Embrace Ageing: from Joyce Wayne's newsletter

	Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Welcome to About Retirement, Joyce Wayne's bi-weekly newsletter about thriving during retirement. Please click on the BLUE subscribe button to receive the free post in your inbox. Subscribed Embrace Ageing: Celebrating Freedom and Defying Ageism By Joyce Wayne JOYCE WAYNE FEB 2   READ IN APP   Subscribed

Nothing is a Miracle; Everything is a Miracle

This month, I’ll turn 74 years old. During the 1950s, when I was a child, 74 was considered old: in fact, very old. Today, we believe that ageism is evaporating and that older people can live active and appealing lives well into their nineties. Yet I’m not entirely convinced that ageism hasn’t stood the test of time as we continue to push ourselves much harder than we might if we weren’t trying to live up to an unattainable standard.

Re-framing Ageing Labels

It’s true; we don’t wish to be called seniors. In her new book Still Life at Eighty, octogenarian Abigail Thomas begins by saying: “The word I hate most is seniors. I was a senior once, but it was a long time ago and I graduated. The label sounds condescending, all of us lumped together with lots of discounts and no identities…Given my druthers, I would rather be referred to as an elder. Elder brings with it the suggestion, no, the near certainty of hard-won wisdom.”

I must ask if it does. Certain friends, women I admire, will be aghast when they read that I’m admitting my age. Some have advised me never to reveal my age. I have good friends whose age I’ll never know and I would never inquire for fear of prying. Lately, however, I’m approaching age differently –as something to be proud of, not ashamed. When I learn that a friend or colleague is turning 80, I’m thrilled that she is still driving about town, attending numerous social events, sometimes working on projects, attending plays and movies, and just plain enjoying her life. As for any of us becoming wiser with age, I’m not certain.

Embracing Ageing Gracefully

If I’m being honest, I wouldn’t say I’m any wiser than I was at 40 or 50. I’m different. Less judgemental, less excitable and more at home in my own skin. What I have learned is to live and let live and to keep quiet when a stern or mocking comment wouldn’t help anyone. Now, social gatherings are more attractive to me as I’m not burnt out from working five or six days a week. My book club and my Scrabble club are highlights. Some nights, I cook; other nights, my husband cooks; other nights, we order in or eat out at a favourite restaurant. Dinners with friends are wonderfully enjoyable. Writing is more pleasurable than it has been for years. I’m not pushing myself to produce as much as I did when I was younger while relishing the work that is completed.

As Abigail Thomas remarks: “I don’t mind old. I’ve been around long enough to call a spade a spade. At seventy-nine, a little overweight, plopped in a chair, I have never been so at home in my body.” I couldn’t agree more. If there is ever a time, this is the moment to accept ourselves for who we are. Chances are we’re not going to change profoundly, and it’s an appealing thought to review the important things we’ve accomplished: our children, our careers, our care for others, our participation in civic life and our weathering difficult times while enjoying the good times.

When we reach our seventies, there can’t be many people reading this post who haven’t faced enormous obstacles and struggled to get past them. Many have faced financial and medical crises. Crises in the family or at work. We’ve managed the strains of a long-time marriage or faced being single by making a life of our own. Many of us have raised children and watched them grow into sensible, accomplished adults with children of their own. Observing the obstacles now facing millennials, establishing ourselves as independent adults was less challenging when we were young adults, and I’m grateful for the age in which we were born.

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Cherishing Nostalgic Memories

It’s time to lean back, enjoy and permit ourselves to remember the good times. Last month, I attended the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, not once but twice. It was the first time in my life that I’ve seen the same movie more than once in the same week. I enjoyed watching it more the second time than the first. Nothing could remind me more of my adolescence and young adulthood than hearing Dylan’s songs and watching Timothée Chalamet perform them. I idealized Dylan’s music as it became the soundtrack to my young adulthood. Tunes like “Don’t Look Twice” or “Like a Rolling Stone” have stayed in my mind all these years. I remember hearing the first Dylan album played on an old-fashioned record player. No stereo, no discs or cassettes. Just the power of the words and the music with the needle scratching away at the dusty vinyl.

