Senior Chronicle #2

Using Our Powers

In At Seventy, memoirist and poet May Sarton writes about a talk she gave at a Connecticut college. “This is the best time of my life,” she told her audience. “I love being old.” But a listener was doubtful. “Why is it good to be old?” she asked, probably thinking about the declining powers that inevitably come with age.

Sarton has a quick answer: “Because I am more myself than I have ever been. I am happier, more balanced, and more powerful.” Afterward, though, she reconsiders her phrase, more powerful. “It might have been more accurate,” she writes, “to say ‘I am better able to use my powers.’”

I’m glad she second-guessed more powerful. I don’t know about you, but that isn’t a word that pops into my mind when I think of myself: an elderly woman who walks with a cane and prefers staying home to going out. But Sarton’s reconsideration reminds me that there’s a difference between being powerful and being better able to use our powers. It’s an important one.

I have to be honest here. I can no longer enjoy many of the activities that once made me feel powerful. For instance, until a few years ago, the dogs and I started our day with a two-mile brisk hike around MeadowKnoll. Now, that physical power no longer belongs to me. I take my cane when I walk fifty yards to the chicken coop, and I’m grateful if my back isn’t hurting like fury by the time I’m home again.