From my lofty perspective at the top of a tall building, I
glance down onto a ramshackle collection of sheds and lean-tos, haphazardly
scattered around the yard. Each one contains a prized vehicle.
There are a total of 9 sheds in this picture. Can you
count them all?
Those makeshift garages were most likely not included on the
original building plans, nor were they designed with any idea toward aesthetic
beauty. Their very irregularity decries any forethought to symmetry or
timelessness.
Although not an authority on the matter, I suspect that, as
lucky apartment owners acquired their vehicle, they were beset with a desire to
see it protected from the elements and the feral cats that occupy our yard.
To say nothing of the many pigeons who roost in the trees
above that green space.
As though to lend credence to that notion, every Monday, two
of my neighbors – both elderly gentlemen, meet in the courtyard to wash their
cars.
Carefully, they back out of their hand-built garages, fill
their buckets and hose down the vehicles, and then proceed to scrub and rinse
and vacuum, talking all the while.
I’m generally clued in to their exercise by their loud
chatter, which echoes off the walls in this horseshoe-shaped enclosure.
As far as I can tell, they seldom drive anywhere. Leaving
the yard entails opening both double doors, one at each end of the foyer, and
easing their car through the building and onto the street.
Obviously, such a sequence would be audible and, in fact, it
is. When they do drive out, I can hear them very well, even though I am so high
up.
~~~~~~
On the other side of the fence, a man who lives in the
building across from ours opens the doors to his lean-to and backs his car out.
Once assured he has left enough room for the doors to swing shut without
hitting his car, he gets out and secures his enclosure before carefully driving
out of the parking lot.
At the time he performs his routine, 8 AM, I am usually
seated at the kitchen table. Watching his short ballet has become routine. I am
not always there when he returns, generally five hours later.
I don’t know his status but I do know the two gentlemen in
my building are retirees. Their daily routine – opening the garage doors,
fussing around, and then smoking and talking together, and their once-per-week
car wash seems to provide them with a sense of purpose.
A long time ago – well, eight years ago, I wrote an article about leading a
purposeful life. In it, I averred that people need to have a
purpose, something to do every day or most every day.
This gives one a sense of personal value that goes a long
way toward maintaining mental health and emotional perspective.
~~~~~~
Early in my China adventure, I made a case for the elderly –
specifically elderly women.
Often illiterate (no time for education when there are
entire fields of crops to tend, said Chairman Mao!), women in China who are 60+
have very few leisure and enrichment
activities available to them.
They might gather to dance in the evening or, if that
particular community is close-knit, gather to play mahjong during the day. Some
will tend their garden plot, often illicitly planted, in the morning and
evening, prior to gathering for the dance.
If there are small children to care for in the household,
that too will be one of their tasks, as will be cleaning and cooking.
However, for women who have no babies to take care of and
whose daughters or daughters-in-law insist they may not clean or cook, there is
little to nothing for them to occupy their hours with.
Trapped in a highrise community, far from everything that is
known and familiar to them including people, they can be seen ambling around
their living complex with a terrible absence of purpose.
Oddly enough, I find that elderly women here suffer the same
fate.
Returning home one day, I found a woman who lives one floor
down from me standing on the landing in her house dress, fuzzy slippers on her
feet and silver hair askew. She held a pill dispenser in her hand and,
bewildered, asked me if today was Friday or Saturday.
At least I think that’s what she asked; her gestures and
the pill box made things clear enough.
Unfortunately, I did not have the words to calm and comfort
her. Fortunately, my neighbor was rushing up the stairs and he cleared things
up for her... rather rudely, I thought, he shouted at her over his
shoulder, never breaking stride as he climbed, as though the least contact
might commit him to talking with her for hours.
In the park, at shopping centers or just walking around
town: old dears, alone, leaning on their canes with varying degrees of
heaviness... how is it I see far fewer old men in that same situation?
To my knowledge, there is very little here for seniors. No
activity centers, no support organisations... not even the opportunity to plant
an illicit garden! However, pet ownership is rampant and quite a few elderly
women have a dog for company on their walks.
But not the old men who, daily, fuss with their cars.
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