Overcoming Ageism and Embracing Freedom

So don’t hold back. Allow yourself to savour it all. Ageism still casts its shadow, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do as we please. Dress as we’d like. Spend time listening to the songs of our youth. Spend time with friends and family that we love. Or do nothing. Some of the best times I’ve experienced during the last year are days spent dreaming –with no agenda to keep me on course. Falling off course is something I’ve not let myself do until recently, and I highly recommend it. The freedom of choice in ageing is empowering, and it’s a privilege we should all embrace.

These days, nothing much embarrasses me. I don’t worry about what I’m missing. My expectations of myself and others are no longer set in stone. I no longer answer my landline just because it rings or force myself to finish reading a book I’m not enjoying. I can’t recall the last time I felt guilty.

It is the right time for whatever comes next; how you greet the future depends on you. As Albert Einstein remarked: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Seeing the world through an optimistic lens can make the journey of ageing a truly miraculous one.

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book launch: Robin Mathews & the Struggle for Canadian Identity

from Joyce Wayne's blog "About Retirement" 

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Book Launch

A National Awakening: Robin Mathews and the Struggle for Canadian Identity Edited by Joyce Wayne

JOYCE WAYNE MAY 22

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Join us for the launch of “A National Awakening” on Tues. June 25 from 6 to 8 p.m.

At the Great Canadian Theatre Company, 1233 Wellington Street W. Ottawa. 

“Robin Mathews was a man for his times, rabble-rouser, shit disturber, provocateur, patriot, silver-tongued orator, and a fearless in-your-face public intellectual butting heads with Canada’s elites,” writes Daniel Drache, a contributor to this collection of original essays, discussing Mathews’ remarkable influence on the awakening of a distinctly Canadian identity.

For more than two decades, Mathews was a force to be reckoned withas he criss-crossed the country, often at his own expense, talking to students, professors, politicians, and artists about the need to establish and support a unique Canadian identity and politics and, what he termed, “promoting cultural literacy.” His personal charisma coupled with his boundless energy is the narrative thread of this collection: an activist and public intellectual with the compelling idea to establish a public movement to transform Canada into a culturally literate and economically sovereign nation.

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Contributors to the book:

Duncan Cameron, Pat Smart, Daniel Drache, Bill Law, Susan Crean, Misao Dean, Alvin Finkel, Errol Sharpe, Sinclair Robinson and Donald Smith.

Sabrina Mathews will be speaking and members of the Mathews family will be in attendance.

JOYCE WAYNE, the editor of this collection, studied with Robin Mathews in the English Department at Carleton University during the 1970s. She went on to become the editor at Quill & Quire, Editorial Director of non-fiction at McClelland & Stewart Publishers and a professor of journalism at Sheridan College. Her novels, The Cook’s Temptation and Last Night of the World were published by Mosaic Press. Recently, she has written a series of essays published in The Literary Review of Canada including “All the Kremlin’s Men,” which was chosen for Best Canadian Essays 2021

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© 2024 Joyce Wayne
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 
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Elder Abuse: Right Before Our Eyes (from Joyce Wayne's blog, "retirementmatters)

Warning Signs of Suspected Elder Abuse
 

Published on December 17, 2023
8 min read
By Joyce Wayne

The belief that elder abuse is an issue that only happens to others, far removed from our lives or the lives of our loved ones, is a comforting assumption. However, the reality is that it can and does happen close to home. Elder abuse is more pervasive than I ever imagined, and it’s everywhere, among the wealthiest and the poorest. In rural and urban environments, it’s often unfolding right before our eyes, and it takes serious concern and knowledge about the signs of elder abuse before it can be remedied.

Allow me to share the story of a person I’ve known most of my life. He was a doctor, an investor and an ardent golfer. Last year, his life took an unexpected turn as he began experiencing falls during his daily constitutional. One fall led to another. Eventually, he was diagnosed with dementia. He lives with his wife of six years in a gorgeous apartment. They have everything they need to be happy. But my friend has entirely lost his agency. He has no control over his daily life, finances, and even basic communication with whom he sees or speaks with on the telephone. He became fearful of one of the significant people in his daily life.

