Author: Fran Johns

America Collection/General interest
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Aging’s Best Kept Secret

by Fran Johns

THE ENTIRE THING COMES DOWN TO JUST ONE SINGLE WORD

Photo by Joshua Woroniecki on Unsplash

Enough.

That’s the word — so you needn’t read any farther if you’re in a hurry. But of course hurrying isn’t great for successful aging either. Calm is. Kindness is. Today’s word, however, is the oft-ignored secret.

When one passes 90 — as I did, ahem, several years ago — one starts getting these What’s your secret questions, as if age somehow brought wisdom and the answers to all of the world’s queries. Spoiler alert: it does not. It does, however, bring teeny little insights and this is one — 

Just about the best thing in the world for your blood pressure, heart rate, brain cells and general physiology is the sense of Enough. This day is enough, this latte and peanut butter cookie are enough, this quiet moment in the middle of universal angst is enough.

I didn’t wake up with a light bulb over my head on this; I simply began to recognize the general sufficiency, the enough-ness of things.

For instance. I love traveling and exploring, especially hiking out-of-the-way trails, visiting museums and galleries and the British Library, cities in general. One day I reflected upon the reality that I will never hike the Himalayas, or visit Sidney or Reykjavik — and that is perfectly okay. I’ve had some glorious times at the Musée d’Orsay, wandering around Shanghai and St. Petersburg or awestruck by the beauty of Iguaçu Falls. Enough.

It doesn’t indicate The End! I’m currently looking forward to a return trip to ruggedly beautiful Cornwall soon, including a visit to my favorite museum in the U.K. (apologies to numerous second-favorites) the Tate St Ives. I’ll be taking some of my husband’s ashes back to the land of his ancestors, who worked in the mines for generations — that’s likely to be another essay. Enough, though, simply means it’s good, all is well, breathe. Be grateful.

The arts are a category all their own. One problem with living in San Francisco, at least as a nonagenarian, is that you just can’t do it all. For decades I delighted in the SF Contemporary Music Players, SFJazz, Cal Performances and our multiple marvelous museums and galleries. I do still subscribe to the two San Francisco Symphony seats husband Bud had worked his way into (Second Row, Right Terrace, directly above the bass section) because it would just feel traitorous to let them go. But two friends now split the series with me, divvying up the twelve performances. It’s enough. And whenever I find an hour or two to hang out at MoMA or one of the other great museums I still support it feels like a glorious gift; I do not meditate on the recent show I totally missed.

Nonagenarianism is, IMHO, a good time to forgive oneself for roads not taken and opportunities passed up — meanwhile counting the blessings of remaining activities without dipping into either sorrowful or smug.

The one exception to all of the above, In My further Humble Opinion, is the writing game. If one happens to love writing better than eating (and I’m not even getting started on San Francisco’s dining scene, intimate knowledge of which was de rigueur in years past,) there are never enough hours in the day to finish whatever literary projects are underway. There are always too many essays to work on, books and articles still in progress, letters (despite the computer having largely replaced the cursive) to be written, stamped & mailed, and occasional social media commentaries waiting to be posted. Because, after all, there’s still this astonishing, bewildering, challenging, intriguing, enchanting thing called life going on. Day after day.

Which is enough.

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Because WordPress has become bewildering, I am most often on Substack these days, where you’re welcome to become a free subscriber (or just to visit whenever: https://franmorelandjohns.substack.com)

America Collection
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On Outliving Your Friends

by Fran Johns

How to cope with loss upon loss? What do you do about shrinking Friend Lists?

(Author photo)

My friend Carol (above) went to the E.R. late the other night after another fall. I sent her off with a heavy red sweatshirt and a good book but without my company; there are limits to friendship at 11:30 PM. She’s back now, with nothing but praise for the Kaiser E.R. staff; also with a brace to help the fractured vertebra heal and the makings of a doozy of a black eye that’s going to be with her for a while.

So I’m not losing Carol any time soon, I trust. This is good.

