Monday Moment - Different Worlds

I’ve often found great pleasure in hanging out with people who are older and also with people who are younger than I. Over the weekend I had both opportunities.

On Saturday, we were invited to share an evening and a meal with three other couples we know mostly through sailing and Halloween. Most of these folks have a few years on us – though you wouldn’t really know it. All are active sailors, most also downhill ski, and all are game to act like a kid on Halloween.

Conversation topics ranged. Upcoming ski trips, past and anticipated travel. Stories about our various canine friends. Early college days when poverty was a common experience. Kids – where they lived and what they did. The excitement of meeting up with old friends at a 50th class reunion. We discovered that two of the guys were former gymnasts – surely an unusual occurrence in such a small gathering. Several of us were self-employed and we found similar health insurance concerns with those who have already retired or who have embarked on a second career. And of course we re-lived our recent Halloween triumphs.

As I listened, I was intrigued by the experience and good will of the gathering. Here were folks I could learn from and enjoy – and their take on the world was ever so slightly different than mine because they experienced the world a few years before I.

The very next night, I shared an experience with a far younger crowd. Ray’s son invited us to join him and a friend at a concert by one of his favorite musical groups, The Decemberists. Because we’ve taken him up on similar invitations before, we now know to expect talent. It’s nearly always talent that we’d never discover on our own – but that has the power to fascinate the youth inside our older bodies.

Last night’s concert was enormous fun. The music was tuneful and engaging. And the student crowd in Cornell’s barn of a field house were terrific fun to watch – the array of outfits, the consistent cell phone glow, the happy un-self-conscious dancing to jaunty melodies. It was clear that this crowd’s take on the world was also different than mine. We occupy different corners of that world – most of the time.

The experiences on Saturday and Sunday evenings couldn’t have been more different. One was refined, sophisticated, with the authenticity of folks who have learned to feel completely at home in their own skin. The other vibrated with youthful, contagious energy that invited even a couple old fogies to jump on board. One was rich in conversation, the other rich in creativity.

All in all, it’s hard to imagine a more enjoyable – or educational – weekend. Here’s hoping you had similar enlightening and re-creating experiences on your weekend – or that you have them planned for the week ahead!

Sally