Photo courtesy Pagosa Springs Dance Academy.
My 10-year-old granddaughter Simone arrived home from Denver yesterday evening, with barely enough time to grab a quick bite of dinner before running off to dance class.
She had spent two days in Denver with the 5th and 6th grade classes from Pagosa Peak Open School, to see the Broadway hit musical “Hamilton: An American Musical” — as part of their American History project at PPOS. Several generous patrons of our local professional theatre company, Thingamajig Theatre, had funded the overnight trip and the pricey tickets through donations.
Hamilton: An American Musical is a sung-and-rapped biographical musical… with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda… based on the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. Composed over a seven-year period from 2008 to 2015, the music draws heavily from hip hop, as well as R&B, pop, soul, and traditional-style show tunes. Miranda described Hamilton as a story about “America then, as told by America now.”
Following the show, the PPOS students spent Wednesday night camped out at Jefferson County Open School — the school that had provided the philosophical and educational inspiration for PPOS, back in 2016. On Thursday, the PPOS students were treated to a guided tour of JeffCo Open School, and Simone came home suitably impressed by the welcoming educational environment there.
At age 10, Simone is already a drama geek; she’s performed in a dozen plays, most of them produced by Thingamajig Theatre Company through the Whatchamawhozits kids theatre programs.. She also performs regularly in Pagosa Springs Dance Academy productions.
I have the pleasure of vicariously enjoying Simone’s life on a daily basis, because I share a house with my daughter Ursala and her husband Chris, and their two children, Amelie and Simone. Luckily, the house is large enough to accommodate three adults and two children. It’s also a benefit that all three adults are working and contributing to the household expenses, and just recently, Amelie has begun a part-time job.
I’m very sure I could not afford to live in Pagosa Springs — and live my current ‘journalist lifestyle’ — if we weren’t all sharing a house together.
I’m not sure how many grandparents, here in Pagosa Springs, live in the same house as their grandchildren. I would guess, not many. I hear friends and acquaintances my age, talk about visiting their grandchildren regularly — or occasionally — in distant locations. Boston. Asheville. Houston. Seattle.
I would also guess that, 75 years ago in Pagosa Springs, most grandfathers and grandmothers lived in close proximity to their grandchildren, if not in the same house.
How did this happen to America? That we broke up our families?
Growing up as I did in California, I had almost no contact with my grandparents. My father’s parents had passed away by the time I was three; my mom had become estranged from her mother, for reasons I’m still not clear about; her father visited us on a rare occasion, privately, without his wife’s knowledge.
Although I had two loving parents, I never lived with them past high school, except for one summer right after the birth of my first child. It wasn’t part of the American Dream, to live as an extended family.
The Dream was a nuclear family, with the grandparents living separate lives.
As I understood my parents as they grew older, they didn’t want to impose on their children. And I think they also valued their independence, while it lasted. In the end, they spent their final years in a “care facility” surrounded by fellow senior citizens with similarly failing health.
Coming from that family background, I assumed that I would not live with my children, in my old age, once they had started their own families. But it hasn’t turned out that way. And for that, I will be eternally grateful.
A report released last year, titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” found that even before the COVID crisis, about half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness.
From NPR:
The physical consequences of that can be devastating, including a 29% increased risk of heart disease; a 32% increased risk of stroke; and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults.
“It’s hard to put a price tag, if you will, on the amount of human suffering that people are experiencing right now,” Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told All Things Considered.
I’ve written, often, here in the Daily Post, about the aging of our community. While the overall average age in Colorado is around 38 years, here in Pagosa our average age is about 51. School enrollment has fallen slightly since the COVID crisis. Housing costs have become a significant barrier for families hoping to locate in Pagosa. Young people graduating from Pagosa Springs High School typically move away, and are unlikely to return here to raise their children, even if they wish to return.
In lieu of having families, many of my friends and acquaintances now have dogs. Or cats.
There’s nothing perfect about living in an extended family, although I suppose it helps to have shared religious and political beliefs. But not too closely shared. A little bit of philosophical tension ensures that everyone’s prejudices and biases get challenged, occasionally.
In a book I once read, Paradise consisted of a mythical place where a man and a woman lived in innocence, without any children or grandchildren, and all of their nutritional needs were met by surrounding fruit trees and herbs. (It wasn’t clear if they engaged in killing animals for food.)
The perfect kind of life?
I beg to disagree.