But I lost sleep thinking about her, and other friends in other hospitals and hospices and stages of decline. Almost without exception they are younger than I am, a detail that does not go unnoticed by anyone, especially my nonagenarian self.

In the past few months I’ve bid farewell to four longtime friends. Another, two years past her diagnosis with Bulbar ALS (I wrote about that recently) is talking with her family about the approaching date on which she will use California’s legal Medical Aid in Dying.

Another friend who plans to use the CA law obtained his life-ending medications (you must be a terminally ill, mentally competent adult to qualify for the law) about a year ago. Then he defied the odds, and his cancer, by staying alive. That’s the best part about “terminal” illness and nonagenarianism both: you can read statistics all day long but there’s only one you. 

Losing friends is tough at any age, but when you hit the 80s and 90s it can wear you down. So I offer three pieces of advice from a lofty, elderly viewpoint:

  1. Don’t let go. Being sick and dying, especially the dying thing, can be lonely business. Show up if you can, whether or not you know what to say. You don’t have to say a word beyond, “I wanted to be here.” If you can’t show up, send word. Call, text, send cards and notes. Drawings, pressed flowers, emails, one small sticker on a postcard. Care.
  2. Adopt. Specifically, a few people a few decades younger than you. No legal formalities required, just find some available young people and focus your interest and energies on getting to know them. Ask about their interests, joys, problems. Have them over for pizza. Send them texts and emojis, even things with actual stamps on them. Getting to know younger generations is eye-opening fun — and they’re not likely to up and die on you tomorrow. (With my kids and grandkids all over the globe I have an entire, ever-expanding West Coast Family.)
  3. Count your blessings. Then pay them forward. Reach out to survivors in days & weeks after a loss. Support causes the departed supported. Redouble any good works you’ve been doing in his or her honor. Be kind. If the world’s a little worse for their loss, make it a little better.

The thing that matters most about losing friends is what you do in remembering them. Some day others may remember you with kindness.

*. *. *

(I’m returning to WordPress in fits & starts; thanks for dropping by. While I struggle with this platform and my aged WordPress account I’m finding that Substack is easier and friendlier. You may find other writers there whom you enjoy, and you can always follow them for free — including The Optimistic Eye, which is my official franmorelandjohns Substack.)

America Collection/General interest
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On Being “A Writer for The Atlantic”

by Fran Johns

How to handle seeing my own words on these pages?

The bottom line? I have become officially insufferable.

I mean, I’ve had stories and essays in a lot of fine publications over the years of my long and happy career. But The Atlantic? Nahh, never going to happen. Yet there it is.

Up until now the pinnacle of my literary success was reached a few years ago when my Brooklyn lawyer friend Peter Flemming, with whom I had a running competition for most letters published in the New York Times, was going over fact-checks with a Times editor. He mentioned our competition to the editor who replied, “Oh, Fran — she’s one of our regulars.” Which, I had thought ever since, would be on my tombstone if I were planning to have such a thing (unfortunately, I am not.)

But now here is my byline, right smack on the same e-page with the byline of Anne Applebaum. Eliot Cohen. Hua Hsu and Jason Liebowitz. If that’s not literary validation I don’t know what is. They may not be writing home about being on the same page with Fran Moreland Johns; I get that. But they probably don’t have Big Head issues either.

I have Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to thank for all this. The idea that I would ever thank RFKJr for ANYthing other than his retirement from public view is nothing short of ludicrous. The man is a threat to humankind. Evil doesn’t even begin to cover it, IMHO.

I said as much in a letter to The Atlantic in response to their excellent cover story (that piece was by Michael Scherer, but who’s name-dropping?) on RFKJr. In the same inbox with a message saying they would be running my letter was an email from an Atlanticeditor, my new best friend Adrienne, asking if I’d be interested in writing an expanded essay on the subject. Took me about seven seconds to hit Reply.

And thus began one of the happiest writing experiences of my literary life. I was asked almost apologetically if the fee would be sufficient — please don’t tell them I’d have done it for $25; later when I apologized on my own behalf for ineptitude with the online reimbursement forms I received an immediate response from an actual person telling me everybody had issues with those forms and that he enjoyed my description of them.

