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Learning about getting older from people who've been there A screengrab from the movie "OLD?!" Thursday Feb 9, 2017 at 2:00 AM By John Darling For the Tidings Ashlander Kathy Roselli has produced and directed a film every year since 2012 — and her most recent one, “OLD?!” is a series of personal and revealing interviews about how local people of every age (mainly older folks) feel about this whole life-changing process of getting long in the tooth. It’s a moving, 55-minute documentary that will show at 1 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 15, at Ashland Senior Center, 1699 Homes Avenue and at 5 p.m., Wednesday, March 22, at Smullin Center, Rogue Regional Medical Center. It’s free and public. The movie has been shown in film festivals in Portland, Santa Cruz, San Antonio and other cities. It has been accepted in Ashland Independent Film Festival — and the Legacy Film Festival on Aging in San Francisco. The movie is not just focused on elders but also traces the thoughts of Rogue Valley folk through their teens, 20s, 30s and beyond, as they realize the growing awareness that this adventure does not go on forever — hopefully with lots of fun, travel and adventure, but always winding up, as 9-year-old Abbie said, “that you are wrinkled and walk funny.” Far from being a tedious sociological how-to, the film is a well-edited piece of art that pops us in and out of the stream of thoughts that are so familiar to each of us, as we move along the track of aging, through the beautiful years of love, marriage, children and realized dreams — on to the experience that nothing can prepare you for — aging and death. Roselli tries to grab the thoughts and words of preschoolers, but it’s not till we get to age 9 or so that people begin to grasp that life is a trajectory no one can change, only accept. “Real revenge is making something of yourself,” says Sabrina, 12 (no last names are used). Tuscan, 17, explores a long-term vision, about the farmhouse his girlfriend wants to buy, so she can get old and be a grandma there, while he plants and harvests. Hudson, 19, observes that it all comes down to the fact that everyone at high school graduation is looking for security, either financially or in some kind of happiness. Sarah, 19, says she “feels old in a way. The years went by very fast. I’ve done so many things and I hope aging doesn’t inhibit me.” Jan, 84, says she doesn’t think her 65-year marriage is unusual and she hopes, with Dean, her 87-year-old husband, that they can just “carry on.” Brandon, 25, notes, “It truly is a metamorphosis, a whole new capacity for compassion and understanding I’ve found without a doubt, in my heart. The less I push and force, the more my path becomes the path of least resistance. When I’m quiet enough to see where I’m going, I see I’m already here, where I need to be, always.” Heather, 29, says the 30s are the new 20s and, with no kids and good income, it’s “going to be awesome.” As a nurse, she sees people in their 30s whose bodies are already “worn out and sick. They don’t do anything they love.” But some in their 70s and 80s are “vibrant, dancing, don’t seem old.” Peter, 41, has noticed elders with hair in nose and ears and now sees it in himself, noting “It doesn’t bother me so much. I’m alone and didn’t have children, but now it’s starting to worry me.” Shannon, 41, got carded for a beer and wanted to shake the hand of the server. Andy, 47, a physical trainer on Oak Street, philosophizes about the changing demands of staying in shape in advancing age, while Janet, 65, a client, confesses she’d given up on the feeling of being active and well, but now the regimen is stretching out her endurance and “it’s so much better, my stamina and how the world looks to me.” Though crippled by a crash at 17 and in a wheel chair for life, Sylvia, 53, says, “Some days I feel like a kid … I always believed I would walk again, that someday a cure would be found.” She has a husband and five grandchildren and notes that the one word to describe being a grandmother is “magical.” Carol Lee, 55, longtime leader of exercise here for seniors, says, “I fear aging but here I’ve got it right in the face … but if you have a good attitude, everything is going to be just fine.” Julie, 65, says she tries not to look in the mirror, especially in the mornings at that “old woman. It can’t possibly be me. That’s not how I think of myself.” Vanessa, 68, a yoga teacher, notes, “I’m very aware of the daily and monthly changes … the adventure is kind of ending and I’m confronting the reality of change. It’s not an easy thing … In the yoga sutras this is discussed, that even the most enlightened being will have trouble with it, old age and dying. Old age is not for sissies.” Cathy, 71, met her partner three decades ago but didn’t get together till three years ago and, she says, “I’ve never experienced so much love.” Local musician-composer Gene notes the physical changes of age, but says he’s not at all interested in looking young and following the idea that old is bad and young is good. “We’re all going to die. I make fun of it … We’re all circling the drain … headed for the soil.” He says he doesn’t agree with the Dylan Thomas poem that says, “Do not go gently,” but feels we should acknowledge the passing quality of everything, "like water moving around stones in the creek." Homeless author Randy, 60, says it’s been “an exciting career,” being homeless, but “I hope to end up with a roof over my head. It was more interesting when I was younger, camping out with the animals, but it gets harder after 40 years. The bears are more aggressive. As you get older, you’re wearing out and it’s tougher to walk miles every night through the rain.” Roger, a retired judge, had a heart attack at 51, like his father, but retired at 65 with Parkinson’s. “It brings a loss of confidence because you don’t have the tools you need … The world is beginning to contract instead of expand. You realize you’ve become invisible and you realize what you’ve lost.” Rosemary, 74, notes there are many warnings beforehand about the stages of being mature, then elder. “At 74, I love calling myself an elder. I love being a crone … People have started calling me 'sweetie,' 'honey' and 'dear.' I’ve got all this endearing language coming toward me.” An overweight Maxine, 78, says, “I’m an example of what not to do. Get up and be active, don’t overeat. I was depressed for a long time, not any longer. I’m back to being me.” Maynard, 85, says he’s proud of being old and feels fine 95 percent of the time — and his mind still functions. They asked if he wanted 60,000-mile tires and he asked if they had 250-mile tires — and “even that might last too long.” He’s been married 62 years. He has a sense of humor and says, “Sally made me take vows of chastity and poverty.” She comments, “He does the dishes too.” One of the more touching stories is told by Marilyn, 89, a recent widow. She started dreaming of Joe, who was 23 and in love with her during World War II, when he was a bomber pilot. She hadn’t thought of him in years, but “I couldn’t get him out of my mind.” Out of nowhere, she learned his wife just died. She wrote him. One day, his daughter called and said he’d like to talk to her. “It was the first time we talked in 70 years,” she says. “Here was that wonderful voice.” He asked her to come to Massachusetts. She did. “It was wonderful, wonderful.” They spent some months together, then, suddenly, he had a heart attack and died in her arms. “He was gone. I knew it. I can’t think about it,” she said, weeping. “I think about what we did have.” Roselli, 67, is a retired pediatric nurse who got into filmmaking in classes at College of the Siskiyous. She interviewed 75 local people for the film. “I realized I’m in the last third of my life and want to get perspective on getting older, so instead of interviewing the experts, I wanted to interview people who are actually getting older. I started thinking about the word “old,” a word we hear all our lives. So I interviewed people at all ages of life and what it means to them.” Our society doesn’t think about what aging really means, but, she adds, “This film offers all kinds of experiential wisdom that people can apply to their lives. There’s something for everyone. The film has a lot of staying power and people watch it over and over to get it.” — John Darling is an Ashland freelance writer. Reach him at [email protected].