Nancy Rhine, MS, LMFT, CPG

I have long found this list of emotions – nouns and adjectives – very helpful. So many of us were not brought up to give our emotions much attention let alone encouragement to describe or communicate about them.

It can be evocative to have a list of a full palette of feelings with which to develop a more finely tuned thought process, ability to understand ourselves and ability to communicate.

For instance, here are the “A”‘s through “B”‘s:

• absorbed
• abusive
• accepting
• accommodating
• accomplished
• adaptable
• adversarial
• aggressive
• agreeable
• alert
• altruistic
• analytical
• angry
• annoyed
• antagonistic
• anxious
• approved of
• arrogant
• ashamed
• authentic
• balanced
• beautiful
• belligerent
• bereft
• bitter
• bored
• brave
• broken down
• bullied

Click here to see the rest Emotions & Feelings – A List of Choices

Recently I discovered a remarkable new online tool for locating and matching the best Marin senior housing options for each individual. It’s called Lucille’s List.

Lucille’s List was started by two partners, Tia Small and Hilary Parkhill, who had experienced their own personal struggles with finding the best housing options for their loved ones. It was such a frustrating experience for them that they began to realize that “something better could be done for all people looking for senior housing.”

In 2009, the two women joined forces to found “Lucille’s List”. They have spent countless hours researching and organization the latest information on resources available to older adults in Marin.

Lucille’s List is committed to:

• helping seniors find appropriate living situations,
• listing housing options regardless of socio-economic status, and
• providing the most comprehensive listings of senior communities.

This is a free and user-friendly service. The initial version of Lucille’s List has information and photographs on all:

• 55+ Active Adult communities,
• Senior Apartments,
• Senior Mobile Home Parks,
• aging in place Villages,
• Continuing Care Retirement Communities,
• Low-Income/Subsidized options,
• Assisted Living, and
• Skilled Nursing Facilities inMarin County,CA.

Soon to follow will be the entire San Francisco Bay Area

What a welcome and valuable addition to tools for older adults and their families in MarinCounty!

BABY BOOMERS & OLDER ADULTS – WORKING LONGER

More and more older people are continuing to work. In the last 4 1/2 years, the number of people 65 and older who are working has increased by 1.4 million – a huge increase of 25%. People are staying healthier longer – Americans reaching age 65 can expect to live to an average of 83 for men and 85 for women. So, people are working longer partly because they want to and partly because they feel financially squeezed since the Great Recession. Read this very interesting and informative essay from the NY Times: “Working Late, By Choice or Not”.

Many of us are hoping and planning to “age in place”, i.e. to stay living at home as long as we can. Most of us probably would prefer never to move into a retirement community or nursing home. However, this sobering report from NPR shows that we have a lot to consider in our decision-making.  There are no easy answers – for ourselves, or our families.  Discovering the True Cost of At-Home Caregiving .

The 2012 Aging & Disability Technology Summit, which takes place from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 15 at City Hall in San Francisco, will serve up a bevy of technology information and resources for seniors, people with disabilities and their caregivers.

There is no cost to attend. You must pre-register though. Register here.

For those of you who are interested in computer training and support for seniors, persons with disabilities and their caregivers, this conference will be a valuable resource for you. A wide range of interesting workshops and presentations will be featured on how to take advantage of the benefits of online resources. You can also see how our sister county is working to empower older and/or disabled citizens and caregivers.

For instance:

• The Summit kicks off a city-wide program of free Internet access and training for seniors and adults with disabilities.
• Touch-screen computers will be installed in 50 San Francisco non-profit community centers serving these populations.
• Free, multi-lingual classes and tutoring will be offered by trained volunteers.

The Summit is being sponsored by the Mayor’s Office of San Francisco, the Department of Aging and Adult Services, the Department of Technology and the Community Living Campaign. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee will welcome attendees and the event is hosted by Belva Davis from KQED and Dave Clark from KTVU.

If you are unable to attend in person, you can participate online via live video streaming at SFGovTV starting at 9 a.m. on Tuesday May 15.

Some of the very useful topics featured in this conference will include:

• Finding Reliable Health Information Online
• Connecting Caregivers to Digital Support
• The Digital Divide: Addressing Multiple Barriers
• The Science of Brain Fitness
• Staying Connected for a Good Life
• Beginning Genealogy
• Protecting Your Privacy Online
• Finding and Buying the Right Computer for You
• Finding Employment and Volunteer Opportunities Online

A side note: One of the nonprofit organizers of this event is the Community Living Campaign (CLC). The CLC is part of a nation-wide “aging in place” groundswell movement sweeping the country. We in Marin can watch and learn from their successes and mistakes as we strive to empower our own older and/or disabled adults here. In their own words, this is part of how the CLC describes their mandate:

“So where does the Community Living Campaign (CLC) fit in?  We know that the challenges ahead are daunting, as the number of San Franciscans growing older with chronic conditions and disabilities is escalating.   Because of the high cost of living and the stalled economy, many now are living alone with family far away. Family members and neighborhood leaders are looking to give those they care about the ability to have a good life while they age in place. Giving individuals this choice will only be possible with a huge, grass-roots effort to mobilize financial and social capital in service of this goal. Building public awareness, strengthening relationships and building kind and just communities is at the heart of the Community Living Campaign’s efforts.”

