Hearing The Originals

Wednesday, December 17, 2025

My neighbor—professionally an engineering type—recently introduced me to his garage-based music studio. He and several long-time friends meet there every Friday night to play together. They don’t bother with advance planning; they simply gather and do.

The garage, a crowded but tidy man cave, half houses a skateboard collection, several motorcycles, and a pristine classic BMW convertible. The other half is filled with musical gear—guitars, a professional drum set, a keyboard, seating, and a large TV tuned to YouTube, making music videos instantly accessible. My neighbor says he’s felt intimately connected to music of all genres since he was a little boy.

I sat at the keyboard as he softly strummed a guitar, and we talked about music. I confessed—somewhat sadly—that I’ve fallen out of touch with much of today’s popular music. He queued up a few videos, introducing me to some of it. I was honest and explained that I’m a fan of what I call “the originals.” He understood immediately and shifted the screen to Louis Armstrong, singing alternately through his famous horn and his unmistakable voice. Then came Ella Fitzgerald, gently and passionately interpreting Summertime. We discovered that we share a love for a very modern original as well—Alison Krauss—and listened to her duet with Brad Paisley. Our wandering also touched briefly on cool jazz.

I keep myself too busy to pause and listen as often as I might wish. But after that evening, I revisited my old CD stacks from years of collecting and turned again to YouTube to hear artists I’ve loved for a long time. All of it stirred a familiar question: what is it that makes particular voices call to me so strongly—over equally talented and wildly popular newer artists?

I don’t consciously resist what’s new. Still, I find myself drawn back—almost involuntarily—to certain singers and musicians. Their work feels different, not just in style, but in kind. Especially the voices now gone: Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone. Peggy Lee. Édith Piaf. Janis Joplin. Mama Cass. Amy Winehouse. And then there are current figures who still carry that same sense of singularity—Lady Gaga, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, and a few others.

The word genre doesn’t help much. Jazz, blues, folk, pop, rock—the labels slide off what I’m trying to name. These artists don’t feel as though they belong to categories; instead, the categories seem to bend around them.

The same holds true for certain operatic voices that live vividly in my memory.

Perhaps what my favorite artists share isn’t an era, or even a particular sound. Maybe they share something closer to presence. When they sing—vocally or through an instrument—it feels as though something real is at stake. They aren’t merely performing a song; they seem to carry history, experience, contradiction, and truth all at once.

It’s striking, too, how many of these carrying voices are women’s. Not exclusively, of course—men like Sinatra and Nat King Cole clearly belong in this conversation. But with women, attention so often slides away from the work itself and toward their personal lives, their struggles, their supposed instabilities. Even celebrated women artists have rarely been allowed to remain simply artists. Their inner lives became public property, open to speculation, and too often eclipsed their undeniable musical intelligence.

I’m not going to look for neat answers to complex social realities here, and I’ll leave formal sociology aside. This is a more personal inquiry—an attempt to understand why certain musical patterns never release their hold on me.

Once I begin listening in this way, a much larger story presses in. Many of the voices that move me were shaped by what we now call American music—especially the blues and everything that grew from it—emerging from histories of profound suffering, endurance, and enforced silence. Acknowledging that responsibly requires slowing down, and resisting the urge to compress slavery, survival, and cultural inheritance into a paragraph or a slogan.

I’m not qualified to explain that essential history fully. Instead, I plan to begin here, at the edge of listening.

In future posts, I hope to explore this territory more carefully:
– what originality really sounds like
– why some voices can’t be replicated
– why genre so often fails to describe what moves us most
– and how social history—race, gender, power, visibility—shapes music and how we talk about it

This first post is simply a doorway—an acknowledgment that something important lives here, much like what keeps my neighbor’s Friday-night studio jams alive. And my growing wish to explore it deserves attention rather than speed.

For now, I’ll start listening again.

And I’m inviting you to listen with me.

— Diana

Mindful, Limited, Hopeful

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

There are moments when public events collide with our private memories and leave us quietly shaken. Recently publicized acts of mass violence—followed, yet again, by hurried explanations and familiar debates—have stirred old, unresolved emotions in me. My unease is not because the questions surrounding these acts are new, but because I am reliving deep pain from long ago, having once lived close to one of the hardest edges of violence. Many years ago, a member of my family—medically diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia—inflicted irreparable damage.

