How You Dream

 All life should be a Palm Beach

With perpetual sunshine,

Where goals are all within reach

And high spirits are so fine.

The Palm fronds would be waving,

The sea an azure blue,

Every picture worth saving

Therein the wisest clue:

The you can be eternal

It’s in how you dream…

In summer, spring, hibernal

You’ll have high AgeEsteem.

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

Sowing Happiness of Age Esteem

 Hurrying is worrying if you don’t

Take time to live!

Living means giving every moment

A kind of “sieve”:

Sifting our bad habits which make

Old age a chore,

Lifting up your spirits and spreading

Joy galore –

Growing ever brighter and with

Shining inner beams –

Sowing seeds of happiness

Through your Age Esteem.

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

Let Your Inner Garden Grow 

Be Merry Merry

Not Contrary

Let your inner garden grow.

Be very VERY

Sure to carry

Your flowering buds aglow.

With verbal blooms

In friendly rooms

And bouquets bright as beams.

Dig out the weeds

Of old age needs

And plant your new esteem!

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

Life’s Stitches

I am much older but it seems

I feel better (bolder) through Age Esteem –

Going on with hope and daring,

Holding on to friends by caring.

If this continues to the end

All of Life’s stitches I would mend

And I’d have sewn my ragged days

Into patchworked finer ways!

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

When You Wake Up

When you wake up in the morning

And the new day is just dawning,

Instead of wasting time by yawning

Decide that it is time to try

To keep your mind from going dry:

(There still are so many fish to fry!)

So up you go, and start by smiling

At whoever’s phone you’re dialing

(It’s NOT hard to be beguiling!)

Life is like a flowing stream

Rippling days with Age Esteem!

Written for AgeEsteem® by Alexandra Taylor

Happy Alone

I have a small magnet “poem”

On the wall of my kitchen:

“To be happy at home

Is the ultimate ambition!”

The message relayed is to be happy alone

Even if your family and friends have all gone.

Life is so filled with activities:

Holidays, Birthday, Festivities…

But they only play just a part of the goal,

The best thing to turn to is your inner soul!

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

Thank You For A New Year

 Many thanks are in keeping

For the Festive days ahead,

And for all the harvests reaping

The grains for our daily bread.

Thanks for the chance of growing older

And for the blessings in each day.

Thank you for the shine which gets golder,

Brightening spirits, come what may!

Thank you for another new year

Calling us to go ahead, full steam,

And courageously without fear,

Using all we’ve learned from Age Esteem!

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

Aging Blues

December!

Remember

The things you have to do.

Next year

(Nearly here!)

a time to start anew.

Be clear

Don’t fear

A kind of “Aging Blues.”

Life’s Dear,

Hear? Hear!

It’s special, just like You.

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

Thank You! 

Thank You, and you, and you, and you,

For friendships old and friendships new,

For those to love in myriad ways,

For lessons learned and festive days,

For Health and Happiness galore,

For Earth’s rich bounty, and much more,

For songs to learn and ones once sung

For growing old while feeling young!

Thanks for having time to live,

Finding verbal gifts to give.

Written by Alexandra Taylor for AgeEsteem®

More Dr. Shigeaki Honohara’s, 101 years, (See blogs Nov. 23 & 24)

Advice for a Long, Healthy Life = Tips for Age Esteem

* To stay healthy, always take the stairs and carry your own stuff. I take two stairs at a time, to get my muscles moving.

* My inspiration is Robert Browning’s poem “Abt Vogler.” My father used to read it to me. It encourages us to make big art, not small scribbles. It says to try to draw a circle so huge that there is no way we can finish it while we are alive. All we see is an arch; the rest is beyond our vision but it is there in the distance.

* Pain is mysterious, and having fun is the best way to forget it. If a child has a toothache, and you start playing a game together, he or she immediately forgets the pain. Hospitals must cater to the basic need of patients: We all want to have fun. At St. Luke’s we have music and animal therapies, and art classes.

* Don’t be crazy about amassing material things.Remember: You don’t know when your number is up, and you can’t take it with you to the next place.

* Hospitals must be designed and prepared for major disasters, and they must accept every patient who appears at their doors. We designed St. Luke’s so we can operate anywhere: in the basement, in the corridors, in the chapel. Most people thought I was crazy to prepare for a catastrophe, but on March 20, 1995, I was unfortunately proven right when members of the Aum Shinrikyu religious cult launched a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway. We accepted 740 victims and in two hours figured out that it was sarin gas that had hit them. Sadly we lost one person, but we saved 739 lives.

* Science alone can’t cure or help people. Science lumps us all together, but illness is individual. Each person is unique, and diseases are connected to their hearts. To know the illness and help people, we need liberal and visual arts, not just medical ones.

* Life is filled with incidents. On March 31, 1970, when I was 59 years old, I boarded the Yodogo, a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka . It was a beautiful sunny morning, and as Mount Fuji came into sight, the plane was hijacked by the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. I spent the next four days handcuffed to my seat in 40-degree heat. As a doctor, I looked at it all as an experiment and was amazed at how the body slowed down in a crisis.

* Find a role model and aim to achieve even more than they could ever do. My father went to the United States in 1900 to study at Duke University in North Carolina . He was a pioneer and one of my heroes. Later I found a few more life guides, and when I am stuck, I ask myself how they would deal with the problem.

* It’s wonderful to live long. Until one is 60 years old, it is easy to work for one’s family and to achieve one’s goals. But in our later years, we should strive to contribute to society. Since the age of 65, I have worked as a volunteer. I still put in 18 hours seven days a week and love every minute of it.

These tips were sent to me in an e-mail concerning Dr. Hinohara. His advice also offers excellent tips for enhancing your age esteem.

Bonnie Fatio