Be 92. Or 3½. Or at least just act like it.

I will admit: I am not really all that old. I realize, it depends mostly on from which direction on a chronological timeline you’re looking, but my point is that I don’t usually have a self-image of oldness.

Nevertheless, there seem to be some fairly universal lateral changes in the quality of interface with the world that become apparent to most adults as they rack up a handful of decades, give or take.

Our good friend Bill stops by once a month or so to take Jeff out to lunch. Lately, he looks out the back kitchen windows at the five birdfeeders I’ve got stocked with seed, and says something akin to: “I can’t believe how much I’m into birds now. And plants. I find this very disturbing.” Bill recalls being aware, in decades past, of how this partiality to birds connoted aged person and how he, at the time, forswore such a future, but now reckons it was inevitable.

This was fresh in my mind last week when I sat down to knit the finishing rows into a hat. (Hats are what I’ve been working on lately. I invariably start off having committed some kind of planning error, such that the finished product would be unviable, could it even progress that far. I either misgauge the size, or don’t factor the right multiple of stitches for the pattern I intend to use, or--in a spectacular mistake that I didn’t notice until 2 inches in--I let the row spiral around the circular needles, creating an unstraightenable helix instead of the leading edge of a stocking cap. Just now I spontaneously switched to a rib pattern based on 5’s, forgetting that I’d cast on 72. Not a match.) But, back to the aforementioned hat which I did, in fact, complete. I sat down to complete it in a rocking chair. And I chuckled at myself, because it felt so good. Almost sensual, in fact, to be relaxed, sitting in a rocker, and knitting.

Without a doubt, I have the foibles of aging more in the forefront of my everyday thoughts than the average not-quite-50 year old. All I need to do is look at the adaptations I am continually making in dressing Jeff. Today he has on his new pull-on Sperrys, a t-shirt, and a half-zip pullover. The pullover is new. I grabbed a couple at Kohl’s thinking this might be a good step away from button-down shirts which can be buttoned in any number of interesting and askew configurations if lining things up properly is not in one’s skill set. The problem with the pullover is that it hangs a little long. This means that Jeff keeps noticing the bottom edge and being inspired to curtsy. So far, he has demonstrated curtsies to Olivia about 5 times and Becca maybe twice. This, therefore, may not turn out to be the perfect solution to dressing ease, but I’m always on the lookout for new ideas.