When my family first encountered that severe and unforgiving form of mental illness, we learned a great deal—lessons that have never left me. Those experiences continue to shape how I listen today when people speak about reconciling mental health, personal responsibility, and public safety, as if those elements might be easily aligned.

We all learn early that growing up is hard. Families are complicated, and each of us must adapt to a mix of expectations, disappointments, and emotional strain. Most people do so—imperfectly, but within a shared reality. We argue, withdraw, reconcile, and carry on.

Severe mental illness, however, belongs to a different category altogether.

Paranoid schizophrenia does not simply magnify ordinary anger or rebellion. It is rooted in fundamental differences in brain wiring—differences that can dismantle the mind’s ability to test reality. A loved one offering care may be experienced instead as a threat. In such altered states, fear replaces judgment, and delusion overrides relationship.

These distinctions matter. Without them, we risk explaining acts of extreme violence as mere emotional failure or as symbols of family dysfunction. Some acts—particularly violence directed at one’s own parents—signal a rupture far beyond ordinary conflict. They reflect a profound break in the mind itself.

A painful irony is that families confronting severe mental illness often recognize potential danger long before outside authorities can act. They seek help, pursue treatment, and remain vigilant—only to discover that intervention is typically permitted only after something legally wrong has occurred.

This creates an impossible waiting space, filled with dread, watchfulness, and the fragile hope that a shared reality might reassert itself. When tragedy does occur, families are left not only with grief, but with the knowledge that warning signs were visible, named, and understood—yet insufficient to trigger protection.

Another irony follows: we are a society that knows, and yet hesitates. We recognize patterns of paranoia, fixation, and violent ideation. We understand that some individuals are gravely unwell. Still, we remain paralyzed by unresolved tensions between individual liberty and collective safety.

Our early democracies were built on assumptions about rational actors living in a shared world. Since then, we have learned that severe psychoses can shatter those assumptions entirely. Yet we resist adapting our frameworks to what we now know. Instead, we pretend the old models still fit—and then express shock when they fail.

Compounding these failures is the widespread availability of weapons capable of causing rapid, large-scale harm. Such access has transformed private madness into public catastrophe.

And yet, there remains something hopeful worth holding onto: the human brain is both a marvel and a mystery. While it can be the source of devastating illness, it is also an extraordinary engine of creativity, empathy, adaptability, and meaning.

Modern humans have learned how to manipulate many physical and hormonal systems to improve performance. The brain, however, remains far less malleable—partly because of ethical restraint, and partly because attempts to “fix minds” raise dangerous questions. Who decides what should be fixed?

History offers sobering answers. Writers such as Margaret Atwood have explored futures in which well-intentioned interventions slip quietly into enforced conformity. These stories are not predictions, but warnings: compassion and coercion often share a fragile border.

So where does all this leave us?

Perhaps with humility—with a willingness to act where danger is clear, and equal restraint where it is not. Above all, with caution about altering identity itself. We may have to accept that some suffering cannot yet be resolved, without surrendering hope that understanding may grow.

In times like these, grand solutions often give way to smaller territories of care. What remains within reach is attending to what is near, speaking honestly without slogans, and resisting both denial and despair.

We live between what we know now and what we hope may one day become clearer—and therefore more wisely addressed. Perhaps one of the most human acts available to us is to hold these tensions patiently, without simplifying them away.

— Diana

Letting Go, Mending, Learning

Tuesday, December 09, 2025

Several weeks ago, after leaving my sales job in a large retail department store, I turned my attention back to a long list of needs waiting at home. I contracted for a new roof, got long-overdue electrical repairs done, and—perhaps in the biggest emotional task of all—helped my beloved donkey, Pimmy, transition to her new home.

Fortunately, that new home is nearby and I visit often, which softens the bittersweetness. Pimmy is a “special needs” pet, living with Cushing’s disease and Type II diabetes. Over the past year, I carefully managed her diet, and she lost nearly 200 pounds. She now looks bright, alert, and almost youthful again.

Her “new person” is a retired nurse—gentle, steady, and knowledgeable—who understands Pimmy’s conditions and is both vigilant and deeply caring. Pimmy now wears a grazing mask and spends her days roaming a generous pasture with her new buddy, an aging Arab gelding. The regular movement is doing wonders: she’s walking more freely, her energy has lifted, and her coat is turning fluffier and shinier, as if she’s growing into a chapter all her own.

