SAGES IN THE CITY
Humans must constantly re-orient towards the concept of home.
Mixed in with this ideation, usually idealized, is the physical dwelling, or lack thereof. All creatures create, grow out of, and adapt the available materials to create, refine, and redefine our abodes, again and again. If E.T. taught us anything, even extra-terrestrials will rig up a Speak & Spell to “phone home.” In the recent novel Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino, a girl who feels like an alien coming of age in 90’s North Philly with her “strange, complex, honest” single mother begins receiving faxes that indicate she, is in fact, from elsewhere in space-time, which helps her more easily grapple with hardships in her earthly existence.
From toddlerhood on, my son’s home was not only our apartment, but the dead end-esque street where he and rotating groups of kids scooted worry-free in Jamaica Plain, MA. A month before eighth grade, we moved across the country to Santa Monica. Challenging, but he has school and its accoutrements (band, theatre, DMing D&D club)—plus beloved cousins—to help acclimate him.
On the other hand, my mom is relocating to LA, her childhood hometown, after 50+ years of living on the east coast. For older people, what are the avenues for connection and for creating and sustaining a new sense of place, a new home?
When talking to some older adults, I heard iterations of When I moved to LA, I didn’t have a dog or young kids to ease me into friendships. When I was younger, my life almost automatically gave me an entry into most places I wanted to be. My job had been my second home, but I was no longer working. I don’t want to be dependent on my kids for my social life.
It turns out there are some wonderful options for seniors to make connections in a new place. The problem, as always, is information and access—the lovingly prepared informative handbook sent to lists we’re not on, or open-hearted gatherings happening down the street we don’t know about are proverbial trees that fall out of earshot when we’re longingly gazing up at the unattainable canopy in a different part of the forest.
When we discover gatherings of people in a new location who welcome us, we feel the stirrings of homefulness. Bahala’s Coffee & Connections, at the same time and place every week is one such 3-D place.
Crafting groups, such as Stitch n’ Bitch, found in many parts of the world, and low-threshold sports such as Pickleball, Yoga, Nia, and walking groups bond people through shared interests. The Wallis and SMC Emeritus offer a plethora of classes under the heading “creative aging.” Besides exposing our bodies to all the good microbes in soil, gardening offers a myriad of benefits, one of which is the camaraderie of engaging in “green therapy” with others: communal work in hopes of coaxing seeds of possibility to flourish. Life that creates more life! Bahala’s Gardening Club meets weekly on Friday mornings and is open to any and all.
Religious affiliations and social action committees (sometimes housed in places of worship), have long been the first step. Several Bahala members attend The Church in Ocean Park. Sylvia Gentile explained that the church, which has welcomed queer congregants from the beginning, is “intergenerational by design. Working with older or younger people brings so many more perspectives into the discussion and ultimately makes the work stronger and more relevant.”
Beth Shir Shalom hosts several gatherings for mixed age groups, and at least two specifically for seniors, Schmoozeday and a new program called Sages. There, my mom met a connector, Layne Lepes, who invited her to Pacific Palisades Friends and Newcomers. Like Layne nine years before her, my mom attended an introductory tea at a board member’s house and left buzzing with new contacts and ideas.
Whereas the old model of Newcomers welcomed only couples to a new place and chartered a strict three-year tenure, the Palisades model focuses on women who have skills to share or learn, and there’s no expiration date. There are women who’ve been part of Friends and Newcomers of Pacific Palisades for 30, 40, and even 50 years.
Then the fires happened. Eighteen of the twenty board members lost their homes.
For obvious reasons, the group is no longer centered in the Palisades, though the Board continues to meet and individual groups are continuing to get together over Zoom and around the city. How else to heal than to push through our ball-curling impulses and show up as we truly are—whether that’s merely disoriented or existentially ragged, torpedoed out of seemingly impenetrable safe havens? Leaning on each other to hold and be held upright.
In Join or Die, a documentary about Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” research, argues our isolation and decline in civic engagement and social capital undermines American democracy more than any other factor. Civic associations strengthen communities, essential for our survival.
Observing my mom and friends she made during her four months in Santa Monica, laying the groundwork for her eventual move, I’ve gleaned invaluable lessons applicable to every stage of life: interweave desired activities and accountability, adapt to different processes of creating community, and welcome others into the fold at every opportunity. As Sylvia Gentile shared from the Church in Ocean Park: “The Circle is meant to expand.”