Then I’m 64 …

Anne Lamott is an American novelist and nonfiction writer. I’ve blogged about her before. Her latest book, “Somehow: Thoughts on Love,” was published this week. “Love is our only hope,” Lamott writes in her 20th book. “It is not always the easiest choice, but it is always the right one, the noble path, the way home to safety, no matter how bleak the future looks.”

Funny, warm and wise, Lamott explores the transformative power that love has in our lives: how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity and guides us forward.

“Love just won’t be pinned down,” she says. “It is in our very atmosphere” and lies at the heart of who we are. We are, Lamott says, creatures of love.

She wrote a Washington Post column on April 10, which happened to be her 70th birthday. She’s such a good writer and makes it look easy.

Here’s how she started her piece, which hit home for me on this 11th day of April, which happens to be my birthday:

“I turned 70 today, a young age for an older person to be, but it is the oldest I have ever been by a long shot. It has been well over six decades since I learned in arithmetic how to carry the one, and the rest has sped by like microfiche.”

Today I turned 64. The oldest I have ever been, also by a long shot. My younger self used to laugh at the 1967 Beatles song “When I’m 64” and think, man, 64 is older than dirt! And yet here I am. Older than dirt. You know the tune:

”When I get older losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a valentine,
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?”

The story is that the song is sung by a young man to his lover about his plans of growing old together with her. Although the theme is aging, it was one of the first songs Paul McCartney wrote, when he was just 16.

I remember 16. Driving a car, playing sports, earning my own money as a waitress, enjoying high school. Really. I liked it. Except for prom and homecoming dances. Ugh.

Here’s more from Lamott’s book: “One big juicy, messy, hard, joyful, quiet life. That’s what my 70 years have bequeathed me.”

I’ll have to somewhat disagree with her on this point looking back at my 64 years. Big and juicy? Hardly. Messy? A little. Hard? Sometimes. Joyful? Often. Quiet? Mostly. Just the way I like it.

Lamott: “I think that I am only 57,  but the paperwork does not back this up. I don’t feel old, because your inside self doesn’t age.”

My inside self feels younger than 64. Maybe 48. That was such a great time in my life. Work, play, love. And a dog named Madison. Life’s compartments were all in synch. Plus, I had two good knees then. Today my great niece, who’s 10, called to wish me a happy birthday. She guessed my age at “around the 50s.” I’ll take it, kid.

Lamott: “When younger people ask me when I graduated from high school and I say 1971, there’s a moment’s pause, as if this is inconceivable and I might as well have said 20 B.C. That’s when I feel my age. But I smile winsomely because, while I would like to have their skin, hearing, vision, memory, balance, stamina and focus, I would not go back even one year.”

Nor would I go back. I recently told a young woman at the airport that I had graduated from college in 1983, and she simply said, “Wow.” I said, “You weren’t even born yet, were you?” Nope. Wow. She had nice skin, too.

Lamott: “My older friends and I know a thing or two.”

We certainly do, don’t we? It’s a gift of aging well. Sometimes we’re like forces of nature, I swear.

Lamott: “I know how little I know. This is a big relief.”

Took me awhile to understand this one. It’s comforting once you do.

Lamott: “I have grown mostly unafraid of my own death, except late at night when I head to WebMD and learn that my symptoms are probably cancer.”

I don’t do ever do this any more. Hardly ever. OK, once or twice a year. Dying doesn’t scare me as much as it used to. I know there’s something more out there, but I’m in no hurry to find out.

Lamott: “I know that people and pets I adore will keep dying, and it will never be OK, and then it will, sort of, mostly. I know the cycle is life, death, new life, and I think this is a bad system, but it is the one currently in place.”

I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I really do. And she’s right. It will never be OK.

And a final Lamott-ism: “Age is just a number when you still know how to shine.”

You better believe it, sister.

PS The photo on top of this post is me driving my first car in the driveway of our old house on Glenfield in Detroit. It’s about 1965, and I’m so focused because I’ve got my toy beagle in tow. Nice horn, kid.