I began to notice the problem when I couldn’t speak with him on the phone after months of trying. My birthday card went unnoticed, and his other friends and family began reaching out to me, saying they’d phoned him, but to no avail. He could not be reached.

Last week, at my wit’s ends, I boarded a train to visit him, a six-hour ride from my home near Toronto. In certain respects, his situation is dire. While he receives care most days, enjoying three meals a day and having someone to watch over him, not all days are the same. Recently, he took a tumble and hurt his head, the wound, which he showed to me to illustrate his troubles.

At times, he is quite lucid, and we can talk openly about his plight. Other times, he repeats himself endlessly, one of the surest signs of dementia or any form of cognitive impairment. Before arriving at his home, I made sure to call an Elder Abuse helpline, something I never imagined I would do for my brilliant and accomplished friend. The social worker at the other end of the line was enormously helpful, asking pointed and comprehensive questions. I answered as best as I could. By the conclusion of our calls, she clearly said that my friend is a victim of elder abuse, physical, mental and financial.

I’ll admit, it was not the answer I expected nor wished to hear. Yet, by the time we finished our conversations, and in the weeks that followed, I understood how elder abuse can be camouflaged by those surrounding the victim, or even by misunderstandings, or by the inability or desire to help. In my friend’s case, isolation was a huge issue. He was cut off from everyone he knew, with no means to contact his own family. Other people ran his banking and investments, and he seemed to have little or no idea where his money was going. He cannot write a cheque or move money between bank accounts. He has no access to his funds unless he asks permission from a self-appointed committee composed of his wife's family.

Last June, as reported by CTV News, the Montreal Police paid a visit to thousands of Montreal seniors in an effort to prevent elder abuse. The “Visit a Senior” operation, now in its fourth year, involves police officers, CIUSSS representatives and community workers reaching out to individuals who may be abused or need health and social services, according to a statement from the Montreal police. During this year’s operation, over 300 people went door-knocking to visit over 4,800 people—3,000 of whom were aged 65 and above. Depending on the situation, they offered food aid, access to a helpline, friendship services, and help to get to appointments, among other supports.

A 2019 provincial report on elder abuse revealed that nearly 6 percent of seniors living at home in Quebec reported being mistreated in the past year. “With the aging of the population set to accelerate over the next few years, elder abuse is a major public health issue that needs to be tackled collectively,” said Marick Bertrand, regional coordinator specializing in the fight against elder abuse at Montreal Public Health. Last month, the province began deploying the Elder Mistreatment Helpline (LAMAA) in all regions of Quebec. The line serves as a gateway for anyone who is experiencing or witnessing abuse and wants to be directed to the right resource.

The telephone service is available seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., at 1 888 489-2287.

During this holiday period, when you visit family and friends, I urge you to be aware of signs of elder abuse and to contact a helpline in your city or region to try to correct the situation.

The Government of Canada website is an excellent source of information. It discusses who are the abusers of older adults, who are at risk, and how to recognize elder abuse, plus many other topics related to the abuse of elders.

I was particularly interested in the section about “Warning Signs,” which includes:

Warning Signs of Suspected Elder Abuse


If you suspect abusive behaviour, look for:

Controlling behaviour:
Not allowing older adults the right to freely make decisions and choices
Refusing to allow them to visit with anyone alone
Isolating them from friends and family
Using the “silent treatment” to control them
Not allowing them to use the phone
Disregard for their privacy
Locks on the outside of the bedroom door
Reading or withholding their mail
Handling all of the money
Blaming the older adult for the abuse: “It’s your fault that I pushed you!”
A strong sense of entitlement: “I can do what I want! You owe me!”
Treating the older adult like a child: “Do what I tell you!”
Frequent arguments, name-calling calling or threats
Leaving a dependent person alone for long periods of time.
I witnessed or heard about many of these signs when visiting my friend. In this instance of elder abuse, I’m trying my best to help, along with the authorities in his city of residence.

