Those Old Country Roads

Returning can be risky!

Last Saturday I drove out to the West County, where I used to live, to attend a CodePink Peace Camp at Ocean Song Farm and Wilderness Center -- and got caught in a web of nostalgia that almost tripped me up.

Ocean Song is a 350-acre property west of Occidental, the village that is the centerpiece of the rural community in which we lived, where five roads intersect in a little valley nestled between two ridges. When we first moved up there from San Francisco, the main street, which is only two blocks long, wasn't even paved.

The area was settled by Italian families around the turn of the last century and adopted by hippies fleeing the city to put their feet back on the ground and make their gardens grow. They became some of the first organic farmers in the country; and of course, they also grew magnificent pot.

Coming from the southeastern part of this sprawling county, where I now live, I chose not to drive through town. I was trying to be efficient, but perhaps I was also trying to avoid the seductive trap of recollection and regret that was lurking around every turn, ready to draw me in.

But as it turned out, the alternate route was just as reminiscent of my life here. Driving along Bodega Highway, I remembered taking that road every morning during the two years I worked for a newspaper out on the coast, Bodega Bay Navigator, after my marriage split up.

When I turned onto Joy Road, I was joined by other presences, whispers from those former days, as if I were again accompanied by two or more children chattering and laughing in the back seats on the way to the beach, or someone's sleepover, or perhaps the monthly mother-daughter potluck that Amy and I attended when she was in Middle School; or the time we hit a deer coming home from an event at the coast and didn't stop because my husband was certain he saw it get up and run off into the woods.

It wasn't always a merry good time. The kids might be fighting over the choice of radio station, someone might be yelling or moping and crying, I might have been irritable or tired of settling arguments and negotiating demands, but despite all that, I loved being a mother, and I loved the person I was then (most of the time); and in retrospect I loved her even more.

These roads, like old houses, seem to mirror the tracks memory carves in the brain. The landscape is quite distinct from where I am living now. Around Sonoma, the hills are molded and firm like young breasts, covered with golden oat grass that resembles blonde fur when the wind sweeps through. But around Occidental the hills are mostly obscured by forest and scruffy shrubs, a mix of various oaks, madrone, bay laurel, willow, pine and a few redwoods, and the sides of the road are cluttered with an effusion of native plants (aka weeds) and wildflowers. This is the land that fought off the developers and chose to remain as it had been. The old farmhouses are unpretentious and homey, set back from the road, some with fences beginning to cave and porches starting to sag. But they are comfortable, settled into the land, like the families who have lived in them since the 70s, raised their kids and stayed. They may have divorced and remarried, but they haven't left the community, and their lives are intertwined with the land.

Unlike mine! From poignant reminiscence my mood shifted to one of deep regret. I hadn't had to leave and hadn't really wanted to, but it's what I did, and there's no turning the clock back. Nor will it help to listen to the voice in my head that is getting ready to scold me for not working night and day in order to keep my cottage in the redwoods. There's plenty of fault to find, no question; but a scolding is not going to bring it back. I lost my house and my settled country life because I needed a change. I didn't realize how difficult it was going to be to come back.

As I made the turn onto Coleman Valley Road, I began thinking, I am still not home. I have to find a way to move back where I belong. By the time I reached the gate to Ocean Song, my mind was still locked into a few words repeating themselves like the sounds of a train on the track. I have to come back, I have to come back, clicketty clack, I have to come back where I belong!

But then I paused to breathe in the astonishing view spread out below, the rows of blue green hills, the fog bank spread out between them, the far distance sea, and awe took the place of my repetitious chatter.

People move on. It's what happens. Had I not left, I would have missed the many great experiences I had in New Mexico. Had I not returned, I wouldn't be having this experience of revisiting the life I had here and linking it up with the one I am making now in a very different setting. In Sonoma, a Wine Country "destination" known all across the country.

Rebecca Solnit says it well:  "The self is also a creation, the principle work of your life, the crafting of which makes everyone an artist. This unfinished work of becoming ends only when you do, if then, and the consequences live on."

That's what it comes down to: designing a life, learning its lessons, growing all the way to the very end.

I made my way down the hill to sample the delicious California country buffet and connect with old friends.

Old Brains in New Places

Is moving beneficial for people our age? Applying the principles of new brain science seems to suggest that it can certainly help us stay young and sharp.

