Age is just a number

What would happen, if we did not judge ourselves? If we accepted life as it flows, and trusted the process? Would we be more happy? More healthy? More alive?

I was very lucky to have had inspiring healthy old people around me. My grandmother liked to make new friends of all ages in a café she used to go to regularly. She was still riding her bicycle when she was over 80. At the same age, she climbed apple trees to help with the harvest. She sang created dolls, tried out my mobile phone, stayed curious and interested in new things, and enjoyed life. She died peacefully three months before her 90th birthday.

My dance teacher, Else Lang, was teaching and performing well into her 90s, and she looked fabulous. Her husband, Karl Foltz, was 12 years younger than her. They met when she was 33 years old at her dance school. He was a music student, sent by her sick pianist as a replacement. Both thought along the same lines. She thought: ‚”” If he does not play well, I will get rid of him!” He thought: “If she does not dance well, I won’t take the job.”

After one hour of improvising together, he proposed to her. She answered, “Only if you kiss my feet.“ He always had a sparkle in his eyes when he told us, students, their love story. They had two lovely daughters together. Karl Foltz invented a basic musical education for kids and taught it in her school. They ran the school for more than 50 years. He died just three months after she had left her body at age 93. His life did not make sense without her, everybody said.

I saw the dancer Merce Cunningham live on stage when he was 84 years young. Although he could hardly walk due to a hip problem, once he finished limping slowly onto the stage and started to dance, mainly moving his upper body and his arms, I forgot about all the young dancers jumping around. To be in the presence of a master who danced his whole life and expressed himself though the finest movements touched me deeply.

What else is possible? What if age is just an illusion? What would we need to stay healthy and happy until we choose to leave this stage? What about creating a different reality? Where is your pleasure? What makes your heart sing? What would you like to create? What can we create together with the grace of no age?

Cécile Blumenbär.

Mental Wellbeing. Art. Lifestyle.