Meanwhile, life with my two horses has kept me just as busy. With Pimmy settled, I turned to repairing fencing, cleaning the barn, and making a few improvements to the horses’ living space—projects that had been quietly waiting for months. Horses have a way of creating their own to-do lists, and mine certainly did.

Rosie, who is sturdy but sometimes finds trouble, managed to develop a hoof abscess. It needed soaking, wrapping, and all the fussing Rosie insists on not enjoying. And Sunny—sweet, distractible Sunny—somehow scraped a surprising patch of fur off her face. No dramatic story, just the everyday mysteries of horse life. Between meds, bandages, and gentle reassurance, they’ve needed both hands-on treatment and the simple comfort of my presence.

All this work has kept me grounded, but I’ve also become aware of another familiar pattern: the slow return to isolation whenever I stay home long enough. It’s not that I don’t love being here—keeping the property in shape, caring for the animals, tending to the endless little realities of country life. I do. Yet after a while, I begin to miss the hums of human life. Conversations. Laughter. The ordinary noises people make while going about their day.

So, I decided to rebalance things. For this Christmas season, I’m taking a part-time job at a fast-moving retail discount store. A few short shifts each week will give me a little of the outside world again—energy, chatter, and a constantly changing flow of faces. And, for reasons I can’t entirely explain, I have a growing curiosity about retail as an industry. Now that I’ve learned how a traditional department store operates, I’ve also wanted to understand how the bulk discount retailers run their show. My new seasonal role will give me a chance to find out.

What I’ll ultimately do with my expanding retail knowledge is anybody’s guess—mine included. Maybe it will simply satisfy my curiosity. Maybe it will help me better understand the rhythms of modern commerce. Or perhaps it’s just another way of staying engaged with a world that keeps shifting under our feet.

For now, it’s enough that this will get me out among people again—listening, learning, and feeling connected—while still allowing me to come home to the animals and land that make up the heart of my days.

— Diana

Pimmy’s New Beginning

Sunday, November 30, 2025

My middle-aged donkey, Pimmy, may soon be living in a new home. It’s bittersweet to even write that, because the past year with her has been so intense, so emotional, and so full of learning.

Pimmy’s health crisis last year took me completely by surprise. I was unfamiliar with Cushing’s disease in equines, let alone equine Type II diabetes. By the time I understood how sick she truly was, she needed to be hospitalized in an equine ICU—days of specialized care, IVs, monitoring, and the kind of worry that settles in your bones.

When she finally came home, it was with lifelong medical needs: daily medication, careful feeding, and the responsibility of helping her lose nearly 100 pounds. At first her treatment routine was twice a day, and eventually it shifted to once daily, but the vigilance and devotion never lessened.

Through it all, Pimmy remained sweet and willing—devoted to “her horses,” Rosie and Sunny, even when I had to separate her from them so she wouldn’t overeat. They stayed close, calling to each other over the fence, a small reminder of their bond. I became unexpectedly proficient at mixing medications and administering them to a donkey who had her own opinions about anything that didn’t involve hay. And each time I walked toward the barn, she greeted me with hopeful, hungry brays—touching, funny, and a bit heartbreaking.

But she adapted, and so did I. Over the year, Pimmy lost the weight she needed to lose. She looks wonderful—bright-eyed, balanced, and healthy. Somewhere along the way, this stubborn little donkey transformed into “my big puppy,” easy to handle, affectionate, and smart as all get-out.

Through her recovery, my biggest worry remained her future. Donkeys, when well cared for, can live forty years or more. At my age, I know I won’t be here for the whole arc of her life. Rehoming her has weighed heavily on me. Anyone responsible for Pimmy would need to understand the realities of a “special-needs” donkey—the monitoring, the daily medication, the vigilance around weight. Not everyone can take that on. But for the right person, the reward would be immense. Pimmy, in my fully biased opinion, is one of the sweetest donkeys on the planet.

And then, early in Thanksgiving week, something unexpected happened.

A nearby neighbor, Alison—someone I only vaguely knew, though I knew she was a horseperson—texted me out of the blue asking if she and her husband could come talk. After so many years living near each other, I had no idea what she might want.

