Too Old for Much or Nothing

Yes. I am too old to get off a horse by swinging my right leg over the saddle while my left foot is in a stirrup, leaning into the saddle from the side, and then taking my left foot out of the stirrup and sliding to the ground. I told the horse lady, a wonderful and kind person who was holding the reins waiting for me to do just this thing, “I can’t do this!” To which she responded, “Of course you can, you already did.” She was right. I’d done just what I thought I couldn’t do about an hour before, but I had forgotten in my intense belief in my own weakness.

If I was to be on the horse again, I’d believe again that I was too old to dismount as instructed and then the nice, but insistent, horse lady would correct my thinking and then wait patiently for me to do the slide.

Yes. I am too old to learn line dancing. This remains to be seen. I may not live long enough to learn Boogie Shoes, Southern Ladies Gospel Slide, Juke Joint Slide, Woop Woop, Mississippi Cha-Cha Slide, Backyard Sway, Down South, Party Line Dance, Tucka, or the other variations on the paper the line dancing teacher handed me at the end of last week’s class. “Watch them on YouTube,” one lady said. “Don’t give up!” said another (this was before we even started dancing).

I don’t know if I can learn any of these, but I am going back on Wednesday.

Yes. I am too old to color. But I bought Judy Dykstra-Brown’s wonderful poem collection/coloring book, called When Old Dames Get Together and Other Confessions of a Ripe Old Age,” and I’ve been coloring all morning. It’s hypnotic and peaceful. The drawings are whimsical and clever, and you should all buy some colored pencils and this books and start coloring.

I want to buy better colored pencils. I need way more colors if I’m going to get good at this.