Thank you so much for leading me here with your comment on my post about my own family’s efforts to avoid age isolation (http://www.abundantcommunity.com/home/posts/friends/parms/1/post/20110810_rekindling_responsibility_for_our_elders.html).

Your endeavor is inspiring, and I appreciate that you are bringing into perspective the power of recognizing what both elders AND “youngers” bring to the picture. I feel these issues acutely in my own life, as a 29 year old Florida native…

Growing up in Florida, I was always the minority demographic. It was only later that I became sensitive to the not-so-coolness of derogatory phrases like ‘Q-tip’ some people close to me would use to describe the many older people living in our community.

When my father moved from our family home, he actually moved into a 55+ community–luckily for us, it was one that was accepting of younger people living there. I’d tricycle around many an afternoon in that community, or sometimes take pleasure in darting from one street to the next by way of a backyard or two… always feeling like an outsider exploring, a young girl among many many white haired people. The yard sale pickings were fun (I’ve always had a thing for ‘older stuff’) and Halloween was heaven–kids would migrate INTO our community because the elders were happy to buy lots of treats for us and dole them out generously.

I can’t recall thinking too much about about how elders in our community are viewed, view themselves, or how they do or do not engage meaningfully with younger generations in our communities–until I moved to Italy for a couple of years. There I noticed something striking. There was something different about the older people. It took me awhile and then I realized… the way they dress is completely different from the way older folks dress in the US. My ex-husband noticed it too (he’s from Italy and mostly commented on US elder-fashion).

In Italy, there is still thought and care put into one’s fashion, to the same degree that younger people seem to pay attention to their fashion. This seemed so strange to me because in the US, I realized, there’s a kind of fashion pervasive of older folks that I won’t venture to say is non-fashion, but definitely speaks of a certain ‘retirement’ from the fashion world. Most women’s clothing ceases to be suggestive of the traditionally celebrated female form — baggy pants and shirts. Much of the clothing is very light-colored, a sort of faded out tent with little attempt to make a statement. In Italy, the older women were still… sexy!

What touched and still touched me is that the care and attention they put to their fashion, hair, make-up, etc, all spoke of a sense that they are STILL PART OF society. They hadn’t become un-sexy, or retired from woman-hood or the fun walk of fashion-play just because they passed the 50 or 60 (or 70 or 80) mark. The men, as well, carried and dressed themselves with a greater air of engagement, of belonging.

In the US I have found things so much the opposite. Of course, one could say that Italy is notorious for being a fashion-savvy place, so perhaps the elders just live it more because everyone there lives it more. But I do think it’s more than that. I wish I could bring back with me the sensibility that inspired the older women and men to have the same excitement and enjoyment that younger generations have in adorning themselves.. because it speaks to a deeper sense of value and inclusion in a world, rather than a perception of old age as something so separate from the rest of the world, to the degree that it must speak a different visual language of faded shapelessness.

Of course… there are so many cultural differences at play here. And so many things that come to mind about this whole issue. And… fashion seems in a way a very trivial thing to write about. I bring it up because your story makes me think of how much I long to see our generations talking and working and exchanging –’co-mentoring’ with one another in all different fields. Hopefully one day the little girl that I was will be a part of her elder neighbors’ lives more than just an alien child sneaking thru the backyard or happily accepting handfuls of good candy at Halloween. Hopefully there will be more of her age living in that neighborhood and their kind seen as not a nuisance but a fresh energy to be embraced and learned from, and she’ll find a few elder neighbors to learn from as well as share her unique knowledge and perspective about the world.

I hope to make Florida a place less divided by age isolation and look forward to hearing about how you are doing it from that magical love-filled farm in North Carolina!

I so resonated with your ideas and thinking about trauma in systems. I am wrestling with this in the organization I am currently working in where the organizing staff is dealing with families about to lose their homes and communities through the foreclosure process, and in my other community work on reconciling past traumas related to busing and desegregation, and in my work as a leadership coach supporting leaders working through their own personal patterns and embodiment of past trauma which continually messes with their capacity for presence and creative intelligence in the moment.

This work has been an extended reflection for me, and it is always affirming to connect with fellow travelers on this path. Curdina Hill