Over the several weeks of writing/editing/etc — these folks fact check their fact checkers — whenever I’d get a copy of something checked or edited its subject head would say things like “Your wonderful article.” I’m thinking of collaging and framing these.

I still haven’t seen my article in print, other than the page proofs (above.) Those of us in the dying breed of print magazine readers still don’t really believe anything until we see it on an actual piece of paper. But surely The Atlantic won’t change its mind and pull my article before the print edition goes in the mail?

Now if only Robert F. Kennedy, Jr were smart enough to read The Atlantic.

America Collection/General interest
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Optimism Is Still Alive and Well

by Fran Johns

Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s an expert making the case

Photo by Ahmed Zayan on Unsplash

If anyone’s noticed, this space has been quiet for many weeks thanks to some website glitch I understand about as well as I understand neuroscience. A very tech-smart friend has been working on it, doing things I also absolutely do not understand. But as it seems to be working for a while I thought I’d try posting this, which recently went up on my Substack, The Optimistic Eye. Hope you enjoy it.

* * *

We are not alone, we battered optimists of the world!

Within our ranks is none other than economist Yuval Atsmon, Senior Partner and Chief Financial Officer of McKinsey & Co. Atsmon, who is based in London, “advises companies on strategy and growth-led transformations, and leads McKinsey’s global finance function,” which one understands if one is in the rarefied universe of multinational management consulting. Mostly what this writer knows of the distinguished Mr. Atsmon is that he formerly lived and worked in China, and writes frequently about AI — neither of which would seem to be foundationally optimistic. But he is.

My also wise friend Mary Trigiani, who speaks Art, Italian and Management (check out her Substack) posts compilations of worthwhile articles for her business-oriented followers. Her latest included Atsmon’s article “The case for optimism in uncertain times,” and The Optimistic Eye simply could not resist. The entire article (actually meant for financial gurus and not for the likes of this right-brained writer) is linked for your reading enjoyment; but a few universal takeaway excerpts follow.

These times could hardly be less certain. We have an incompetent president miring us ever deeper in an un-thought war that is wreaking global havoc. An administration turning its back on climate change, healthcare and people in need and Lauren Sanchez-Bezos on front pages with her campaign for Most Photographed Bosom. The only certainties sometimes seem cause for pessimism. Still — 

“When the world feels this uncertain,” Atsmon writes, “optimism can look like denial. But that depends on how broadly you frame the past and future.”

Maybe that’s half the battle. If we simply frame the past and the future more broadly, it brings the present down to manageable size. Atsmon argues that the long arc of progress indicates our “capacity to solve problems and expand what is possible has consistently outpaced our ability to foresee the future.” A future in which Donald Trump is only a comedic footnote and may it soon be so.

“It is sensible, then,” Atsmon continues, “to assume that the future will continue to be shaped by breakthroughs we cannot yet imagine. Critically, believing this is vital to making that future unfold.”

By this point, I was hooked. I am a believer.

In the long arc of history, Atsmon’s arguments could apply to far more than business management. Economics, global health, climate change, even politics. Bad news can be here today . . . but gone tomorrow, and with something better the next day.

Atsmon explains that this is not just about having a sunshiny disposition or ignoring reality, or even a matter of the “low probability” business. “Buying a lottery ticket and believing you’ll win the big prize is harmless; betting everything on winning is not.” But he points out that pessimism isn’t any great alternative:

“An old tale illustrates this: A thief sentenced to death by a tyrannical king makes a bizarre proposal to teach the king’s favorite horse to sing a hymn within a year in exchange for his life. Asked why he made such an absurd promise, the thief answers, “A lot can happen in a year. The king may die or lose power, the horse may die, or the horse may sing.” And any of these outcomes beats certain death.

A lot can still happen in 2026. The Democrats may win Congress, King Trump may lose his hold on the Republican Party, horses may sing. By the 2030s, sanity and clean energy may be returning. In the 2040s I do not plan to be around, but my guess is that the planet will be.

