreign occupation of her country. She became a masseuse, an expert seamstress, and an advisor on home remedies for everything from hiccups, the common cold, headaches and sore muscles, an infected insect bite, to an unwanted pregnancy (the maid’s). Granny was equanimity and resilience personified.

Though our culture accorded my grandmother a certain status, I never heard or saw her pull rank. She was equally comfortable with my parents’ guests as she was chatting over a cup of tea with one of the servants, sometimes taking a meal with them. She became the reliable adult presence at home, the company I most sought after school, even though conversing in multi-tonal Burmese was always a challenge for me.

This photo is the future, according to Marc Freedman, author How to Live Forever: The Enduring Power of Connecting the Generations, and CEO and president of Encore.org, based in San Francisco. What if ‘forever’ signified more than the current craze among the wealthiest to extend their life span decades, via any means possible? What if we embraced a new role for ourselves as we age, as allies and advocates for the young? What might this look like? An example I love: Project Spring-Winter in Singapore that combines a nursing home with a childcare center for children between two months and 6 years. Read this excerpt from the book and hear Freedman’s TED Talk on this subject here. Sign me up.

Encore (also the title of an earlier book by Marc Freedman) is an organization (motto: Second Acts for the Greater Good), a multi-part movement, and a hub of information and innovation for those of us who aspire to age well by using our experience to solve social problems. The Purpose Prize, created more than 10 years ago to recognize outstanding older social entrepreneurs, is another Encore initiative. Now, with Gen2Gen Encore seeks to “mobilize 1 million adults 50+ to stand up for — and with — young people today.” All of this is worth your time. But with Gen2Gen, I’m sensing game-changer.

More ideas to ponder:

Dutch Students Cohabit with Elders

Volunteer to Cuddle

Neonatal Cuddling

Toddlers and Seniors: Institute for Family Studies

Non-Familial Intergenerational Interactions

https://transitiontales.wordpress.com/category/cohousing/

Crossfire

by Marika Stone, posted in Gun Sense, Mentoring

For some time, Mondays have been my day to write without distraction or interruption. My practice is to write something every day, even if it’s a note in the margin of a book, a few lines, or a paragraph in longhand. I got into the habit of keeping a journal in a poetry workshop decades ago. It began with an assignment for Lawrence Raab’s poetry class at Bread Loaf Summer Session, 1979. We were to keep our notebooks handy and jot down whatever caught our attention; sights, sounds — a bit of overheard conversation was my favorite — anything that could conceivably serve as material for a poem.  I kept at it throughout my 6 week session and I may have written one or two poems I considered worthy of reading in public, that is, to the assembled student body. I still write poetry in spurts, then let the well refill for a while. But journaling stuck.

The latter half of the Bread Loaf notebook, stained with coffee cup rings and ink blots, was an account of the confusion and pain of my collapsing marriage, trying to support my children through the breakup, while trying complete my degree on time.

Nowadays, I use the journal to keep sane in an insane time, to express gratitude for a privileged life that I deserve no more than anyone else, and yes, to document thoughts, feelings and ideas for further development. Blog posts, say, or maybe even poems. But today, inspiration for this post came from the dark side, a startling reminder of how close and interconnected we are, with our often trivial First World ‘problems’ (shopping for eyewear that fits and flatters) to a world where life-shattering violence, most of it from guns, has helped turn one metropolitan hospital into a nationally-recognized triage center.

Connecting the dots: my spouse is a volunteer with a state-wide mentoring program that pairs him with high school students who are designated at risk. Perhaps their families are untraditional in some way — a single parent household typically — coupled with financial need. Many students represent the immigrant community, and are bilingual and multi-cultural. The program’s goal is to help qualifying students escape the cycle of poverty through higconnect dotsher education, and some 24,000 children have been served to date in all 67 counties.

Mentees accepted into the program who graduate high school are awarded two years of paid tuition to any Florida institution of higher learning that accepts them. Obviously, good grades are a must for those who aspire to the more prestigious schools like University of Central Florida or UF Gainesville. For even those who manage just to graduate, there is the fine community college option at no cost to them. These students also get the academic help they need, but the role of volunteer mentors like my spouse is to support and encourage their students to complete their high school education. A sort of motivational coach.

His current student, the second American-born of Haitian descent he has mentored, is a star, both academically and athletically, who already displays a keen interest in and aptitude for business. He maintained the grades for a top-rated school and has already been accepted by the university of his choice.  He’s also mature, personable, and it would appear that he has been able to rise above the family and financial challenges of his earlier life.

So today, while I was at my desk pounding the keys as usual, the two met in the lunch period as is their practice.  I fully expect my spouse to return ebullient from these regular meetings, eager to bring me up to date on his student with whom he has forged a strong relationship. But I could see immediately his mood was different as soon as he walked in. Turns out, his student would be leaving school early today to visit the family of a neighborhood friend who was gunned down last night. Beyond that detail, he didn’t want to talk about it. What I want to know is, how will this ambitious, smart 18-year-old live with these memories. How will we?