Who is Teaching Whom
“Youth is a gift of nature, but age is a work of art” ~ Poet Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
The landscape is vibrant, vital, new. Gardens alight with a colorful pointillism, while fields flanking the winding road are wild with native grasses, quivering in the breeze. Even the elderly vines of Japanese wisteria wrapping ‘round the columns of the corridor are plush with purple. Here, the summer sky, softened by coastal fog just six miles down the road, is a deeper blue, highlighting the vitality of this senior living community unfolding across the foothills of the great Carmel Valley.
For 30 years, I have been visiting this community, honored to be a dinner guest of family or friends gathered at intimate tables in the elegant dining room, with liveried servers who greet everyone by their surname, before taking orders from leather-bound menus, printed daily.
I’ve always felt special, privileged, really, while winding my way through the white cloth-covered tables, smiling at seated diners along the way, as if we all sense the pleasure in being there.
Yet for nearly 10 years, I have been given a greater gift, having been invited to teach an annual creative writing class to residents in their 80s, 90s, and 100s. Typically 20 gather at bridge tables, seeking camaraderie, a morning of guided writing, and the opportunity to be heard.
Some students speak boldly, without need of a microphone, sharing just enough details of an experience, a memory, an event, to turn the “what happened” in their long and interesting life into a story. No one earns the opportunity to live in this upscale senior community if they haven’t lived an exceptional life.
Others speak more softly into the big black wand from which we might expect a song. Except this is a creative writing class, and no one is on stage.
Some students never read aloud. It’s their prerogative. But, they always have something to say, and they’re willing to write down their wisdom.
This course is a seven-week exploration of why we write, enabling us to access what lives somewhere inside us waiting to emerge, and how to find the words that will invite the past to dance again, with the present.
Participants come with a pen, a pad of paper, and a lifetime of experiences, paired with the courage to write and to read aloud, revealing something of who they are, who they have been, and who they are becoming.
Much of the writing emerges in the form of memoir, based on personal experience and self-knowledge, which becomes clearer and even more accurate through experimentation with writing prompts. I introduce exercises designed to trigger memories, while stretching their muscles of imagination to shift experiences into stories.
I look around the room, aware of the silence as they write, watching them pause and look up as they think, remember, choose words, before their gaze returns to the page. It’s as if I’m witnessing their stories emerge. On this day, I’ve asked them to respond to my question, “What matters now?”
“We must take a deep dive into history, its detailed events and their effects, their successes and devastations, to understand where we are headed now.”
“With most of my life goals already accomplished, I find that the little things matter more: finding joy in each day and thinking of others more than myself.”
“I want to live each day to its limits, and travel as much as I can while I can.”
“I seek to find a connection to my soul, establish new, meaningful relationships, continue growing, learning, creating new perspectives in place of old, as I build new awarenesses and winnow the chafe from my life.”
As I listen to my students share their perspectives, I become aware of the actual student in the room, realizing that, despite all the years I have accumulated during my life, I still carry the arrogance of youth. As if entitled to it—when the privilege actually is longevity.
Perhaps maturing requires shifting from the age of entitlement to an era of enlightenment.
If we want to return to wonder, let us watch babies or toddlers discovering themselves in the world. If we want to come into awe, we should spend time with seasoned citizens, whose lives have orbited the sun 80 or 90 or 100 times, and learn what it truly means to be enlightened.