“Optimism oriented toward a longer time horizon,” Yuval Atsmon argues, “is valuable and fundamental… Long-term optimism is not just descriptive, it’s generative: it helps to shape a better future by motivating the search for solutions.”

Let’s hear it for optimism, long-term and short. Thanks, Yuval Atsmon.

America Collection/General interest
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How to Sleep Tight, All Night 

by Fran Johns

WHY IS EVERYONE (ELSE) HAVING INSOMINIA PROBLEMS?

Photo by DON RANASINGHE on Unsplash

What’s with all these stories about insomnia? I feel as if every time I open up my laptop there’s another piece about someone having trouble sleeping.

I went looking for what’s keeping us up nights.

Maybe it’s the total chaos we wake up to? Snowstorms and firestorms and windstorms? Maybe we’re all getting older? Nahh, couldn’t be.

In any event, I sleep like a baby. So I decided to go public with the answers to insomnia. Herewith:

Weighted blanket. Just take my word for it. Or read one of those surveys about how they relieve anxieties and calm your aches and pains. (As long as you’re older than two; don’t weight down your two-year-old please.)

Forewarning: The rest of these solutions should be read in light of the fact that I lost my sleeping partner seven years ago; the following might require partner buy-in. Since I still have the California King-size bed, though, that leaves room to strew books and magazines all over the duvet and still allow for the following: 

Food and drink. Cozy camomile tea is good for bedtime. But what if you feel hungry during one of those bathroom wake-up moments? (Taking bathroom breaks without really waking up is a learned skill. Work on it.) Still . . . I keep a glass of ginger beer on the bedside table just in case.

More food and drink. If a swig of ginger beer as you slide under the weighted blanket doesn’t do it, a few minutes of a good book and in-bed snack time generally work for me. To that end, along with the reading matter atop the duvet I keep a ziplok bag of peanut butter filled pretzels. Unfortunately I shared this information once with my dentist, Dr. Suezaki, who shook his head sadly from side to side and said, “No bueno.” Don’t discuss this with your dentist. No bueno will stick in your head and try to wake you up. We do what we have to do.

Dealing with the cares of the world. Even if you studiously avoid thinking about the news after three in the afternoon, the brain sometimes still kicks in. How to save democracy — a problem that can rarely be solved at three in the morning, can nevertheless be sublimated to worrying about problems closer at hand: a deadline looming on a job not even started, a leaky faucet you meant to fix, a letter un-written or email un-sent. Once you’ve reduced wakefulness to a personal level — 

Turn on the light. Did I warn you about partner buy-in? I think so. Once the anxiety bots are awake in your brain you go on counter-offensive. To this end I keep a pen and notepad handy so without rummaging around I can make a list. The list will include, item-by-item, everything I will get done first thing in the morning. This does not mean it ever really gets done; but the anxiety bots don’t know that because they’ve all been moved from your brain to that notepad. Five minutes later — 

Back to the blanket. Slide underneath, gently weighted back to sleep for the rest of your requisite eight hours. Possibly even sated with a few pretzels and a swig of ginger beer.

Please don’t tell Dr. Suezaki I wrote this.

America Collection/General interest
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AIDS: Victories and Sorrows

by Fran Johns

A PERSONAL STORY OF LOVE, LOSS & DISMAY ABOUT TODAY’S LEADERSHIP

Photo by Everton Vila on Unsplash

In the 1990s I led an HIV Support Group that was officially part of my church and comprised of an evershifting number of men I loved best of any motley crew I’ve ever known. They were of every known religion and degree of irreverence. Jim, the last surviving member of the clan, died of natural causes last year, having dodged AIDS along with his partner; partner Richard was lost to a freaky post-surgery accident more than a dozen years ago.

Every new disastrou healthcare headline reminds me of Jim.

Jim was the #1 source of my pandemic survival. Having lost my husband in 2019, not that long after Richard had died, the two of us found a spectacular anti-loneliness mechanism for negotiating those pandemic days . . . and eventually, years.