They arrived and told me their old horse had recently died, leaving their remaining elderly gelding lonely and unsettled. Softly, and very respectfully, they asked whether they might “borrow” my donkey for a few weeks as a companion until they found another horse.

Because they’re experienced with horses, they already understood the essentials of Pimmy’s care. They played with her, scratched her in all her favorite places, and fell for her immediately. And without much hesitation, we made an agreement: Pimmy would go to their place as a companion. If they loved her—and if they could manage her medical needs—she could stay permanently.

A remarkable part of this is that Alison, besides being a lifelong horsewoman, is a recently retired nurse. She understands chronic conditions; she’s comfortable with medications and observant about details. She asked the right questions, noticed everything, and handled Pimmy with a calm confidence that reassured me instantly.

Yesterday, Alison returned with several friends who were excited to meet Pimmy.

We all escorted Pimmy, who wore a grazing muzzle, as we had to walk across a pasture, to meet the elderly gelding. Those two hit it off right away. And, everyone adored Pimmy—her sweetness, her curiosity, her gentleness. I watched her step into this new circle of people and animals and felt the full bittersweetness of those moments.

Letting go of a beloved companion is never easy. She has been part of my daily rhythm, part of my barnyard family. But alongside the ache, I could feel something else—relief, gratitude, and a genuine joy. I could see clearly that Pimmy was stepping into a home where she would be appreciated, understood, and deeply cared for.

It felt like the universe whispering, Here. This is the right place. This is the right time.

That it’s Thanksgiving season, too, has me feeling a special mixture of gratitude and humility. Gratitude that Pimmy is healthy and happy, that the right people appeared at precisely the right moment, and that she will be cherished in her new home. And, humility in realizing that letting go—when it’s done with love—is also an act of giving care.

Pimmy will always be an essential part of my story. But now she belongs to a new one, and that’s bringing me a quiet, hopeful peace.

(Note: The photos, “moments of transition,” were captured by our friend, Susie.)

— Diana

Creative Longing

Saturday, November 29, 2025

I keep wondering why certain objects can hold such power over me. They’re not things that glitter or impress. But cameras. And computers. Tools that can capture images or help me shape words. Tools that let me look more closely and think more deeply.

Yesterday, on Black Friday, I impulsively purchased a lightweight laptop—an extravagance I can’t quite justify, and one I’ve argued with myself about since clicking “Buy.” At the same time, I felt a strong tug toward using my camera more often. Something is dawning on me: I’m not really longing for the gadgets themselves. I’m longing for what they represent—seeing and understanding.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to anything that helped me make sense of the world. I was a confused, unhappy youngster who studied people’s faces, their gestures, the tiny habits that revealed who they were. I was always searching for clarity.

My adulthood carried the same pattern—observing and learning through books, conversations, history, and the complicated turns of human nature. And for many years now, I’ve written almost daily, using words as a way to understand the world around me.

Underneath all of this—beneath the reading, the writing, the curiosity, the endless blog posts—is a quiet truth: I look because I want to see. I write because I want to understand.

So when that high-end laptop appeared in the Black Friday ads, something in me stirred. Something hopeful, almost childlike. I brushed aside my doubts and ordered it—not because I needed a new computer, but because I wanted the possibility it represents: mobility, clarity, freedom to explore ideas wherever I happen to be.

In realizing this, my doubts have softened. The laptop has even renewed my interest in photography. Not in “taking pictures,” but in pausing long enough to truly notice something—
a slant of morning light,
frost edging a fence board,
the expression on a horse’s face.

A camera grants permission to look a little longer, to silently declare that this moment matters.

The new laptop is on its way, and the battery for my camera is charging. Yes, the laptop is a luxury—I already have a perfectly good one—but it isn’t lightweight enough to carry with me. And at this stage in life, I’m finally admitting something simple: some people crave adventure or entertainment; I crave clarity.

It’s no surprise, really. Part of it comes from where I began, still seeking the clarity I never had as a child. That clarity now comes from noticing, reflecting, and catching the fleeting things that daily responsibilities make easy to miss. It grows as I put words to feelings and capture images that echo something within me.

These yearnings aren’t weaknesses or indulgences. They’re my learned way of staying awake to the world—choosing what my mature eyes and mind want to truly see.

