I have a cold and our building fire alarm woke me just after 4am this morning. I would have liked sleeping a bit longer. But since I was up and a neighbor sent me a link to his father’s obituary, I looked up my father’s obituary and found my grandfather’s obit and naturalization paper (I was 8 when he died, which explains why I have so few memories of him) and my great grandmother’s obit from 1918 in the Daily Astorian. He was 75; she was 60. My other great grandmother, Rosetha [Stiles] Pride was 90 when she died. The last time I tried searching for family, I didn’t get far. Now, if I cared to, it seems I could easily trace my entire family. Instead, I’m looking forward.

It’s hard to write about my recent decision without being depressing or sounding depressed. I’m coming to terms. A much more talented friend declared they were done writing, but they still write. A longtime friend sold their loom. Other friends purchased century plots. Someone moved into a retirement home that also offers assisted living. Planning ahead. My husband and I bought our little condo in a Portland neighborhood where we can walk everywhere, a place with view of sky, an elevator building with no requirement to climb stairs, a place where grocery stores are walking-distance and groceries can be delivered, where local restaurants are across the street and around the corner, and we talk to people in the building. Life goes on; sometimes differently. This is our next life.

Forty, even twenty years ago, I ran six miles to Cannon Beach regularly. I ran the Hood to Coast Relay several times, my three legs totaling 16 miles. Gary and I ran a half marathon in 2010. I ran with over 20,000 other in the Race for the Cure several times. I did the Columbia River Crossing (10k/6.2 miles) three times, most recently just two years ago. While I was teaching, I was the yearbook advisor for a dozen years, but I also coached high school cross country for six years. I’ve been injured badly enough to be unable to run for a time; last year I could barely walk for months. April 1st, I started training again. My goal is a comfortable 5k.

Gary doesn’t run at all anymore, but I ran three miles one day during the past week, two miles yesterday. Last Monday, Gary and I covered ten miles and I ran two of them. Sometimes I climb stairs to our fifth floor condo. Sometimes I walk down. Sometimes we walk a couple of miles uphill to the Rose Garden or the Japanese Garden.

I won’t be able to do this forever. I understand this. I respect my limitations.

A person who provided housing for a visiting author at our coastal reading series told me, “The great thing about turning 70 is that no one expects you to look young anymore.” I would have been in my forties when that was said and we both laughed. There’s enormous pressure to be young, look young, think and act and feel young! Choosing to do otherwise is regarded as a failure. And it’s true that aging leads to invisibility. I will be 74 this year, and I am invisible to a lot of people.

I am not invisible to myself.

Years ago, the adult child of a famous poet talked about their parent slowing down, how hard it was to adjust their schedule, how frightening to scale back. I determined long ago not to deny my age. I watched people destroy themselves by refusing to ease off as they aged. I don’t drive hardly at all, and when Gary decides he shouldn’t drive or we decide together that we shouldn’t be driving, we’ll need to be able to walk places. When we can’t walk unaided, we’ll use a walker or a chair or order in.

That’s not giving in, that is making reasonable adjustments. I hope to age. I like to assume I will live another fifteen or twenty years. I assume aging will require changes in my life.

All unaware, we all rely on assumptions about people we have never met, assumptions about people we barely know, assumptions about people we love, and even assumptions about ourselves.

Call this prejudice, which it is, but that word carries a great deal of baggage. Rationally, we understand that prejudice is inherently unfair. We mostly know this, even though we still rely on our prejudices from time to time. Assumptions or prejudices save us time and effort, and sometimes even keep us safe. The dark alley at night, the man with a gun, the neighbors known to argue late into the night—sometimes it’s reasonable and even safer to trust our prejudgement.

The danger is that prejudice, our most treasured assumptions about who other people are and how far they can be trusted, who our loved ones are and what they stand for, and even assumptions about our own character and capabilities can lead us astray. We fail to respond to facts, to the truth right in front of us.

The truth right in front of me is that I am not “73 years young”—an expression I dislike. I am what medically is called “elderly.” Old, not done. Not yet. I hope to remain mobile and mentally active for as long as is practicable. I have great-grands who lived well into their 80s and 90s. I think it’s better to assume I will, unlike my mother who was determined not to do any of the things that might have prolonged her health, refusing to eat properly or drink enough water despite nagging me continually to get my 6 glasses of water each day. She didn’t exercise at all and expected to die in her early 70s. She lived to see 82, but was not well for her last years. Better, I think to prepare.

As they say, “Getting old isn’t so bad, consider the alternative.” There’ve been many time in my life when I might have died young. I might have been a victim of Ted Bundy at 19, drowned at 30, killed by a car while running highway hills at 50. Car accidents, disease, cancer—instead, I am still alive.

I’ve decided it’s time to stop sending out work. I might weave another warp. I might finally finish the sweater that needs sleeves. I might even write more stories.

In this period, I don’t need the aggravation of seeking publication by submitting to presses or journals. Submitting is work, waiting, and more disappointment than delight. According to Duotrope, where I track my submissions, I submitted 24 times during the first year after I found that site in 2006, and as of today I’ve submitted 1001 times in twenty years—poetry, fiction, nonfiction, novels to agents and small presses. Most of what I submitted was rejected, but Duotrope assures me that my acceptance rate of 6.7% is not bad, considering the publications I have submitted to. Sometimes it took dozens of submissions and a lot of rewriting before a piece found a publisher to love it. One story, for example, was submitted at least 58 times before it was featured by an excellent literary journal. But it’s been 20 years and I’m ready to be done. Like the thousand and one nights, I feel it’s about time I demand retirement. Even Scheherazade eventually stopped stringing her stories into one another. Of course, after three years of nightly stories and three babies, she married the king.

I have worked on my speculative novel, ALL THE DAUGHTERS SING since late in 2018. It started out at a short story with a simple goal. In the last couple of years it has been 81,000 words and 45,000 words. I have one more reading to do aloud with revision, a printer lined up to print it, a cover design, and drafts of the interior design. I will print 100 copies with 25 copies going to people I owe. I’d like to think the other 75 will find homes. That might happen. Possibly not. We’ll see.