Mobility-challenged from a long-ago case of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, Jim was pretty much confined to the third floor apartment he and Richard had shared for decades. As it happened, their place was on one of the steepest blocks of San Francisco’s Mason Street, making its front window almost level with the sidewalk a few yards uphill. I would stand precariously on the sidewalk while he leaned out his window; he always promised to call 911 if I lost my balance so they could dredge the Bay for my body after it rolled downhill and into the waters.

To be confessionally honest, toward the end of the pandemic I did sneak inside a couple of times for us to remember what indoor face-to-face encounters had been like in days gone by. 

In those olden days Jim and I had witnessed the worst of the AIDS pandemic and, finally, its slow but eventual end. We remembered one longtime member of the AIDS Group who said, at what would be our last formal gathering, “I’ve spent more than a decade focusing on death; now I just want to focus on living for a while.”

That shift from death to life was thanks to development of antiretroviral therapies that slowly transformed HIV from a death sentence into a manageable chronic illness. It was work that required public and private cooperation and the dedicated efforts of local, state and national agencies. It led, eventually, to San Francisco’s being at the forefront of a global challenge to “Get to Zero” — zero new HIV cases, zero deaths and zero stigma. In three decades there has been almost uninterrupted progress toward this lofty but attainable goal.

The current administration has thrown everything into reverse.

Some $8 million have been stripped just from local agencies doing this humanitarian work. If you can look up the chain to the destruction of science-based agencies and communities all the way to the formerly unequalled CDC without tears you must be without a heart.

Our old HIV Group had one confirmed curmudgeon who regularly proclaimed there was no hope for himself or the world. Everybody else would find something that made that one day worth living and would wear ourselves out saying “C’mon, Tom. One day there’s going to be a cure. A vaccine. A treatment.” Tom died early on, angry and cursing fate as with so many young men who had good reaason to curse.

When Jim and I talked about those olden days, as we invariably did, we often joked about how Tom had been proven wrong, because vaccines and treatments were indeed on the way to eradicating the scourge of HIV-AIDS; and how Tom would’ve scoffed and said, “Just wait. Something’s going to screw it all up.” I sorely need a chance to joke around with Jim today.

So where, in this column that regularly looks for good news, is the good news for the future of American health?

“Don’t quote me,” said another old friend recently — so of course I’m quoting him, “but there are sane scientists everywhere who are just waiting out the ignoramuses in charge of our national health today. We’re still moving forward. Despite the tragic losses of the last year, science is still science and those of us comnitted to it are not going to give up. We’ll get to zero.” He teaches at a prestigious California university. He’s tenured. He believes most who have lost their good jobs will come back once U.S. healthcare gets back on track.

RIP Jim and Richard and Tom and so many beloved others. We’re on a dark detour but we’ll still Get To Zero.

America Collection/General interest
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Tips from a Master Storyteller

by Fran Johns

GEORGE SAUNDERS HAS A FEW GOOD WORDS FOR WRITERS (AND READERS)

Photo by Lê Tân on Unsplash

George Saunders’ interviewer led off with a semi-familiar quote: “People forget what you said, and they forget what you did, but they never forget how you made them feel.” Saunders makes you feel better about yourself, and the world in general.

Speaking to an overflow crowd in San Francisco while on tour with his new book, the renowned writer (Congratulations, by the Way; Lincoln in the Bardo and many others) and teacher (in the creative writing program of Syracuse University) stuck largely to discussion of his new novel, Vigil. Vaguely reminiscent of his Booker Prize winning reimagining of Lincoln’s struggle to accept the death of his young son, Saunders’ new novel takes place at the bedside of an oil tycoon en route from this world to the next.

But in almost throw-away comments during his recent talk were several gems worth sharing. The talented writer/teacher, whom you would imagine to be well in control of his thoughts, more than once spoke of “blurting out” something, and whether or not the writer can “trust that blurt.” What a literary comfort: the notion that the blurts we all have — sometimes rapid fire all day long — might be worth trusting.

