This French Pianist Has Been Playing For 102 Years And Just Released A New Album
Eleanor Beardsley visits with French pianist Colette Maze.
Maze, born on June 16, 1914, says her mother was severe and unloving. So she turned to music for the affection she lacked at home.
“I always preferred composers who gave me tenderness,” she says. “Like [Robert] Schumann and [Claude] Debussy. Music is an affective language, a poetic language. In music there is everything — nature, emotion, love, revolt, dreams; it’s like a spiritual food.”
At 101, she’s still hauling lobsters with no plans to stop
“The oldest lobster fisher in the state and possibly the oldest one in the world, [Virginia] Oliver still faithfully tends to her traps off Rockland, Maine, with her 78-year-old son Max.”
I have a personal interest in this story. My in-laws grew up in Rockland, Maine. If they were alive today, they’d be 107 and 108. I wonder if they would have known Virginia Oliver.
Why You Need to Forget Stuff
“Forgetting names and faces can be annoying—but it’s critical for our brains to function at their best, a new book argues.”
We joke, and then worry, when we notice ourselves beginning to forget names and such things. This article discusses a new book, Forgetting: The Benefits of Not Remembering, by Scott Small, “who studies and treats Alzheimer’s disease at Columbia University.” Small believes that “some amount of forgetfulness is critical for our minds and relationships to function at their best.”
For older adults, isolation can lead to overwhelming loneliness
Researchers have known for quite some time now that older adults are vulnerable to loneliness as their contact with family and friends decreases because of deaths and their own diminishing mobility. This problem was heightened during pandemic isolation:
The effects of social isolation during the pandemic have hit all ages — some studies, for example, show teens have fared worse than other groups — but older adults already were a population vulnerable to loneliness. And for many, the pandemic was the first time they felt deep, sustained loneliness. It’s a feeling that can impact physical health, creating greater risk for some illnesses and hospitalizations; and mental health, potentially exacerbating symptoms of or leading to clinical disorders such as depression.
Here’s a report from The Mental Health Project, a Seattle Times initiative focused on covering mental and behavioral health issues.
At risk of dementia? Brain scan shows when you might develop symptoms, study says
This article reports on research published recently in the journal Neurology that may help “researchers determine an estimated timeline of symptom onset” of dementia.
While some people may not want to know when they’ll start to forget friends’ names or have difficulty calculating change at the grocery store, others, particularly those with genetic predispositions for dementia, could benefit from having time to prepare for the inevitable changes.
What Your Poop Can Tell You About Your Health
Even before I got to be one myself, I noticed that older adults sometimes seem obsessed with the state of their intestines. So OK, I’m just putting this article out there.
© 2021 by Mary Daniels Brown
Retreading for Retirement 