Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Fifty Plus Cohousing-(OT?)

[Elizabeth Stevenson (tamgoddess]

To expand on that a little, Jan, I'll tell all of you what the experience of
old age was to May D'Marie, a founding mother of our community who died a
little over a year ago:

Old people are invisible, old women doubly so. People never look you in the
eye, and you are seen as unimportant, in the way, and irrelevant. Young men,
especially, act as if it's contagious and are sure to avoid your gaze. (I
have experienced this myself, when I was pregnant. As if I were going to
hunt them down and make them marry me!) People are condescending and act
like you're an idiot.

May used to smile all the time, not because she was happy all the time, but
because she taught herself to do that so that, in the rare case that someone
looked at her, they would see her smiling. She wanted to be open to younger
people, and not have them be afraid of talking to her.

I was able to get a whole new understanding of the aging process through May
and her insights, and I'm very fortunate that she decided to live with us,
instead of a retirement "community". But I can see now that indeed, "old age
ain't for sissies", and that it might be a hell of a lot easier to live
where people like and respect you, rather than trying to buck the trend all
the time.

I think that's far more likely than some attempt to deny housing to families
with children.

Liz
-- 
Liz Stevenson
Southside Park Cohousing
Sacramento, California
tamgoddess [at] attbi.com

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