My word for the day is “Theatricalizing.” This is what I do. I am a theatricalizer – or a Thespian – a playwright -a performer – an actor – and old to boot. This has been my chosen profession for most of my 80 years. I’m now involved with a group of 55+ theatricalizers. The group started about three years ago, right before the pandemic hit and sent most elderly people into isolation. I also happen to be one who enjoys her alone time, so that part of the pandemic didn’t bother me. We then discovered this new-fangled technology called Zoom. For the first year we met online and shared ideas on how to implement some of the problems the elderly face as they enter and go through the aging process. There’s much more funny material in that process than most of us going through it think there is. The fact that we can laugh at our own failures, lack of strength, disintegrating bodies and all the health issues that go along with it, was the impetus for our creative venture.

We wrote a series of episodes with characters named Ruby, Pearl, Crystal and Jade. All of these comprise our current company along with our new director. We haven’t yet named her, but you can bet she will be named for some gem. The Jewels of deNial is the name of our troupe. We do our show as if it were a live radio broadcast, which allows us to use a script while still having the ability to act it out. Our latest episode is about Medical Mishaps. We’ve all endured going to the ER. Maybe some have traveled by ambulance. Then there’s the long wait in the ER and the many forms which must be filled out while you’re bleeding profusely or half dead. The nursing staff, the medical team, the joys of being on a ward and sharing a room with three whackos is part of this adventure. It becomes so heightened that Pearl, Ruby and Crystal stage a breakout.

There are many of you out there that have had similar misadventures regarding the health care realm. The various pills and the inability to open the bottles – the boxed colonoscopy sent through the mail – the failed attempts at staying fit – and many more such situations occur in this episode. The greatest part of it is that we are given an opportunity to continue doing what we love as we age. We’ve been taking our show on the road and presenting it at various senior centers, assisted living venues and at our home base theatre right here in Minnesota. We’ve been received with a great amount of laughter for the relatable humor, and we benefit also by the roar of the crowd.

Psalm 92-12-15 “The righteous flourish like the palm tree
    and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
 They are planted in the house of the Lord;
    they flourish in the courts of our God.
 They still bear fruit in old age;
    they are ever full of sap and green,
 to declare that the Lord is upright;
    he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.