LETTERS FROM HOME: GREETINGS AND BEST WISHES FROM THE AARP

Sept. 21, 2000

Dear David,

My invitation to join the American Association of Retired Persons arrived a few weeks ago. Christmas cards from undertakers are bound to follow.

When the time comes, everyone must have the same experience of not quite believing you have lived 50 years, of clearly remembering when you thought people who were 30 or 40 or 50 were old. None of us can quite imagine ourselves being even five years older than we are. We are not built for time traveling.

At the Hallmark shop, the over-the-hill cards start at 30, are merciless at 40 and at 50 assume you are so bald, droopy and forgetful as to render life meaningless. But by the time you're 50 you understand that hair, muscle tone and memory loss don't have anything to do with life's meaning.

By 50 in various ways you have become acquainted with your own mortality. The list of things you want to do in your life has come out of the back alleys of your brain and is now showing on Main Street. What matters in your life begins to become clearer and clearer.

Milestones are arbitrary numbers we attach meaning to because we latched onto the decimal number system. At 10 I was in love with baseball and a red-haired girl name Sherry. At 20, you and I were hanging out in the university cafeteria punching Jose Feliciano's version of "California Dreamin'" on the jukebox.

At 30 I was hanging out at California bars and paying attention to poets. At 40 I was cooking something up in the baths at Big Sur and beginning to listen to the small voice inside myself. At 50 that voice is more important than ever.

DC let the same milestone pass as uneventfully as possible earlier this year. She doesn't want to be reminded.

I am more interested in turning points. At 28 I realized it was finally time to leave home, and oh what experiences awaited in the West. There were writers and musicians and ordinary people creating extraordinary lives among the redwoods.

I loved the place but somehow knew it was just another nest that needed to be left.

In my mid-30s, life let me know that I didn't understand how to have an adult relationship with a woman. They all seemed doomed to end as soon as they began. More growing was needed.

In my early 40s it was time to come back home. This is where I found DC, 30 years after we first met.

So far life has been a process of growing up, learning to be responsible, to stand up for myself. Life finds a way to teach these lessons and to let you know when you're not getting them and when you are.

Here, nearing the completion of 50 years of living, what have I learned?

I have learned that if you answer the phone and hear no immediate response on the other end of the line, hang up quickly. It's a telemarketer calling on an automated dialing system, and you have about a second to escape before someone with a cheery voice starts inviting you to spend three cheap days and two exciting nights in Branson.

I have learned that with age the body needs less nourishment and the soul more. Usually I prefer solitude to stimulation. Listening, listening.

These days I pay attention to the wisdom of animals, particularly dogs: Eat, sleep and be affectionate, they say.

I have learned that the Little Prince was right. Those things that only can be seen with the heart matter most.

I have learned that my mother was right: Always tell the truth.

I have learned that my father was right: Do what your mother says.

At 50, DC and I are most fortunate to still have the counsel and company of all our parents.

At 50, part of me is still 10, 20, 30 and 40 years old and all those selves are still interested in finding out who is yet to appear.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.