Moving, especially to a different part of the country, forces us to change some of our habits. Old people are “set in their ways”, a quality that psychologist Ellen J. Langer calls “mindlessness”. It's not just a feature of age; most people, she says, live their lives mindlessly, on automatic pilot; but those who choose to become “mindful” stay youthful longer.

A woman in my women's group who just moved here from Tucson asked, "Isn't it too late to get established in a new place?" Not at all! Brain research in the last twenty years has shown that the brain’s ability to change, called “neuroplasticity”, persists as long as we live. It’s never too late to change!

The brain creates neuronal connections that are reinforced by habit, like those well-worn pathways in the carpet created by repeated trips back and forth to the kitchen or bath; these connections are reinforced by habit. But we can change the imprints if we choose.

It’s a case of use-it-or-lose-it. Just as muscle tone rapidly deteriorates when we don’t exercise, a brain that relies on ingrained or “mindless” behavior is an under-utilized organ, and little by little it stops producing new neuronal tracks. People who sit home in front of the television, endlessly repeating old behaviors, are letting a good brain to go to waste.

This is why we are advised to learn something new every day, like a new language, or how to play a musical instrument. Neuroscience has shown that stimulating mental activities with lots of repetition are just what we need to keep our brains healthy. Now that we are living longer, pushing back the 70 forms of dementia that confine more and more elders to nursing homes is a primary goal for most of us.

Age provides limitless opportunities for new kinds of activities, ones without the stress associated with jobs and child-rearing. The trick is to choose a challenging activity, the more difficult the better. Diane Ackerman writes in her book, A Hundred Names for Love, which is about her husband’s aphasia (brain damage resulting from a massive stroke): 

“A colossal number of brain cells (hundreds to thousands) are born each day but most die within weeks unless the brain is forced to learn something new. Then more neurons revive and sprout connections to their brethren. The harder the task, the more survivors.” 

Ackerman's husband, Paul West, an accomplished writer, lost the ability to communicate; but with constant daily effort to write and to speak, and his wife's constant support, he regained many of his verbal skills. In the five years after the stroke, he actually published three books and dozens of articles! 

You have to try. Moving to a new place challenges us to adopt new habits, but without application and repetition, we’ll simply transport the old ways to the new location.

We have to think to change the pathway, and that’s the whole idea. The more attentive we become to what we are doing, the more the brain benefits from the effort.

Yesterday in an aquatic yoga class that I enjoy, one woman alluded to her “challenged directionality.” It’s like a kind of dyslexia, she said. She can’t follow directions that rely on left and right because her brain can’t figure them out.

I don’t have that problem exactly, but I definitely have a poor sense of direction; and if I come to a dead end and have to turn around, I sometimes can’t figure out how to get back where I was going.

Living in a new town, driving into new areas to shop or attend an event, requires a fair amount of effort on my part. I have to look up the directions, study the map, print out the steps I’ll need to take; I have to allow enough time so that I don’t get into a panic; and then I really have to pay attention to where I’m going.

When I go back a week later, I have to review all these pointers, and pay careful attention to landmarks along the way. When I recognize that I am going the right way, I'm proud of my success. 

I did live in this region before, so it’s not completely overwhelming, but one place I now visit frequently, Santa Rosa, I now approach from the opposite direction. Instead of coming from the west, I now arrive from the southeast. At first I was totally confused. 

I could not figure out how to get to one congested, busy street, Santa Rosa Avenue. I had to get on the freeway! But last week, when I visited the Peace and Justice Center on Sebastopol Road, I saw where Santa Rosa Avenue begins. Suddenly the pieces fell into place. Of course! This is the way we used to go to Toys R Us! Now I know how to get to all the Big Box stores that we don’t have in Sonoma.

As I tromp into the kitchen to get a glass of water and reach – again! -- for the wrong cupboard, I notice that if I pause to remember where the glasses are, I can feel my mind come into focus, with improved results. Like an absent-minded professor, I’m always thinking about something else. I have to pay attention to what the body is doing, to remember where the glasses are now. 

Like absent minded professors, many older adults are not necessarily senile; they are just focusing on what they are doing. Langer’s research has shown that even very old people can behave more youthfully if they practice paying attention in this way.

Moving to a new place is more disorienting at our age; but it can have this unexpected benefit. It forces us to be more mindful of what we’re doing, carving new pathways into old brains grown lazy from habit. We can do the same thing without relocating, just by taking a new route to the library, or even rearranging the furniture.

Either way, we have to be willing to try.

[NOTE: This blog is the second in a series about my recent move from Santa Fe to Sonoma. To read them in order, start here]