by  Dorty Nowak

On September 10, 2020, I didn’t get on a plane to Paris, my second home for fifteen years.  Nor did I take a much-anticipated trip to New Zealand.  I miss traveling to familiar places and exploring new ones.  Yet this year’s narrowed horizons have offered fertile territory for introspection about matters large and small—for example, dental floss. 

Recently I braved a visit to my dentist for a long-overdue cleaning.  My first dentist believed that children didn’t feel pain, leaving me with a life-long fear of drills. My current dentist is kind, willing to peel me off the ceiling, and always giving me a new toothbrush and dental floss to take home. 

This time it was a different brand of floss, and it has an expiration date.  Evidently the floss I’d used for years is made of a material that is chemically infused and most likely carcinogenic.  I’d been quite happy with it because unlike any other I’d tried, it didn’t shred.  The new, presumably non-carcinogenic floss leaves wisps of white fibers between my back molars, which is very annoying, like having a hair in one’s mouth.  Mainly, however, I’m worried about that expiration date, only two years away.  What will happen if I forget and use expired floss?  What kind of fiber expires?  Not yarn, not thread – well maybe after a number of centuries it might fray a bit, but not after two years. 

I wish the expiration date on dental floss was my biggest worry, but of course it’s not. The coronavirus, societal and political trauma, the wildfires threatening my home, so much is out of my control, and that includes my own expiration date, drawing closer with each passing year. 

Conversations with friends these days follow a predictable pattern: the wellbeing of family and friends, the pandemic and politics. Sooner or later our talk turns to various ailments and what we are doing to stave off decrepitude.  In my experience, baby boomers, of which I am one, are divided into two categories: those who are dedicated to managing the glide path toward our inevitable landing, and those who prefer to fly high and enjoy life with few worries, even if they crash and burn at the end. 

The former group, mine, spends a lot of time on body maintenance – spin and aerobics classes, yoga, hiking, tennis.  The list is long, which is a good thing, because it is possible for almost everyone to find some form of exercise they like. Recently I read an article that emphasized it is never too late to start improving one’s physical condition.  But which start were they referring to?  My life has been a long journey of physical fits and starts, and I imagine that is true of a lot of people.  

I studied dance from an early age and continued until my thirties.  Then between raising a family and working full-time, I wasn’t motivated to exercise regularly.  If I had missed more than a week of dance practice in my youth I felt, and was, out-of-shape. How about thirty years?  Throughout our long marriage, my husband made exercise a priority.  His mantra was “you eat, you sleep, you exercise.” I envied his discipline, and bought into the eating and sleeping, but the exercise, not so much. 

Earlier generations were generally more accepting of the changes age brings than we boomers. My parents lamented their various aches and pains, but neither one of them exercised.  The gyms, sporting goods stores and the commercials featuring athletic seniors that are common today weren’t part of their purview. 

My mother-in-law, however, understood the importance of self-care. Her parents emigrated from Russia, and she was one of thirteen children. She helped raise her siblings and went to work at an early age as a seamstress.  She always made sure to cook nutritious food, and not being able to drive, walked everywhere.  One day when she was in her nineties she said to me, “All my life I’ve felt inferior because I didn’t have a formal education. I don’t feel that way anymore because I can get around, have my marbles and all my teeth.”  

I sometimes envy my friends who are able to enjoy life without trying so hard to extend their expiration date, but I realize for every stage of life we each have our own measures of meritocracy. For me, as for many in my generation, good health is now at the top of the list. I think of that as I lace up my walking shoes and eat yet another salad.  However, I’ve switched back to my old brand of possibly carcinogenic dental floss, and I’m much happier.

Dorty Nowak is a writer whose articles and poems have been published in the U.S. and in France. She writes frequently about the challenges and delights of multi-cultural living.