Yes, I’m “wasting” money in a sense. Tools come and go. Cameras break. Laptops age. But the more profound desire—to see, to understand, to express—has never faded. These threads have run through my life for decades, woven into my work, shaping my aging years, and helping me rebuild after losses. They’ve colored every blog post I’ve written.

I keep reaching for creative tools not because I want more possessions, but because I need ways to follow the parts of myself that still want to grow.

So my impulsive purchase isn’t wasteful after all.
It’s a way of keeping my inner world alive and bright—
one image, one insight, one small moment at a time.

— Diana

Thankful…Still

Friday, November 28, 2025

The day after Thanksgiving always feels like a quiet pause to me—a soft in-between moment, when the holiday glow hasn’t yet faded, though the world is slowly retilting toward ordinary life. This morning, as I stepped out into the crisp air to feed my animals, I felt a sudden, familiar tug of gratitude. It was rising up, yet again—surprising me—not because I didn’t feel unthankful. It was reassuring to know that I’m still thankful, beyond Thanksgiving-thankfulness. I’m comforted that simple gratitude stays alive in me—it’s the opposite of a simultaneous oppressive sense of living in a larger world that increasingly feels unpredictable.

It’s reassuring that I am carrying a deep sense of optimism—stubborn, maybe, but steady. And yet, like everyone else, I’m not immune to the fears that come with living in this era. National and international politics grow more erratic by the day. Frightening outbursts from stressed or unstable individuals appear with little warning. The world is saturated with weaponry capable of unthinkable harm. And then there’s the oldest fear of all: the mistrust or dislike of those who look, believe, or live differently than we do.

All those exist. And at the very same time, so does my small acreage. My few animals. Their gentle needs. Their steady rhythms. Those are humbler demands of daily life, asking only for care and presence. Those pull me back, from the broader and more alarming world, into the close-at-hand—the near, familiar, and embraceable.

I’m struck, too, by knowing that this tension between the “large and terrifying” and the “small and meaningful” is nothing new. Human beings have lived inside this duality for as long as there has been history. Ancient communities survived droughts, wars, invasions, plagues—yet they also tended goats, built fires, baked bread, raised children, and cherished simple comforts. They, too, woke each morning into a balancing between danger and devotion.

What comforts me is knowing that the near-at-hand, like my little acreage, has always offered refuge. Even when the world has tilted toward chaos, everyday life has provided continuity. And maybe why gratitude feels so alive in me today—is because of its roots in the immediate, the tangible, the living. A warm animal’s breath, steaming in the cold. The sounds of wings in a low, wintry sky. The follow-on, small task that needs doing.

Still, I can’t help wondering what tomorrow might look like. Our medical and technological advances seem to press forward at astonishing speeds. We’re living in an age of breakthroughs—diseases treated more effectively, bodies and minds understood more deeply, tools that allow us to connect, to create, and even to imagine futures that once belonged only to science fiction.

What might it mean when technology and medicine evolve even further? When we understand the human brain with new clarity? When we treat illness with methods we can’t yet envision? When systems become smarter, perhaps even gentler?

Might our fears shrink in proportion to our capabilities? Or will the same old human conflicts require the same old human responses—patience, connection, compassion, and community?

I don’t know the answers. But I do sense that feelings of gratitude, oddly enough, are among the most forward-looking emotions. Gratitude that anchors us to the present while giving us courage for what’s ahead.

And on this day after Thanksgiving, that feels like enough.

— Diana

Thanksgiving 2025

Thursday, November 27, 2025

In the very early hours on this Thanksgiving Day—and somewhere between drifting out of sleep and deciding to get out of bed—I found myself thinking a great deal about my mother. Not about her holiday meals or the rituals of past Thanksgivings, but about something quieter and far more enduring: her creativity, especially as she expressed it, in her clothing choices.

She had a way of dressing that was a little unusual for “those days.” People might have called her overdressed or a touch too polished for everyday life. Yet if she were strolling into a department store today, she’d simply be called stylish—bold, intentional, and entirely herself.

My own style has wandered a long road. During my working years in the corporate world, I wore the expected uniform: suits—navy, brown, black—paired with conservative tops and sensible pumps. Nothing daring, nothing loud, nothing to draw a second glance. I wore a kind of professional armor—respectable, reliable, and utterly unremarkable.

