My Morning read - AARP Mag. Two Grandmothers & a Journal Keeper

Tuesday, July 15, 2025 and 11:30. I should have been leaving for lunch with dear friend Barbara Solem today at Maritsa's but instead I an on the sofa sick with diarrhea and upset stomach. I think it was mushrooms in Chinese take-out leftovers. Anyhow, the AARP Magazine came in time to keep me company. I tore out two articles to put in my current journal, one on a man named Chip Brown who has 138 journals kept over 50 years!

I have a trunk full in the attic and a shelf full in my bedroom ceiling to floor bookcase, probably over a hundred at the rate that I keep them. They help me structure my life, figure things out, find a safe place to put my complaints and emotional pains until they fade. I also glue in countless articles on simple sets of exercises to do each day (I don't) but I am hopeful, and articles about artists among other things. I highly recommend journal keeping and it has been mentioned in many articles about keeping our brains healthy over the long haul.

Speaking of health and the long haul, there was an article about two grandmothers, very very different from one another who both lived to be 104! Was it genes? One did have a healthy life, the other had an ordinary life without particular efforts regarding healthy meals and nutrition. In the article they mentioned the pillars of aging: gemes.exercise, diet, sleep, social connection, purpose. Then they added resilience forged in hardship, sustaining poser of love, the anchoring power of faith, and the surprising power of conscientiousness! I thought those worthy of taking a break from my reading, toast and tea and making this blog entry.

My maternal grandmother was solitary (agoraphobic), melancholy, anxious, although she did have nearby and loving family. She spent her last ten years with dementia. She did have an ordinary but poor diet (a lot of crackers and cheese and tea). My paternal grandmother worked on the boardwalk every summer at the seashore where she lived and at a local department store in the winter. She walked every day and read and made quilts. She had friends and belonged to a movie group as well as the Democratic Women's Club. Both lived into their lat 80's but in dramatically different lives.

Something to ponder as I work my way towrds 80 this year.

Happy trails - wrightj45@yahoo.com