Meditation begins with great intentions and dreams but can end poorly. Of course, such is the path to wisdom, self-knowledge and about one of the marriages in the U.S. Even with a great meditation app and outfitted with a perfect set of Lulu lemon yoga pants, things can go wrong quickly. Those distractions as we breathe, those pop-up thought bubbles, those nagging urges to think about something, anything else. All to much to handle with grace.

I try to remain calm, gently returning to focus on my breath. Ah—inhale to a count of four— pause to a count of five- — exhale for a count of six. I know the drill. However, it seems no matter how hard I practice, these fleeting thoughts enter, ready to party when I am planning for a quiet evening at home, in my head anyway. So, after many failed attempts at kindly asking my attention to return to my breath I decided to try something new. I had politely asked by thoughts to wait their turn in line and to advance when called upon. I was thwarted n that plan when my thoughts simply jumped ahead, like an eager two-year old pushing himself ahead for a piece of candy. So, I began to abandon the reasoned mature approach and took up a more aggressive posture.

Inhale. Pause. Exhale. I move through several cycles. Good for me. And then a nagging thought emerges, provoked by the smell of burning rubber from the garage.

“Something is burning”, the voice says.

Using a steady and forceful inner voice, I reply, “ Can’t be. Shut up.”

That seems to quiet that voice. I return to my pleasant cycle of breath. But soon another distraction pops up, this prompted by a bee sting on my left hand.

“Ow. That hurt” the voice complains.

I nearly shout internally, “You are such a complainer, Shad up in there!”

That quiets things for a while. I complete nearly two minutes of silence and nearly trance-like meditation, (12 cycles of breathing over a two-minute time frame—an all-time best for me, even if am not really counting). Soon, I am interrupted by a squeezing feeling in my chest, a tightening in my throat and a sense that my face is swelling up. The voice clears her throat to get my attention. This time I really let that inner voice have it.

“For mercy’s sakes. We’re trying to meditate in here. Please be quiet!”

And to my great surprise, I hear,

“No. You shut the heck up.” Undaunted, I reply strongly, albeit with bated breath, “No! You shut up right now.”

That inner voice responds,

“And just who’s going to stop me?” in a very challenging tone. It continued,

“Not you. If you haven’t noticed, your heart beat is zooming up. You’re sweating. Your adrenaline is soaring. Your so-called meditative breath is beating away double-time. You are actually in shock from that bee sting. And if its escaped your attention, the fire department arrived five minutes ago. They are putting out a fire in your garage. I am urging you to calm down. Stop meditating immediately and get to the hospital.”

That inner voice sounded so kind and tender that I listened. It could have been that higher power that I was trying to reach through all this meditation. II took another deep breath, maybe my last, and called 9-1-1-. Lucky for me, I had practiced meditative techniques being on hold for the cable company for hours at a time.

 

Nearing seventy years old, I’m having more and more conversations with my friends and family members who complain about a lot of things—health, money, caretaking, their children, other drivers, the erosion of manners. I won’t go on. Recently I have heard plenty of sentiments along these lines.

“Oh, my God! I am so looking just like my mother.” It should be noted that this statement is never expressed as a one of relief or accomplishment; it is definitely something else.

So when someone says that they look like they are on their way to looking just like their mother, I think, “Well, who else would you look like as you age?”

When I asked a friend of mine that question, she said, “Well, I don’t know. Joan Baez? Gloria Steinem? Dr. Phil says we always have choices.” I think, in this very small matter, Dr. Phil may be wrong.

I mean, really. Is this not a crazy thing to say? Isn’t this like saying, “I seem to be getting older as I age. What’s up with that?”

If we didn’t look like our mothers did at our age, wouldn’t we be sending a cheek-swab to 23 and Me or other DNA profiling agency to ascertain our heritage. Wouldn’t we be cooking up schemes to remember the name of the milkman, find his children and sneak a cheek-swab from them, as well?

I may be too harsh here. I am a Baby Boomer and I know how youth obsessed we are. Research shows that our self-perceived age is about thirteen years younger than our chronological age. When we don’t recognize ourselves in the mirror is not the mirror’s fault; it is our fault. We are in denial. This younger age, what researchers call “felt age” or “subjective age denial”, is not confined to the elderly. In our celebrity enchanted, youth-adoring, appearance-envying culture, even the relatively young perceive themselves 15% younger than their chronological age.

So it may be that my friends are not so much complaining about aging like their mothers as dealing with changing perceptions of themselves. They are crossing thresholds their younger selves couldn’t imagine. Is there a generation that has sought and followed more advice about aging? We have turned natural and normal aging into a giant industry that has neither the science nor the moral standing to guide us our way. Charles Revson made this point clearly when he wrote that the beauty industry doesn’t sell cosmetics; they sell dreams. The same can be argued for the whole enterprise of preserving our youthful hair, bodies, resting heart rates, and cognitive power. This is not an argument for maintaining wellness as long as we can but we may be pushing the envelope and the envelope is pushing back.

This looking more like my own mother gives me pause. I should have been kinder to her when she was aging. I should have made less fun of her jiggling upper arms and confusion about technology. I should have understood her reluctance to go the beach and her eagerness to cover up an aging body—vanity aside. I should have listened when she complained about falling hair and the aggravating noise levels in restaurants. It is hard to come to terms with my younger ageist self. I bet my Mom never said, “Oh my gosh, I am becoming as clueless as my daughter.” I do have regrets here–that I wasn’t more patient and kind. That I didn’t have enough moral imagination to consider myself being in her shoes. And now that I am I can take some pride in thanking her for this long-lasting curly hair, my increasing reluctance to go to parties, my inability to get too riled up about anything, and the greater frequency of people thinking I am a little old lady with a wicked sense of humor. We are so cute, after all, as were our mothers.