For more information: For more information

To learn more about what the Government of Canada is doing for seniors or to find services and support in your province or territory, visit programs and services for elderly or call 1-800-O-Canada (1-800-622-6232, TTY: 1-800-926-9105)


retirementmatters.ca by joycewayne
96 Nelson Street, Unit 18 Oakville, Ontario L6L3H* Canada
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Joyce Wayne: The Titanic Failure to Curb the Spread of COVID

Following is a repost from Joyce Wayne's new newsletter, Northern Exposure, about Canadian politics and culture. Yesterday I felt encouraged to do a brief posting of my own experience with getting vaccinated for COVID-19 after reading Joyce's excellent analysis. 

 

 The Titanic Failure to Curb the Spread of COVID

Joyce Wayne
Apr 11    



“Ever since U.S. President Ronald Reagan declared in his 1981 inaugural address that ‘government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,’ Conservatives have argued that the best way to run a country is to dismantle the federal government and turn the fundamental operations of the country over to private enterprise. Conservatives have argued that government is inefficient and wasteful, while businesses can pivot rapidly and are far more efficient than their government counterparts,” writes Heather Cox Richardson, in her Letters from an American.

I beg to differ with this Conservative mantra. Canada’s handling of the COVID crisis is a living example of how government inaction and lack of long-term strategies to protect its people have resulted in the virus’s exponential growth across the country from Quebec westward.


During the weekend, neither the Liberal nor the NDP conventions buckled down on resolutions about how government intervention could work to control pandemics, as it has operated successfully in Australia and New Zealand. The NDP spent more time focusing on the Israel-Palestine resolution than it did on re-building Canadian pharmaceutical capacity, so we aren’t entirely reliant on vaccines imported from abroad.


Two days ago, 7,020,562 or 18.7 per cent of Canadians had at least one dose of a vaccination. Another 794,186 or 2.1 per cent were fully vaccinated. At the same time, 60 per cent of those over 65 are fully vaccinated in America.  Joe Biden’s aggressive vaccination strategy is working, while our governments try to cover their tracks making endless excuses and blaming each other for why our so-called vaccination roll-out is slower than molasses, inaccessible to many and unforgivably confusing.

Why provincial governments in large urban communities haven’t considered organizing multiple drive-in centres or taking vaccines directly to housing complexes in COVID hotspots ---until a few days ago---, borders on the criminal. During last week’s press conference, where Doug Ford announced locking down the province once again, after opening it up a week prior, it sounded as if he’d just heard of the effectiveness of mobile vaccination units.

The combination of the Ford cabinet’s incompetency coupled with its overarching ideological disagreement with government action (except when it benefits its corporate friends) has created an ongoing health crisis the province has never before experienced. While Doug Ford continues to mouth platitudes about how much he cares about Ontarians and has our backs, let’s remember that he cancelled the previous government’s sick pay legislation and refuses to institute new sick pay provisions during the worst health crisis in a century. Employees are going to work sick because they need to put food on the table. The Amazon fulfillment warehouse in Brampton, the epi-centre of Ontario’s pandemic, remains shuttered. More than 600 cases of COVID emanated from that one facility. And it’s spreading like wildfire throughout that community.

While numbers escalated to more than 4,500 new infections in Ontario today, the celebratory nature of both Liberal and NDP conventions belied the reality of life on the ground. ICU wards are hitting capacity, and patients in Ontario are being transferred to outlying hospitals with or without their permission. For weeks, exhausted medical professionals were begging provincial governments to crack down and assert more stringent lockdown rules, but the Ontario government paid their exhortations no mind.

It’s not difficult for the Liberals or the NDP to look and sound better than Erin O’Toole’s party after last month’s disastrous Conservative convention. Or after the repeated fumbling by Doug Ford and his cabinet to assert its responsibility to keep citizens safe. Yet, resolutions to address the crisis were few and far between during this weekend’s party gatherings. Chrystia Freeland’s epiphany speech about the need to institute improved daycare access across the country received little coverage, although women are leaving the workforce in droves as the pandemic multiples.