I hope you have a chance to attend the conference either at San Francisco’s beautiful City Hall or online.

A few weeks ago, I attended the first monthly Commission on Aging meeting I had been able to attend in over a year. The April COA meeting featured Marin County’sArea Agency on Aging’s quadrennial report on life for older adults in Marin called “Live Long, Live Well”, focused on the years 2012-2016.

The report is chocked full of fascinating demographics gathered from public and government statistics alphabolin as well as a local survey answered by 891 Marin citizens. For instance, while the overall population of Marin County is fairly static, the % change in population of persons 60 and over increased by 40% between 2000 and 2010. It is projected to increase another 27% between 2010 and 2020. The number of citizens 60 years and older in 2010 was 61,454.

Marin’s population is the oldest in the Bay Area. The oldest community in Marin is Dillon Beach. 30% of Marin’s 65+ population lives alone.  73% of renters 65+ live alone. More than half of all senior renters living alone in Marin are trying to survive on incomes below the Elder Index. The Elder Index is an adjusted Federal Poverty Level Index that takes into account the actual cost of living in any particular locality.

The slides outline information on many topics in an easy to read and understand format. Topics include overall health and specific medical conditions in our older population, employment and retirement statistics, gender differences in labor force distribution (more older women are working), the race/ethnicity of the 891 survey respondents, nutritional health, top activities, mobility, use of technology, access to caregivers and perceptions of quality of life.

The top three Issues and Concerns expressed by respondents were unemployment (27%), getting services (25%) and Abuse (23%).  The top 5 sources of information when searching for services are Word of Mouth, Marin IJ, Internet, Senior Centers and Whistlestop. 1 out of every 4 respondents are caregivers. The priority areas of concern moving forward are to improve access to services, resources and information; to find local and community-based solutions to address needs; and to improve the effectiveness of the existing services system. The Division of Aging and Adult Services is doing its best to stretch the budget dollars it has to address these issues.

For more information, you can view the slide presentation Area Plan on Aging 2012 – 2016

The Pew Research Center has just published a comprehensive new report called  “Digital Differences – While increased internet adoption and the rise of mobile connectivity have reduced many gaps in technology access over the past decade, for some groups digital disparities still remain.”

Here are some interesting quotes pertaining to use of the Internet by adults 65 and over:

“Yet even groups that have persistently had the lowest access rates have still seen significant increases over the past decade. In 2000, for instance, we found that there existed “a pronounced ‘gray gap’ as young people go online and seniors shun the internet. Adults age 65 and older are still significantly less likely to use the internet than other groups, but now 41% of them use the internet. In 2000, over five times as many adults under 30 used the internet as did adults 65 and older, but as of 2011 young adults’ adoption levels are only a little over twice that of the 65-and-over age group.”

And…

“Though one of the newer online activities the Pew Internet Project studies, as of 2011 social networking sites are used by 65% of all internet users—half of all American adults. Among internet users, we see a very strong correlation in use with age, as some 87% of internet users under 30 use these sites, compared with less than a third (29%) of those 65 and older. However, though their overall numbers are still relatively low, older adults have represented one of the fastest-growing segments of the social networking site-using population. This growth may be driven by several factors, some of which include the ability to reconnect with people from the past, find supporting communities to deal with a chronic disease, and connect with younger generations. “

To read the full report, click here. 

Personal historian and award-winning documentarian Dan Curtis has a very interesting blog. Based on his many years of work recording life stories, he assembled a list of 50 questions to inspire people to start talking about their lives and to share their stories. The top 10 questions are:

1. If you could do one thing over in your life, what would it be?
2. What makes  you happy?
3. Looking back on your life, what do you regret?
4. What do you believe to be true?
5. What is the secret to a happy life?
6. What do you believe happens to us after we die?
7. Who’s had the greatest influence on your life and why?
8. What are the qualities that you admire in your friends?
9. What is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do?
10. How would you describe yourself?

To read the rest of Dan’s list click here. 

THE DAKINI SPEAKS
by Jennifer Welwood

My friends, let’s grow up.
Let’s stop pretending we don’t know the deal here.
Or if we truly haven’t noticed, let’s wake up and notice.

Look: everything that can be lost, will be lost.
It’s simple–how could we have missed it for so long?
Let’s grieve our losses fully, like ripe human beings,
But please, let’s not be so shocked by them.
Let’s not act so betrayed,
As though life had broken her secret promise to us.

Impermanence is life’s only promise to us,
And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability.

To a child she seems cruel, but she is only wild,
And her compassion is exquisitely precise:
Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth,
She strips away the unreal to show us the real.
This is the true ride — let’s give ourselves to it!

Let’s stop making deals for a safe passage:
There isn’t one anyway, and the cost is too high.

We are not children any more.
The true human adult gives everything for what cannot be lost.
Let’s dance the wild dance of no hope!