When retirement arrived, I traded corporate life for horses—beautiful, messy, mud-slinging horses. My “style,” if one could call it that, became functional layers, dusty denim, barn jackets, and shirts no longer resembling their original colors. Horse life doesn’t care about fashion; it cares about surviving the elements and getting hay out of your clothing and hair. I spent years happily dressed in what was only describable as rags-with-purpose.

It wasn’t until much later, when I found a job in retail, that I realized how far I’d drifted from any real sense of style. Surrounded suddenly by fabrics, mannequins, new arrivals, and customers asking for advice, I felt nudged to re-engage—to look again, learn again, and find my footing in a world I had set aside.

And that’s when my long-past style influencers quietly began resurfacing.

I found myself drawn to earlier icons—especially the simplicity of Chanel, her confident elegance, and her refusal to apologize for beauty or individuality. I re-discovered that Chanel’s originality speaks to me, still, even after all my years of practicality and barn dust.

One of the more “interesting” designers who followed in Coco’s House of Chanel was Karl Lagerfeld. I discovered his bold creations after starting to work in retail. At first, I disliked them wholeheartedly. Karl loved to scrawl his name with messages from Paris all over his designs. I swore—loudly to myself—that I would never wear a garment plastered with an egotist’s name and scribbles.

Until, on a whim and unable to resist, I brought a pair of Karl’s Jeans—they had large and rhinestone-encrusted cuffs. I finally got up the courage to wear them in public—and found my jeans becoming noticed up and down the street—greeted not with laughter, but with appreciation. Real appreciation. For their sparkles, their boldness, and mostly, the humor of it all.

After that, I softened—began studying “the Karls.” I’d try on a piece or two and, after that, buy one and wear it in public. I discovered that being noticed could feel…fun. Beneath it all, though, my clothing choices always drifted back to clean and timeless Chanel lines—ones my mother would have admired.

So early today, my mind wandered to fashion—my mother appeared as my guide. At first, her presence confused my drowsy self, until I realized that she had been my guide—the style influencer that I never fully recognized, until now.

Here, in my later years. While reflecting sleepily on my recent journey in retail and hearing my customers ask, “What is my style?” (and asking myself, what’s mine?), I could see myself gradually viewing “something called style” differently. Most importantly, this morning, I understood how I’ve learned to appreciate what my mother quietly handed down to me.

Today, I’m thankful for all these—for the subtle inheritance of taste, for the courage to express myself, and for a mother whose sense of style found its way back to me—long after I thought I had left it behind.

Happy Thanksgiving!

— Diana

The “Third Thirty”

Wednesday, November 26, 2025

My advanced age has me thinking a lot about our aging years—and not as times of decline, but as times of progression. They’re another movement—and a series of choices we can make about who we’re becoming.

Recently, I listened as an “old friend,” Jane Fonda, spoke about believing that our lives unfold in three acts—and emphasized that each act lasts 30 years. Her ideas struck me immediately, both for their simplicity and for their accuracy.

In Fonda’s model, our first thirty years are a period of discovery, in which we figure out how to live, work, love, and become thoughtful about ways to survive our mistakes. Our second thirty years are a period of responsibility, in which we build careers, raise families, create homes, deepen commitments, and steady ourselves. And then—if we’re fortunate—we enter our third thirty years. Then, after sixty, we can finally look backward with clarity and also look forward with intention.

I am adopting Fonda’s view. She’s refusing to “get old” in any traditional sense. She doesn’t deny the body’s changes or the brevity of time ahead, but instead, suggests that by sixty, we’ve gathered enough wisdom to see our remaining years as something like a design project. That’s a new span of years for us to use, to edit, refresh, and refine—much like a cherished home or garden—which we finally have time to tend properly.

I agree with her, and I get her point—that each of us arrives at our third thirty carrying the sum of our experiences. She says that point represents our lessons learned: the habits that kept us going, the relationships that shaped us, and the courage we’ve gained the hard way.

What’s remarkable about our third stage is the sense that we’re not simply living out our remaining years—but actively shaping them. We’re deciding who we want to be in our third act. We might want to be identifiable—and thus, stylish or invisible, curious or complacent, engaged or withdrawn.