Driving to our contactless grocery pick-up in Burlington, Ontario yesterday, my husband and I sat inside our car to observe a packed parking lot overflowing with shoppers. It felt like a regular pre-pandemic Saturday shopping blitz. Most stores were offering curbside delivery, which from what we observed, meant entering stores to pick up shopping, or dropping off clothes for dry-cleaning or entering restaurants for take-out. I’m not clear how any of this is curbside.

The confusion and inattention to new safeguards continue, the number of infections grows, directions for “lockdowns” change every week while politicians celebrate.

Does Culture Matter As Much As Dining Out? - from Joyce Wayne's important new blog

 

Welcome to Northern Exposure, my newsletter about politics, culture and the media. Please click on the BLUE subscribe button to receive the weekly post in your inbox.

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Does culture matter as much as dining out?

copyright Joyce Wayne
Mar 28    

Does it surprise you that there’s so much anxious talk about the death of restaurants and so little conversation about the declining arts scene during COVID? There was hardly a mention of it in the new Ontario budget, although I’ve included a link to the beneficiaries of the recent “Rescue Fund” from this government. To be fair, the provincial government also announced a new “Magazine Fund” on budget day, March 24th.

Under the auspices of the rescue fund, the Stratford Festival, the National Ballet, the Canadian Opera Company, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Shaw Festival received $1-million or more in rescue support, well-deserved after an entire year of darkened stages. Yet if I remove the big five’s grants from the total support package, everyone else is left with considerably lesser amounts, perhaps just enough to keep small to medium organizations above water until the fall ---or perhaps not.

Across Canada, restaurants, retail stores, including big-box Costco and Wal-Mart, are allowed to stay open (within certain limits), throughout the pandemic, as theatrical stages, galleries and museums remain shuttered. Don’t get me wrong. In no way am I suggesting that cultural venues remain open when they pose a danger to community health. Still, I’m thinking of how government-sponsored technology and delivery methods could help bring the arts into our homes. The only way independent bookstores are surviving the pandemic is by delivering customer’s book orders to their doorstep.


The fact remains: very few consider bookstores an essential service, not like Costco and Wal-Mart that also sell skids of books. As CTV reported in January, “Retail stores like Wal-Mart and Costco are excluded from many of the new rules surrounding the state of emergency in Ontario. If a store sells a full complement of groceries, it is considered essential. The problem for some smaller business owners – these big box stores can also sell everything else. “

As for publishers, I can’t think of more than a handful of independently-owned book publishers whose future is not in peril. It’s not only the pandemic’s economic devastation; it’s also about galloping corporate concentration in the industry that could not be descending on Canada’s publishers or writers at a more inopportune time.

The red flag is Penguin Random House, the world’s largest trade publisher that registered its successful bid to purchase Simon & Schuster for $2-billion U.S. from entertainment conglomerate ViacomCBS last November. Let’s begin with the fact that Random House is owned by the German giant Bertelsmann media and investment corporation that also owns the broadcaster RTL, the magazine publisher Gruner + Jahr, the music company BMG, the service provider Arvato, the Bertelsmann Printing Group, the Bertelsmann Education Group and Bertelsmann Investments, an international network of funds.

By wrapping Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster inside its capacious arms, not only will the new company be publishing 40 per cent or more of the trade book titles in Canada, but it could also dominate the market in the U.S. and Britain.

While Canada dithers, the Guardian reports, “The U.K. competition watchdog has launched an investigation into Penguin Random House’s $2bn (£1.45bn) takeover of Simon & Schuster, a deal rivals have warned will create a ‘behemoth of books’ with too much power in the global publishing industry.”

In her Globe and Mail article, Anna Porter, author and founder of Key Porter Books, explains why we should be concerned about this merger:

“Here is why it matters: the combined publisher would dominate the Canadian market in a way that has so far not been possible. Authors would have fewer options for publishing their books, jobs will be lost – and with those lost jobs, there will be less diversity of interest in subjects and literary tastes. With the mergers, some of the editors and publicists in each of the acquired firms will lose their jobs, and we will lose their selections of books that make it to the marketplace.”

