Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
I sent one just the other day: a texted photo of a can of green beans. My sister, Laura, knows exactly what that means, and her wife, Sarah, is now familiar with the practice as well.
It means I am having a rough go, feeling blue or stressed, or just downright cranky. It means that the only solace I can find in the immediate is a comfort meal that both Laura and I gravitate toward in times of unease.
Boxed macaroni and cheese with our beloved canned, slightly yellowish green beans on the side.
Not doctored. No adding of additional cheeses and some frozen peas or broccoli for interest. Just straight up. I like my over-salted, somewhat slimy veggies to be in the “French Style”, while Laura likes them “Whole Cut”. This had, for many years, been our only divergence from this shared custom, but now I admit to using the gluten-free version. That is now blessedly available in the old, familiar blue box.
Thank you, dear Kraft company, for understanding my plight.
I am not a purist about it. I don’t have celiac disease or any kind of distinct allergy symptoms, and as an accomplished cook, it pains me to do it, but I avoid gluten whenever possible. A protracted period of dietary trial and error determined it to be the biggest source of inflammation for me. A large portion of it can trigger my psoriatic arthritis, which hurts, makes me clutch various body parts in a sudden onset of agony. That is not fun. No bueno.
Thankfully, I can still have a bit of dairy and a black and blue filet mignon once in a while, but like most of us, I find myself making a whole assortment of accommodations for my health.
I will have the great good fortune of turning sixty five years old this month. Every time I mention this to my pal Caroline Rhea, she bursts into incredulous laughter. We began the rather definitive project of our lives “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” over thirty years ago. We were hot stuff. We wore high heels with a vengeance and skirts cut short enough to let the camera dwell on our shapely legs. We could stand on stone floors for 16 hours with little consequence, except that in our delirium we often made each other laugh until we cried. Now we would likely just cry in pain, our feet giving out, at around the 12-hour mark.
Things change.
The last year or so, he had a lot of questions: “I don’t understand, Bethy. Why is it so hard for me to get out of the chair now? Been doing it all of my life; it was never a problem before.” Dad was not complaining; he was genuinely baffled.
A formerly easy feat was now effortful in an epic way. Using his hands, he would brace himself against the arms of his chair, scooching forward inch by deliberate inch. When his behind was near enough to the edge of the seat, he would begin to rock back and forth, gaining in speed and momentum as he did so, one hand clutching the cushion near his thighs, the other ready to push off from the side. His wife and I often looked on with concern, but we stayed put in spite of our worry, and allowed him to manage on his own terms. This would go on for a few minutes, and then suddenly he would sort of shoot forward in a crouch, a gaunt giant of a man, somehow righting himself in the process. This was as impressive in its tenacity as it was heartbreaking to behold.
“Mother nature has to take things away from us Pop, or we would never leave. You are 91 years old. She is just trying to get your attention, make sure you feel it—that’s all.”
FULL OF BEANS.
She certainly seems to want a bit of mine. I still have a wild, almost manic energy level. I am always happiest when I am in motion. I can cover up to ten miles every day, but now it takes a minute to work through the stiffness I feel in the morning and cast off the hitch in my get-along that accompanies it. I still love to cook and can work for hours on end when I am entertaining, but now I often reach for copper gloves when the pain interferes. I have my dad’s natural buoyancy, and, like my mom, I can be stubborn to the point of mulishness. I will never give in, I tell myself, but have to admit that this whole aging thing is for real.
I strain to hear my companions in a crowded restaurant and my night vision is blurred by a preponderance of glare. My epic ability to sleep nine, sometimes ten hours a night, is now interrupted by a visit to the bathroom in the wee hours and my body’s development of a new inner clock, one which demands that I wake at the exact same hour every day.
Someone asked me recently what, in light of my looming ancient-ness, I am most wanting to do these days.
“Write.” I answered, (because I want to write more than anything), and then I followed this with: “And cook and act and model and sing and walk the whole world over and see the people I love as often as possible.” You know. All. I want to do it all. I don’t care about having, but boy oh boy is there a lot of “doing” that i want to do.
