Still Climbing

Yesterday I played piano and led a group singing with 50 elders at a new place for me, The Sequoias Home for Senior Living in Portola Valley. As music can do, people I had just met felt like old friends before the hour was up and at the end, amongst the sincere gratitude for the event so many expressed, it turned out that three of the people were grandparents of children I had taught at The San Francisco School. 

 

Today, I began with my usual morning meditation, bowl of oatmeal, Solitaire game, wrote a bit and then played 10 Preludes and Fugues by Bach, uplifted as always by the genius of his complex thought. A crostic puzzle and then drop off the car for a tune up, walk 3.5 miles home and later 3.5 miles back to pick it up. A dinner of a celery soup I had made along with salad and Tartinne’s hearty oatmeal bread. 

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These are just some of the routines that have become the way I spend my days, not because I read some article that told me that if I do this, I’ll get that. But in fact, I did read an article yesterday titled “When Does Your Brain Hit Its Peak?” Near the end, under the subheading “Keeping the Brain at Its Best” by Kristina Wright, she asserts—not unsurprisingly— that “lifestyle plays a major role in maintaining brain health." And then goes on to list the specifics: Amongst them are "regular exercise (like brisk walking), nutrition, mental engagement like learning new skills, entertaining new ideas and tackling puzzles, practicing music and language, maintaining community involvement, adequate sleep and meditation.” Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! You might imagine my satisfaction as I mentally ticked off the list, having paid attention to just about every single thing on it. And I can testify that, as mentioned in a previous post, my mind (and heart and somewhat my body) doesn’t feel like yesterday’s museum piece, but is actively climbing to tomorrow’s next possibility. 

 

The article went on to acknowledge that “certain aspects of the brain— like mental agility, how quickly we can reason, adapt or learn new information, peaks relatively early, often in the late teens to early 20s”. She calls this “fluid intelligence.” But when it comes to the “integration of knowledge, empathy and problem-solving—the ability to balance logic with perspective—the real peak likely comes later, in our 50s, 60s or beyond.” She calls this “crystalized intelligence.” And goes on to suggest that “if fluid intelligence gives us speed, crystallized intelligence provides depth.”

 

In short, she suggests that different aspects of intelligence hit their peaks at different ages. She acknowledges that “a 25-year-old may be able to master a new app more quickly, but a 60-year-old may approach a difficult decision with deeper understanding and better judgment.” Though she never uses the word “wisdom,” that latter set of skills is a good working definition of it. 

 

In perhaps the most revealing part of the article, she says that “younger adults usually rely more on one hemisphere for specific tasks while older adults often use both sides.” And I put this next sentence in bold: “Researchers believe that this shift helps compensate for slower processing speed and declining neural efficiency, allowing older adults to maintain cognitive performance.”

Eureka! Both my daughters began beating me at the word game Boggle when they were around 11 years old and continue to soundly defeat me. However, I have often pleaded for extra time, feeling that I could eventually discover many of the words they did, but I just can’t match their speed. Now I know why!! My new learning difference involved processing in both hemispheres at once and I believe all future games should take into account my neurodivergence. If they refuse, I will accuse them of ageism and take them to court! Wish me luck!

 

Meanwhile, I’m singing in one school tomorrow, teaching in another the next day, playing piano at the Jewish Home for the Aged the next, keeping my brain firing and heart opening with multiple community engagements while playing intricate music, improvising while I play, sitting down to write about it later and then cooking a new soup I’ve never made before —Greek lemon soup, to be specific. Still moving up the mountain— and the view is marvelous.