E S S A Y  This is my little grandson’s favorite game. The song goes Ring around the rosy, Pocket full of posey, Ashes, ashes, All fall down. But he prefers to start with the word ashes. Then he can get to the all fall down quickly and require those holding his hands – me and whoever else he might round up – to jump down to the floor and laugh. Getting up is no laughing matter for us old folks, but he just pops up and is ready to start again. The first thing he says when we’re finally all up and holding hands again is “ready?”

And off we go.

But to me, ashes ashes feels like my life at the moment. And all fall down is what everyone around me is doing. Gary is on death’s door. His mother is halfway through the door. Francis is better than he wants to admit and just wants someone to fuss over him. Dagmar had a stroke and can’t see. Jim died and Cynthia is not too sure what happened to him. Francis can’t remember who Jim and Cynthia are. Marge fell and wasn’t found for two days and is now in a Beehive home. Bob needs a heart procedure of some sort. Diane died of MS and Jane of a brain tumor, both in the same week. It seems like you either die or you watch everyone fall down around you. I don’t think I like the choice.

But – ha ha – it doesn’t matter if I like it or not. I wasn’t consulted. And why should I be? We are among the luckiest, the richest, the healthiest people who have ever lived on this planet. We have nothing to complain about. If you made it to seventy or so in reasonably good health you did great. You’re ahead of the game; all the rest is gravy.

My high school reunion committee decided to start having reunions every five years instead of every ten. It’s getting too hard to keep track of the dearly departed page. Well, that’s the spirit, I guess. We can sit around in ever smaller circles and tell each other how lucky we are and shed a few tears for the less lucky ones. And look around at the group and wonder whose luck will hold out and make it to the next reunion. But that’s good stuff at this point. I’ll mention another cliché to add to the ones I’ve already used: No one gets out of here alive.

So enjoy what you’ve got. Don’t bemoan what you’ve lost; just be glad you had it for a while. We’ve all had a lot more than most people could dream of having. And think about little Miles who laughs when he says “All fall down.” Cheers!

Norma Libman is a journalist and lecturer who has been collecting women’s stories for more than twenty years. You can read the first chapter of her award-winning book, Lonely River Village, at NormaLibman.com.

E S S A Y  We bought a camper

After my mother, aunt and uncle died last winter, my partner and I bought a camper. In death’s midst, feeling our own galloping years, we envisioned a lifeline to better times. Simple travel. Pretty vistas. Minimalist living.

Snow was falling when my partner scrolled through Craigslist posts. “Look at this,” he said, spying a sleek A-frame pop-up. “Isn’t this the cutest? Wouldn’t it be perfect for us?”

“Fun!” I murmured, expecting nothing. After all, we were lapsed tenters who’d talked for years about upgrading to a camper with real walls, a raised bed and a kitchenette.

But two days later, we rocketed ninety miles along the highway to the seller’s home. He was an engineer who got the vehicle used but didn’t use it. The wife wanted it gone.

We trudged through their icy yard. This really was the cutest camper. Though two decades old, it had good bones; the perfect fixer-upper.

The engineer had us at “Come inside; the heater works great.”

Two weeks later, we parked the pop-up on our front lawn beneath a giant maple, and Partner promptly got to work on it.

He painted and scrubbed. Made curtains. Refitted a cabinet and fixed floorboards. Every last screw, bolt, thread and pipe was soon in pristine order.

He worked while his 100-year-old dad was dying, finding solace in in the shade of the giant maple, where ferns grew as high as the hitch on our compact SUV. I offered encouragement and minty iced beverages.

The neighbors came calling. The crusty old widower reminisced about his family’s camping days. The stick-to-herself teacher behind our hedgerow stuck her head in and confided envy. Even the nurse I rarely saw anymore had an acute case of curiosity and texted, “Where r u going?”

My artist neighbor, a world-class brooder, climbed in one evening to wax poetic about the creative life. When he left, his step seemed lighter, and his brow, less furrowed.

Sometimes I nap in the camper, my eyes fluttering closed as breezes blow through the windows. Or I write. Partner reads the paper, or chats on the phone to his son or sister.

We’ve yet to take our maiden voyage, but on sultry summer mornings, Partner and I like to sit on the comfy couch cushions, drink coffee and dream about all the places we’ll go someday. I’m along for the ride, even if it’s stationery.

Tina Lincer is a writer, artist and recovering tenter who’s looking forward to her first trip in the world’s cutest camper.

E S S A Y   I’m discombobulated, unmoored, squirrelly. It’s 1 a.m., and in the last hour I’ve turned over in my soft, high thread-count, sheets at least 20 times (that’s 5 times per front, back, left and right) — like a pig roasting on a spit — convinced with every pivot that I’ll be asleep before I can roll again.

So I get out of bed.

I’m days away from flying to Paris where for two months I’ll be a jobless pensioner, a long-married solo sojourner and a sexagenarian school-girl. After leaving a lengthy legal career, I’m taking classes to help turn me in a different direction.

My life abroad will be like starring in a theatre production with endless possibilities for ad libbing, after decades acting the part of a caged character with minimal choices. I’m willingly plunging into a world I associate with another kind of person — one who’s budding, blithe and bold.

Even in my crime-free community I feel unsafe, sure that something is hovering just out of sight, waiting to derail my overdue break from predictability. An elusive, ethereal kidnapper rides the tail of my free spirit. I find myself in another stage of old still fighting the battles of my youth — the war between Game-and-Adventurous-Renée and Stay-the-Course-Rénee.

