On the illusion of age

A friend published a column today that seems to be both celebrating and feeling a bit forlorn about turning seventy, which he calls three score and ten.  What occurred to me is that I didn't harbor many of the same feelings when I turned seventy, and I'm wondering why.  It might be partly the fact that I've had good heath and fitness, so on my 70th birthday I didn't stop and contemplate the fact.  I was in the midst of a summer of leading nature hikes, as I am doing this summer, and I didn't really feel older than I had the day before.  Maybe my friend is a little more worn out.

Another thought that occurs to me is how hooked we are on the base-10 numbering system.  We relate to markers like 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and each one gets a little more scary.  I'll be 72 next week, and I'm still feeling good.  I'm fit enough to take long hikes, split my own firewood, etc.  So, I'm going to pretend that I'm living in a culture that uses the duodecimal system of numbering in which case I'll turn 60 next week.  Better yet, hexadecimal, in which system I'll turn 48.  That still gives me 3 more years than one of my main heroes, Henry David Thoreau (we share at least a middle name), who checked out at 45!

I think my most comforting perspective comes from my blogging which is driven by watching, writing about, and photographing cyclic phenomena in nature.  For most flowers and insects, a season is a lifetime, and their DNA appears  in a different body every year.  There's a biennial that intrigues me: the Mullein.  This plant, an immigrant like me, produces a basal rosette of soft, fuzzy leaves in its first season of life.  These leaves die off in the fall, but the root remains alive.  During the next season, the Mullein grows a stalk, maybe 8 to 10 feet tall, on which there bloom dozens if not hundreds of snapdragon-like flowers.  Then the whole plant dies in the fall, including the root.  The stalks are rugged enough, almost woody, that they may continue to stand tall for several more seasons.  I particularly enjoy coming across a patch of Mullein that contains first-year, second-year, and dead-standing-tall stalks of three or more years of age.

I'm looking forward to turning 50 (in hexadecimal) and hope that I'm still hiking, writing, and sharing my findings with fellow nature lovers and winning some new fans.  If I make it to 60 (in hexadecimal), I'll definitely celebrate, and maybe will sound a little forlorn.  We'll see.