What you want

Today's picture: Bags of basmati rice at Par Ganj market in New Delhi, taken on my last day in India this spring. Lots more food vendors here than in Chandni Chowk. Veggies spread out under tents, but so many flies, and hot. Vendors sitting among their mangoes and everything else. I like how they are sitting on what look like old tins of olive oil. That is so India. In making do, appearance becomes special. Basmati is a staple and it was good: light and a toothy texture. I haven't bought it yet here, but in the fall I'll try some Indian dishes to keep us warm.

Talked to my mother-in-law this evening, who related the slightly sad story of a very dear friend who is living in an assisted living community. Joanne, mom's friend, had not wanted to leave her home of 50 years, but clearly couldn't keep living there either.

Joanne had a stroke a few years ago, and, as you can imagine, her health didn't improve much. She's overweight, widowed and, after the stroke isolated. But she's hale enough not to need to be in a nursing home.

Joanne's story made me think of how passively some people lead their lives, always waiting for something to happen, for someone to help them. Joanne had my mother-in-law as a friend because they were neighbors who had babies at the same time. They stayed in touch after Mom moved (not far) and were part of a larger extended family of neighbors and friends. Yet Joanne still managed to be isolated after her husband's death. She seemed to have no skills for active socializing. Neighbors became friends, but that had nothing to do with any initial effort on her part.

When her husband was still alive and their kids were grown, their leisure activity was to go on cruises and eat a lot. A lot. Ray was tremendously overweight.

I'm sure they enjoyed the vacations, but I never remember hearing anything else from Mom about them except that they went on cruises.

Everyone ages differently. My mother-in-law still travels to family reunions, walks at the mall, has friends from church and from the old neighborhoods (like Joanne). She lives alone but close to my sister-in-law. Tends to mention people who have died a little more than I'd like to hear when we visit, but that happens when you get old. She does have her limits. At 79, she won't travel by plane anymore, though she talks about how she'd like to visit Europe again.

So between two women, you have different paths, though even Mom, I think, is of a generation whose members didn't push, because it was unseemly. You accepted whatever answer you were given and that was that. I'm generalizing, I'm sure, but I wonder if the Boomer generation, with its "Don't trust anyone over 30" mantra may have long ago been on to something. I don't entirely agree with the lack of respect for authority implied in that mantra, but I do believe more and more as I grow older that things that our elders would have taken on faith were set in stone don't necessarily have to be.

It's funny to be writing about what Mom had to say. This afternoon, Carl and I went to see "Julie & Julia." And Julia Child turns out to be just the kind of woman and wife who wouldn't settle for just being a wife, or just a woman without any passions. She didn't set out to be a great cook, but she wanted to do SOMETHING and in searching for what interested her, she fell in love with cooking. But she did the searching. She didn't wait for that passion to come to her.

After the movie, we stopped at Mitchell's Fish Market for drinks and appetizers. Carl wanted Oysters Rockefeller, recently taken off the menu (at a seafood restaurant? Why?!?) and was grousing.

"Why don't you just ask if they'll make them for you?" I told him. He did, and the chef did.

So how hard is it to go after what you want? You just have to know that you can.