I have daring dreams where I open my mouth and calmly voice desires and displeasures using the strong sound sentences that silently scroll through my mind. And boy what a Pandora’s Box that could be. Will landing on foreign soil empower me to let it rip or will years of constraint keep me sitting on the lid, afraid to let too much light in and too much fire out?

Well, it’s time to get some answers. So all you friends who keep telling me to “be careful over there”… in that place where boxes might be opened and caged birds set free — get out of my way. My feet have already left the ground.

OK, I think that’s man enough. I can go back to bed now.

Renée Ozburn lives in Williamston, Michigan so she may find Paris just a tad different.

E  S  S  A  Y   There’s this sense that millennials and baby boomers are at odds with each other, but I’m not sure how real that is. Are baby boomers really standing in the way of millennials? In the workplace we may be hanging on to our jobs but millennials seem to be doing quite well when it comes to taking the reins in management positions and it’s hard to ignore their growing dominance in the worker hierarchy.

When it comes to seeking shelter, however, millennials and boomers are competing for the same kind of housing for vastly different reasons. And the situation is exacerbated by the historically low housing inventory that is typical throughout the country right now. Until the residential construction industry ramps up the inventory of 2,000 square foot and under homes, millennials and baby boomers will be jousting for the same properties.

Millennials are looking for 1,800 square foot starter homes and baby boomers are looking for 1,950 square foot downsized homes, so essentially they want the same house. Millennials seek affordability while boomers want a more compact lifestyle. Millennials make up 42% of all homebuyers and the median age millennial (33 years old) makes up 56% of this country’s first-time homebuyers. They may dominate the market by their sheer numbers, but the baby boomer has the cash from the sale of their large home, so they can often bid up the price beyond the millennial’s budget.

Out of frustration with this imbalance, millennials are either deciding to rent or looking at larger, less affordable homes where they won’t be in competition with boomers. If they are thinking of starting a family, the larger home also eliminates the need to trade up after 5 years in the starter home.

If this competition for housing seems disturbing to anyone, particularly baby boomers, let’s not forget that millennials younger than the median age of 33 are still quite likely to still be living under their parents roof because they cannot yet afford even to rent their own place. When you look at it that way, some baby boomers are just as locked out of the smaller house market as their offspring. So who is house blocking who?

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle.

E  S  S  A  Y  Yesterday afternoon I was tired and crabby from work and feeling stressed and overwhelmed from too much to do. I had promised to cook dinner and bring it to a friend who just had a baby and to pick up some things at the store for her.

Cooking through the tiredness and overwhelm, not wanting to bring those energies to the food, I began to relax. Then, as I loaded the car with this beautiful meal I had made, I felt that amazing wave of GIVING. What a gift it is to give, how healing, how full of grace.

I got to sit and hold the baby and hear the birth story and bask in the glow of love of these new parents and their beautiful boy.

Coming home, there was an unusual pile of envelopes in my mailbox, including two bulky ones. Five checks and two donations of beautiful yarn for my raffle! I am making a crocheted quilt and raffling it off to my friends to support a spiritual journey I need to take.

This was the first wave of gifts for this project. So powerful, healing, amazing to open those envelopes, one after another, and feel all that love and support. The grace of RECEIVING. Wow.

I am realizing how in my life I have had trouble receiving because I don’t want to be indebted to anyone, feel dependent or a loss of power or autonomy. Now I see how completely untenable and full of hubris that attitude is. I am indebted in so many ways to countless beings for every single thing in my life—the clothes I wear, food I eat, books I read, friendship, house, abilities, teaching—the list goes on.

There is no way to get out of the chain of indebtedness, and no reason to want to. This is exchange, like breathing. You give out and you take in, constant flow.

Last night I was so excited by the first yarn donations and promises of more that I searched for a pattern that used many colors in a beautiful, artful way. The joy I felt at working on designing this beautiful blanket that I will give away was another form of giving and receiving at once.

Maxima Kahn helps big-hearted, creative people and dreamers get unstuck, unleash their innate creativity, follow their heart paths, and create lives of passion, purpose and deep play. More information can be found at www.BrilliantPlayground.com

E  S  S  A  Y   On my most recent visit from Seattle to Washington DC, I accompanied my two and five-year-old grandsons to the park adjacent to their preschool.

My older grandson was climbing on the jungle gym next to another little girl in his class. Out of the blue, she bellowed: “Is that old lady your grandma?”

I turned around looking for an old lady –

I envisioned my grandmother of yesteryear; silver hair tied in a bun, a kerchief around her neck with glasses falling off her nose. Her plump attire consisted of a housedress that zipped in front, stockings rolled up under her knees and black shoes with a chunky heel.

I didn’t see any resemblance of such a person.

Oh my, I thought. She means ME.

Impossible.

Sure, I am in my 60’s. But, I dress nicely, never colored my salt and pepper hair, wear make-up and earrings, and I’m fit. Or so I thought.

I was so shocked, I blurted out to my poor grandson, “Am I an old lady?” (Nothing like putting him on the spot.)

He responded, “No, you’re young.”

I don’t think my grandson was deliberately trying to spare my feelings. Maybe, a little. But, I truly think he doesn’t see me as an old lady. I climb that darn jungle gym with him, go down slides, pump high on the swings, get on the floor to play (although the getting up part is a little trickier than it used to be.)

Old lady, my foot.

I told my daughter-in-law about it. She politely told me this little girl is not known for her manners, and can be bratty.

Still stewing, I told my 40-year-old son as well. He said, “Mom, she’s five. To her, we’re old.”

Maybe.

Ellen Reichman, M.ED is a retired teacher and counselor. Her works can be found in local Seattle newspapers, CIRQUE (Vol. 7. No. 2) and CURE magazine.