The old ideas about “not getting old” harken back to times when people tried to pretend they were younger than they were. Instead, new ideas about getting old have everything to do with staying current, interested, and actively in one’s own life.

Like Fonda, I want my style to say I’m still here. I want my choices to reflect a mind that’s awake. I want to use what I’ve learned from my first sixty—or eighty—years in ways that open and make my third stretch feel richer and more spacious—and maybe even more joyful.

It’s a relief to find myself thinking this way! To be imagining my third-thirty as not needing to be a “fading-out,” but instead be a revision—a reinvention—and a “creative third act.”

How extraordinary that the cycles of aging can lead to and allow us this—a moment when we have finally shed enough expectations to become more fully ourselves.

I sense others around my age feel similar rumblings. A sense of not being finished—not even close. Jane’s view captures what our third-thirties are meant to be—a time to show up dressed, interested, and ready to be the next version of ourselves.

— Diana

On Thanksgiving: How Native Societies Shaped Early America

Sunday, November 21, 2025

I was enjoying an enlightening conversation with Ben—an American-history buff—about the earliest years of this country when I found myself rethinking those first decades after the Mayflower and the later ships that touched the Eastern shores.

I pictured the newcomers still carrying their former world with them: royal traditions, rigid hierarchies, fixed identities, and a deep sense of what “proper society” ought to look like. These were people who had spent their entire lives under unquestioned structures—kings, church authorities, strict class systems, inherited roles. And suddenly, they came face-to-face with communities that had survived for thousands of years under entirely different rules.

The longer story of those times is complex and brutal. The Pilgrims walked into a continent already alive with civilizations—America’s Indigenous peoples. For Native nations, the arrival of Europeans proved catastrophic. Colonists enslaved Native people, sometimes entire tribes, and brought diseases such as typhus, chickenpox, and cholera to populations with no natural immunity. Those diseases killed an estimated 95% of Indigenous Americans, a tragedy later called “the Great Dying.”

Violence, displacement, and disease devastated local tribes. Ultimately, to preserve what remained, the Wampanoag people signed the 1621 Peace Treaty—the first treaty of its kind between Native people and European settlers.

The Wampanoags, severely weakened, were in danger of being overtaken by the neighboring Narragansett. For them, the treaty offered a fragile but necessary exchange: survival skills and local knowledge shared with the settlers in return for protection by the settlers’ firearms. It invites serious reflection—America’s Native societies didn’t simply encounter the Europeans; they changed them.

Talking with Ben made me realize how little I once understood about early American history, especially about the profound influence Native peoples had on those first settlers. A stirring realization this week, as another Thanksgiving approaches.

Consider leadership: settlers discovered people who chose leaders based on ability, not lineage. Some Native women held property and political authority, even clan leadership. Many tribes made decisions through persuasion and consensus rather than decree.

The impact on the newcomers must have been enormous. Europeans accustomed to hierarchy and obedience no doubt felt confusion, maybe fear—but also, perhaps, a quiet stirring of possibility.

Some early colonists wrote about what they were encountering: families living with autonomy and mutual respect; individuals moving with confidence rather than deference; communities unburdened by fear of displeasing a nobleman or landlord.

For the settlers, the very idea of societies organized around cooperation instead of obedience must have been profoundly disorienting. For Native people, though, freedom wasn’t an abstract ideal—it was simply how life worked.

Humans have learned, since time immemorial, that whatever we live around every day becomes quietly contagious. America’s famous “independent spirit” did not arise solely from Enlightenment philosophy. Many settlers learned that spirit from the people already here—self-governing, communal, adaptive, and deeply connected to the land beneath them.

Imagine those early Europeans beginning to sense that life could be less stratified, less deferential, more grounded in personal choice. More humane. They might not have dared articulate such ideas openly—colonial life was far too rigid for that—but the influence of Native societies undoubtedly shaped their thinking.

There is a line—sometimes thin, but always real—between exposure and transformation. Across generations, “different ways of being” have quietly rearranged human assumptions. The settlers didn’t just transform this continent; the continent—and its original inhabitants—transformed them.

This history reveals one of America’s oldest and most overlooked truths:

From the very beginning, newcomers were influenced by the people already living here—learning new ways of governing, of owning and sharing land, of shaping community life, and discovering the many forms human freedom can take.

Sometimes, the deepest influences are the ones we inherit without ever realizing it.