I should add “lighten up” to that list. I share, with many of my peers, a lot of apprehension regarding the upcoming elections, the wild dangerous weather swings of our climate, and the seemingly permanent changes to the way we live brought about by the pandemic. There are all manner of reasons to be at odds with the world around me. A lot of things that I knew for a fact to be true are simply no longer so. Maybe that’s part of the plan. Maybe it’s not just the physical things that nature alters for us, but the emotional ones, too. Our touchstones begin to change shape or disappear altogether. We have to learn to go with a new flow or risk falling into a dark place. Broken hips aren’t the only thing to be cautious about. Broken hearts and spirits loom large as well. The only way to fight it all is to stop fighting at all.
Quite some time ago I went to visit my friends John and Don in Texas. They had moved there from California a few years prior and found themselves engaged in a family business in Fredricksburg. This meant that they not only lived in the same house but worked in the same company. They are identical twins and share a host of common traits, but they are as different in some ways as they are alike in most others.
The close proximity was both a comfort and a source of conflict. They were getting on each other’s nerves and were, of course, expert at pushing each other’s buttons. Each had built an air-tight case as to exactly why whatever the problem was, it was the other’s fault. They were locked in a loop of making these arguments over and over again, neither one giving an inch. There was nary a nod toward the possibility of a peaceful resolution.
“Green beans,” I said. “That is your new safe word. When one or the other of you is going round and round on the same jag, the other one needs to say GREEN BEANS! Just keep saying it until the fight is over.”
They were highly skeptical about this, but perhaps because of the oddness of the proposal, it worked. Those guys have a great sense of humor, and neither could help cracking up at the sight of their brother drawing himself up and stating in all seriousness “green beans.” Once, during a particularly nasty fight, John just started yelling “green beans, green beans” at the top of his lungs then ran to his bedroom and slammed the door. That was a breaking point for the anger that had built up between them. They laughed about it for days and the tensions eased.
Of course, for “safe words” to work, there has to be mutual respect and, ideally, love between those who use them. This is not an antidote to the anger and resentments we witness all around us. One cannot imagine a presidential debate where an annoyed Joe Biden would interrupt an overly verbose Trump with: “Well now, Donald, I ‘m just gonna say green beans to that.” I wish that Nicky Haley could turn to the phalanx of men telling her to give up her candidacy and say “green beans” in her lovely South Carolina lilt. Maybe we should give the gorgeous Taylor Swift a can of the veggies to take with her to the Super Bowl. Words will never work on the ding-dong contingent who are accusing her of loving one man in order to promote the candidacy of a different one, but she could hurl it at one of their heads in self-defense if need be. I like thinking about that.
I have struggled with a wide range of emotions in anticipation of this milestone of age. There is something about all of the paperwork involved that really brings home the message. I am older, oldish, old. Decisions about my healthcare and retirement plans have got to be made, or at least the need for them has to be acknowledged.
This one feels different. The path forward will be shaped by the fact of my age in ways that it has never been before. This is not necessarily a bad thing: there are physical and emotional things I will lose, to be sure, but for each of those there is a freedom gained. I have nothing more to prove and zero damns to give.
If it was still easy, if it all still worked perfectly for each of us, we would hang out on this plane forever. The earth needs us to understand that one day we will have to go. Nature is preoccupied with making way for the next generations. Babies are cute. Old folks are… well… a lot of things, but our visage does not cause folks to want to cuddle us and protect us and pinch our cheeks—though I have twice in the last week been asked if I wanted a “senior discount” without any proof of age. A cold comfort, but an offering. A kind of care.
NOT SO GREEN AROUND THE EDGES.
One of the great things about being older is I cannot hold onto things for long. For instance, I have no idea what was upsetting me the other night. What form of vexation required the one-two punch of relief that comes from that particular combination of box and can? No matter, the noodles were tangy with just the right amount of butter to chemical ratio. The veggies melted in my mouth, tasting of tin and sodium. It was as comforting as a pair of soft pants and a set of well-worn shoes.
It is a stormy season, a complex time in my life. I swing from deep bouts of grief for those I have lost to quick flashes of delight and happy plans for the future. I am blessed to have every one of the emotions that are coursing through me as I approach this significant marker.
I will be 65. Dang.
This fact has my full attention and that is as it should be, but I promise not to dwell on it for long. Life is a blessing and aging is a privilege and if ya’ll catch me failing to be grateful, you know what to do. Just look deeply into my eyes, tell me that you love me and say:
Green beans.
On we go …
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Green Beans