I may steal another phrase from a passing commentary. Speaking of raising characters (and events) “to the highest level,” Saunders asserted there’s value even with unsavory characters being raised “to the highest level of jerkitude.” Jerkitude is everywhere today.

But it was the kindness factor this writer was listening for, and Saunders did not disappoint. In a recent New York Timesinterview, David Marchese mentioned Saunders’ being thrust into “a public role as something close to a guru of goodness after his convocation speech to Syracuse graduates.” That speech, “extolling the life-altering virtue of practicing kindness” evolved into his wildly popular book Congratulations, by the Way. It was interesting to find, in discussions with a few of the 1,000+ attendees before and after the San Francisco event, how many had come just wanting to be reassured of goodness in the world.

Saunders with interviewer Vendela Vida (Author photo)

I spoke with a half-dozen attendees afterwards, none of them disappointed. “Even if his satire is sharp and sometimes wicked,” said one; “somehow his characters embody basic goodness.”

After his talks, Saunders traditionally stays to personalize signed books and be snap-photographed with fans and readers. With lines snaking around blocks it has to be an exhausting time even if you know you’re selling a lot of books. (I passed on the line, but had bought a ticket that included a signed copy of Vigil. Now a few chapters in, I give it multiple thumbs-up.)

Bottom line: Reading (books!) is essential, especially if you want to write. Writing is a craft that needs constant work; drawing tips from a master, when you get the chance, is a bonus. Also:

Kindness is never wrong.

America Collection/General interest
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When the Glaciers Melt Away . . .

by Fran Johns

WATCHING THE PASSAGE OF TIME AT THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

Svalbard 2019 (Author photo)

There were polar bears — though far fewer than we’d hoped; there were walruses and seals and the occasional reindeer or Arctic fox. But what took my breath away was the beauty: shimmering white and muted azure as far as the eye could see. 

I visited the Svalbard archipelago, between the coast of Norway and the North Pole, in June of 2019 on a trip sponsored by Climate One. Spotting wildlife and taking in the beauty of the scenery were high on everyone’s list, but the main purpose of the expedition was to see — up close and personal — what the warming climate is doing to this northernmost cap of planet earth. It is not pretty.

Everywhere were the signs of melting sea ice and shrinking glaciers. Probably the most dramatic moment of the entire trip came when we witnessed glacier calving, as a giant chunk of a nearby glacier sliced off and into the sea. (Climbing on land was its own additional reward.)

Hiking the Svalbard mountains (Author photo, 2019)

Today there’s an expedition underway — this one seriously scientific and definitely not for tourists — at the other end of the world. They are already gathering important data and with a little luck they’ll be able to leave instruments in place deep under the sea that can prove invaluable to climate scientists (and others) going forward.

I’ve been following independent journalist Miles O’Brien (you can too!) who is aboard the South Korean icebreaker Araon near the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. Thwaites is also known as the Doomsday Glacier, for reasons you probably don’t want to focus on right before you try to go to sleep. Hint: Thwaites is melting faster than we might wish, especially any of us living on a coast that would vanish under a ten-foot sea level rise.

It’s been several weeks since the Araon left New Zealand, and much success has been recorded, including arrival at Thwaites on a crystal clear day. But the weather didn’t cooperate long enough for helicopters stashed onboard to fly to the glacier itself and stay long enough for scientists to drill deep into the ice and position their instruments.

According to O’Brien’s latest interview with crew members, the window of opportunity will close in another three or four days. Those of us following along are crossing fingers and sending up prayers to the weather gods. The expedition won’t be a failure if scientists are unable to leave instruments on the glacier — but that’s the holy grail and everyone’s hope.

Remembering lessons of the North Pole seven years ago, and watching these fascinating scenes at the other pole in real time reinforces the bottom line to this observer: climate change is here; it’s happening. The more we know, the better we understand.

Meanwhile the current administration pushes ahead with policies to boost fossil fuels, cut funding for clean energy and renewables, eliminate environmental protections . . . as if there were no tomorrow.

Which will some day be true.

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