—Diana

A “New Aging” Conversation Circle

Saturday, November 22, 2025

Imagining The Circle

In my mind, the group isn’t large. Maybe six to twelve people—enough for richness, but small.

I’ve written recently that those of us in our 70s, 80s, and 90s may be discovering that we’re living in moments no one could ever have prepared us for. These days, we find ourselves living healthier longer, staying mentally alert longer, and remaining deeply engaged with the world longer—way beyond what earlier generations ever imagined. Our younger society hasn’t yet recognized all the changes affecting its oldest population. These changes are personal, complex, sometimes isolating, and often surprisingly similar among people of advanced ages.

Writing has made me consider such “elderly biological and cultural shifts” more deeply. I’m even imagining what it might “look like” to gather with others also navigating the new territories of aging. I’m not visualizing a formal club or a structured workshop—just a thoughtful, recurring space to talk about our “inner lives of growing older” in today’s world.

What A Group Might Feel Like

In my mind, such a group isn’t large. Maybe six to twelve people—enough for richness, but small enough for real conversation. A circle of chairs, not rows. A living-room feel, not a classroom. Perhaps it would meet monthly or every few weeks, with no obligation beyond showing up and being oneself.

There needn’t be a leader in the traditional sense—it’s more of a shared stewardship. A group that could gently guide itself, the way good conversations naturally do. Meetings might center on topics. One might be the surprise of still feeling young inside. Others might explore purpose, or changing friendships, or the odd friction between staying capable and being treated as fragile.

The group wouldn’t represent therapy, nor serve as a complaint circle. It’d be a place to name what today’s aging really feels like—and to hear others say, “I’ve felt that too.”

This Matters Because

We’re the first aging generation to find that, while living this chapter of life, we’re also having to invent this chapter. We’re the first generation to be alive for decades of healthy years beyond traditional retirement. And we’re the first generation needing to reconcile our longer lives against an outdated cultural script that still imagines “old age” as it looked fifty years ago.

Our task—to pioneer and modernize the aging experience, may feel easier—and richer—when it’s shared.

This is a suggested “conversation circle” of elderly participants—not a way to solve the larger social issues of aging. It could, however, illuminate them, while also offering grounding, connection, humor, and clarity. It could help participants understand ourselves in ways we don’t always get to while navigating the advanced years alone.

For now, it’s just an idea I am sketching—an outline—a possibility. If others feel the same pull, perhaps it will take shape. As with most meaningful things in life, maybe energy will start to gather around it.

For The “Interested Some”

What’s this group about?

It’s a small, recurring conversation circle for people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s who want to talk about the inner experience of aging in today’s world—identity, purpose, vitality, ageism, relationships, curiosity, and what it means to be living longer and healthier than previous generations. (Okay, too, if people in their 60s wish to participate.)

Is this a support group or therapy?

No. It’s not a therapy or counseling group. It’s a thoughtful discussion circle—more like a gathering of peers who want to explore life’s later years with honesty, humor, and insight.

How big will the group be?

Small—ideally 6–12 participants. Big enough for varied perspectives, small enough for everyone to speak and feel comfortable.

Who leads the group?

There is no formal “leader.” The group guides itself. One person may help keep time or open the meeting, but the conversation belongs to everyone.

What kinds of topics will we discuss?

Topics may include:

staying healthy and active
experiences with ageism
identity shifts and reinvention
loneliness, friendship, connection
unexpected confidence or creativity
memories that take on new meaning
the realities of energy, motivation, and purpose
navigating losses while also discovering new growth

Every meeting may have a theme, but there will always be room for whatever people bring that day.

How often will the group meet?

Most likely once a month or every few weeks, depending on what the group decides.

Is there a cost or commitment?

No cost. No long-term commitment. Just come when you feel drawn to the conversation.

Do I have to talk?

You’re welcome to speak as much or as little as you wish. Listening is also a valuable form of participation.

What would the atmosphere be like?

Warm, respectful, curious, confidential, and welcoming. A place where no one is judged for aging in their own way. A place where humor is welcome and honesty is valued.

I’m interested and a Central Oregonian; so, what now?

Simply share your name and contact information to let me know you’d like to be included as the idea takes shape. Once enough people express interest, we’ll choose a meeting time and place.

— Diana