Let’s be honest with each other. Penguin Random House’s domination of the book trade in Canada started in 2011 when McClelland & Stewart, the last large, well-recognized Canadian-owned publishing house, was as Porter describes it, “swallowed up by Random House.”

What happened to McClelland and Stewart is a story that demands re-telling as it paved the way for the extensive multi-national control of Canada’s reading habits. Here’s what happened. Publisher Jack McClelland was an inspired media maven with a taste for good books, a nose for talented writers and an indefatigable desire to instil a national book culture in the Canadian soul. He kept his company afloat for as long as he could. How he did it was a magical mix of management “hutzpah,” his irresistible charm, which kept such bestselling authors as Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, and Michael Ondaatje in his stable, along with inspired government support from Pierre Trudeau’s government and the Ontario government.

McClelland couldn’t continue forever. Market conditions for Canadian books were becoming increasingly precarious. When First Plazas Inc. founder and strip mall developer Avie Bennett offered to rescue the company in 1985, Jack McClelland folded his hand.

Bennett, who demonstrated a compelling desire to be an active member of the cultural and academic elite in the country, managed M&S for 15 years, all the while bleeding considerable amounts of money. At first, he believed that his business acumen could turn the company around. Then in 2000, in a slick deal pasted together by Bennett and his legal team, the University of Toronto, the Federal government and Random House, he donated 75 per cent of his shares in M&S to the University of Toronto, while Random House acquired 25 per cent ownership in the company. Eleven years later, M&S completely merged with Random House. (Read publisher Ken Whyte’s succinct description of what actually happened). For Bennett’s earlier generosity, Maclean’s reported that he was awarded up to a $15-million reduction of taxes owed to the Feds.


Jack McClelland and Avie Bennett

 
In her meticulously researched book The Handover: how bigwigs and bureaucrats transferred Canada’s best publisher and the best part of our literary heritage to a foreign multi-national, journalist Elaine Dewar describes the transaction and its fallout in detail. I urge you to read it.

Since this merger, Canadian book publishing has faced ever more obstacles as it struggles along during an era of galloping corporate concentration and new media competition in the entertainment business. Canadian-owned publishing’s operating revenues have tanked every year since 2006. Canadian-based authors who do publish with independently-owned houses seldom receive the media attention of those published by large multi-national presses. A small house simply doesn’t have the resources to throw at editing, promotion, publicity and marketing that a company like Penguin Random House regularly exerts.

You might ask if that matters. I think it does. It means:

1. Books that are geared to larger markets than the Canadian market are more attractive to multi-national publishing houses located here.

2. Books intended expressly for Canadian readers are often buried under the advertising weight exerted by multi-national book publishers.

3. Independent Canadian-owned publishers have come to rely increasingly on grants from the federal ministry of Heritage Canada, the Canada Council or provincial granting sources.

4. Canadian book culture, which exploded during the 1970s, is no longer the major force it once was as book sales continue to plummet and U.S. books overwhelm our bestseller charts.
 

As the pandemic drags on, the government’s overarching role in supporting book publishing is more important than ever. We need more sophisticated and more active government intervention if Canada is to maintain its own book culture. Unfettered market conditions will not be enough to keep a wide variety of Canadian authors and their Canadian-owned publishing houses in business in a country of 37-million. Publishing ought not to be a matter of adeptly filling out grant applications for the Canada Council or Heritage Canada’s Canadian Book Fund.

The political vision ought to be grander, more intentional, and based on strictly enforced Canadian ownership requirements, generous tax incentives, implementation of new technologies in schools and universities to favour Canadian books, and bookstore policies that honour independent bookstores as they do in Quebec where schools, libraries and other government institutions can only purchase their books from accredited retailers.

Without creative, bold measures implemented at the federal and provincial level, Canadian book publishing is doomed to continue to fade as mergers such as the one between Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster dominate our literary landscape.

Like you, I hanker for a delicious meal in a first-rate restaurant, but what I care about more is the resuscitation of the unique book culture authors, publishers and booksellers built brick by brick in this country from 1970 until the handover of McClelland & Stewart to Random House. As we begin to emerge from the pandemic, it’s time for new beginnings.

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