Mindful mess

June 7, 2023

I sure wish people would stop slinging unsolicited life advice at me. The other day an email from one of my medical providers breathlessly urged me to “Tap Into the Benefits of Mindfulness.”

When I was a kid, being mindful meant “Mind your manners,” or “Mind your mother!” (On the London Underground, announcements warn riders to “Mind the gap” between the platform and the train. But I digress.) Mindfulness today involves, “focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations.”

The email asks, “Do you often rehash the past or worry about the future?” which makes me fear I’ll have to choose one or the other. It suggests this exercise to bring myself back from “time traveling:” Stretch out a hand and focus on it. Notice the lines, separations, curves, connections, colors, textures and movements as you open and close it. Reflect on what you’re observing. How do you feel?

Well, when I stare at my hand I zero in on the life line, and right about now, that sucker looks mighty short. My wedding ring reminds me of how lucky I am, but I still get mad at the damn tourists who ruined the Florida beach where my wife and I said our vows. And when I read those instructions, I immediately flashed back to Richard Pryor’s classic bit about LSD. (Ignore the subtitles.)

I hope the doctors who sent the email aren’t the ones who told a teenager to try a mindfulness app to cope with pain and missed her now-terminal cancer. If mindfulness works for you, that’s fine. It just ain’t for me, babe, the same way I’m not buying this pitch for a senior romance novel: “Seventy is the new fifty and senior citizens are more active than ever.”

Not so fast there, Sparky. I’m all for senior love (and sex) but I remember fifty, and this isn’t it. Back then I didn’t need hearing aids or any of my current meds. I hadn’t spent three years dodging a virus, nor was I losing old friends like my college radio buddies, grad school classmates, and work colleagues. Five of these folks have passed since last fall.

“Seventy is the new fifty” smacks of ageism, implying we’re not worthwhile unless we transcend our chronological years. AARP keeps pushing this same mantra, which is one reason I’m not a member. I don’t need to be 50 again and don’t want to be mindful either. So kindly lose my email address, “mind” your own business, and get off my lawn before I open one of these.