This is NOT Mrs. Miller.

What do you think when someone speaks of being “90 years young”?

I’ve always heard that expression as a cute substitute for “old.” Since the expression rarely refers to someone younger than 50, it’s at once an admission of age and a determination not to be categorized.

On NPR’s August 9^th Weekend Edition, in a story entitled “Remember: The Ball is Your Friend,” essayist and “literary activist” E. Ethelbert Miller tells about his 59-year-old wife’s decision to play basketball for the first time in her life. In passing, he mentions that the “challenge” he and his wife face is “being 60-young instead of 60-old.”

So I’m not the only one!

Somehow, the number 60 motivates some of us to stop and ask, “Will I be 60-young, or 60-old?” It seems to be a time for decision:  ”From here on, will I travel down a decline, up an incline, or just try to keep the road as level as possible?”

Trying to keep the road level is to hold on to the status quo, to maintain your standard of living, your present level of health and activity. It is saying, “I can relax now. Life is good; I want it to stay just this way.”

That seems reasonable, but is it possible? Can I hold onto a job using only the job skills I’ve always used? Can I maintain my level of health without exerting some effort? Can I eat the same amount I’ve always eaten without putting on pounds? Can I guarantee that family circumstances will remain the same?

Trying to keep the road level could also be, “Life may not be the way I want it, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” In essence, this is the same thing as choosing to decline.

I try to avoid using expressions such as “at my age” or “I’m too old” as a reason not to try something new. Because somewhere, someone my age is getting on a bicycle for the first time in 45 years, or learning to swim, joining a women’s basketball team or starting a new business. Obviously, age has nothing to do with it.

In last summer’s Olympics in Beijing, 41-year-old American swimmer Dara Torres not only won the gold medal for the 50-meter freestyle event, but set a new world record. Her philosophy? “Age is just a number.”

Does she have to train differently than her younger competitors? Of course. Because there’s no denying that aging causes certain physical and mental changes, even deterioration, beyond our control.

At age 85 or 90, getting out of bed may be the biggest challenge to an arthritis-riddled body. I hope I’ll be blessed enough to find out. Until then, I’m determined not to take the downward slope into old age, nor to accept the status quo.

Will it mean leaving my comfort zone? Absolutely! You can’t reach the mountaintop unless you climb.

What do you think? Is it possible to maintain the status quo without extra effort? Is it foolish to think we can still have our choice of challenges into our 80’s and 90’s?

Ever since listening to Krista Tippett’s interview with Stuart Brown this past Sunday morning, I’ve been observing and thinking about the value of play. Play is not only helpful in the physical, social, emotional and mental development of children, but without play, even adults don’t function as well as we should. According to Mr. Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play,

“[Play] is uniquely and intrinsically rewarding. It generates optimism, seeks out novelty, makes perseverance fun, leads to mastery, gives the immune system a bounce, fosters empathy and promotes a sense of belonging and community. Each of these play by-products are indices of personal health, and their shortage predicts impending health problems and personal fragility.”

Observing the Young. It’s been a good week for my daughter and her husband to visit us. I’ve watched their playfulness with each other, their fun with table games, their need to get out of the house and go for a swim as they take advantage of their vacation time. We borrowed a basketball so Marvin could shoot hoops, and soon he was in the front yard playing kickball with our Jack Russell terrier. We didn’t know Potjie (pronounced Poykey) could push a basketball around with such adroitness!

But our terrier’s need to play, to run and to bounce through the middle of the retention pond across the street is why we enjoy having her around. It’s also one characteristic of children we find so attractive – their amazing abilities to create fun out of a cardboard box or to imagine themselves into other worlds.

I have been guilty of looking at adult playfulness as non-productive, of being passively critical of those who don’t get down to business as quickly as I think they should. After hearing the radio broadcast, I apologized to my husband for not appreciating his “adolescent” need to kid around.

Redefining Play. Last week, I might have told you that I don’t know how to play. By that I would have meant the get-down-on-the-floor, rough-and-tumble kind. By nature I am cautious and tend to think only of the physical injury that type of play could cause.

But now I have re-defined what I considered to be play. Brown suggests that if you want to re-kindle your sense of play, remember what brought pleasure to you as a child. For me, it was the freedom I felt from running barefoot. I ran everywhere in the small town where I grew up and have the scarred knees to show for it. I enjoyed “playing” the piano and singing in harmony with my siblings.

You probably won’t see me running around town as I did when I was ten, but from now I will consider walking at a faster clip not as exercise but as fun. When I’m tempted to finish computer sessions with FreeCell, I’ll play Mendelssohn instead. And I’ll recognize occasions to sing in harmony as fulfilling a personal need to play.

Irresponsible? Playing is not equivalent to irresponsibility. But I suspect your responsibilities will be easier to handle if you take a break once in a while and do “what makes you happy, what transports you beyond a sense of the clock, your schedule, that deadline — beyond time” (Krista’s Journal).

What play activities make you lose sense of time and place? Are they are from your childhood, or are they new discoveries?