Stunned by My Forearm

Notes from the Prairie: I Wonder column #31

Photo from Dhwani-Jalan on Unsplash

After morning prayer I open my eyes and really see my left arm in the sunlight that falls on the dining room table. A shock sizzles through me, a sensation too strong to call wonder. Wonder is pleasant. This is painful.

Charlie’s right, I think

Two days ago Charlie Zylstra told me a story. Approaching a stoplight and a stopped car, she put down her cell phone. (It was before hands-free driving became Iowa law.) When she raised her hand back to the steering wheel, she was shocked by the appearance of her skin in the bright sun — wrinkled as crepe paper. Then she looked up just in time to brake for the stopped car.

She said, “Imagine explaining that to a police officer! ‘I’m sorry, officer. I didn’t see that car because I was so shocked by the condition of the skin on my arms.’” We chuckled together.

In today’s morning sun, the crepey skin on my arm appears suddenly ancient. Hundreds of wrinkles crisscross it from wrist to elbow. I also see spattered brown spots, a two-inch scar line, a reddish bruise and raised, blue veins. All scream “Old!”

My loose-fitting skin calls to mind a grandson’s comment to a different friend. Cuddling against her arm, he looked at it and made a discovery. “Grandma, your skin is one size too big!”

I remember my horror when I first saw the drooping flab beneath an aunt’s raised upper arm. I raise my arm to check. Yup, I now have bat wings too.

Over the decades, I’ve adjusted to my aging face. I study it every morning when I conceal its brown spots with makeup.

But my arms! Apparently I’ve ignored them. Until today.

I know in a back corner of my brain I am in my 70s. But new revelations continue to shock me:

• I go to my husband’s class reunion and I am shocked by how old everyone looks.

• I go to Geri-Fit class and am shocked by how sore my legs get.

• I go to the doctor and discover I have a chronic disease.

Why am I so shocked and surprised by these ravages of time? Because I look around and wonder. I don’t fixate on my body’s evidence of aging.

I wonder if that focus is age-appropriate? I think so — until I reach the point where I recognize it’s time to let go and leave this earth.

I wonder if aging requires balancing the “now” and the “not yet.” Until I receive notice my end is coming soon, I shall continue to live my life looking around and wondering. I guess my future will include a few sizzling shocks.

I look again at my arm in the morning sun, grateful to be seated at a table, not driving, during this discovery. Like Charlie, I’m grateful I don’t need to look through a car window and say, “Sorry, officer. I didn’t mean to rear-end that car. I was distracted by the wrinkles on my arms.”

Carol Van Klompenburg is a writer and speaker living in Pella, Iowa. Her email address is carolvk13@gmail.com. Information about her can be found at www.carolvanklompenburg.com.

She is beginning research for a second book about aging, and she has just launched a private Facebook group, Growing After 50. You are invited to join at https://www.facebook.com/groups/growingafter50.