“In this game of life, I seem to be headed for ‘extra innings,’” my friend Jerry wrote last week in the invitation to his 95th birthday party and jazz concert.
We carried lawn chairs and picnic blankets to a shady spot under the trees and settled in. Although I’m the least musical person on the planet, even I could tell Jerry’s lush, elegant, velvety jazz was magical. Adapting Thelonious Monk’s classic
’Round About Midnight
, Jerry called it
’Round About 10:30
. But don’t think for a moment that means Jerry is slowing down. He lives in his own home, drives himself everywhere, and hasn’t lost his gift for a mesmerizing riff.
How do people become “super-agers” like Jerry? Rich’s Aunt Mary lived to 103, and when I asked for her secret of longevity, she told me, “I drink one of these every day,” and held up a glass of whiskey. My 94-year-old Ohio neighbor, who still repainted the exterior of his house every five years all by himself, attributed his lifespan to munching celery daily. Hmmm, which regimen should I adopt?
Neither. Science says that while diet and drinking habits matter, as do lots of other factors, according to
a new study published by the National Institutes of Health
, the super-agers’ one common denominator is (drumroll, please) lots of social relationships.
Some call this “social capital.” It turns out having relationships with others in our community creates a common stockpile of interest, trust, and reciprocity that changes how — and how long — we live.
We’ve all read about the epidemic of loneliness that’s as hazardous to our health as a cigarette habit. Conversely, “Your chances of dying over the next year are cut in half by joining one group,” said Robert Putnam, 84, whose landmark book,
Bowling Alone
,
introduced America to the idea that social capital exists and it has value.
“Community connectedness is not just about warm fuzzy tales of civic triumph,” Putnam explained. “In measurable and well-documented ways, social capital makes an enormous difference in our lives. Social capital makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy.”
Unfortunately, our social capital is dwindling. Instead of joining clubs, going to church socials, and participating in civic organizations, most of us are home watching TV and scrolling through our phones.
Without the fellowship forged in coffee mornings, basement meetings, and potluck suppers, it’s become a lot harder (as you may have noticed) to maintain a just and stable democracy.
So, no pressure, but if we’re going to turn things around, we need to start by forming closer connections with one another. And it can be done. For proof, we need look no further than Ireland’s pub culture.
“My grandfather’s pub outside of Dublin was a gathering space,” said John Crowley, owner of
Aqus Cafe
in Petaluma, CA. “From the age of 12 to 22, I worked in my family business. It was a basic community center where everybody met: the mayor and the bricklayers and the teachers… In Ireland, when you move community, you go down the local pub and you meet everybody. Coming to California, I wanted a place that I could hang out and have a glass of wine, and my grandmother have a cup of tea, and my kids have a soda. But that doesn’t really exist in America.”
Then one evening, when his wife and kids were out of town, and John was channel surfing, bored out of his mind, inspiration struck. “I sent out an email to a couple of my friends and said, ‘How about we meet next Saturday in
Volpi’s
at eight o’clock, and at nine o’clock we’ll go to Graziano, and at ten o’clock we’ll go someplace else.’ I remember the first night, sitting in Volpi’s, thinking, ‘Is anybody going to show up?’”
Not to keep you in suspense, John’s pub crawl was so popular it was repeated every few months and grew to 100+ people. “Very quickly, we realized that we needed themes on these things,” he told me. “And some of the themes were: bring a photograph of yourself as a teenager, or bring the last postcard you got, or my favorite, bring a book that changed your life.”
John kept his day job as a software engineer while running pub nights for ten years. And then in 2006, he opened
Aqus Cafe
with the idea of creating a gathering space akin to his grandfather’s pub.
I first discovered Aqus two years ago, when Rich and I stumbled out of a meeting with our estate lawyer. If there’s anything more demoralizing than having long conversations about our respective deaths, it’s having long conversations about the tax consequences of our respective deaths. Rich and I were in serious need of a restorative coffee, and in Aqus we found the cappuccino came with a side of mesmerizing bulletin board notices.
We wanted to do everything hosted by the café: community dinners, conversation groups,
poetry readings, musical evenings,
and art exhibitions. They were organizing “Drinks with Shrinks” for therapists; “The Written Word” for writers, editors, publishers, and book jacket designers; coffee mornings for seniors; dinners for retired educators, for nonprofits, for French speakers…
“Why couldn’t this stuff be happening in our town?” I remember grumbling enviously to Rich. Petaluma’s half an hour’s drive away, making Aqus a bit distant to be our local.
After interviewing John on Friday, I realized it wouldn’t take much to start, say, one community-building effort in my town. I could steal John’s idea and have people meet at our local coffee house, bringing a book that changed their life. Hmmm. (Rich, stop rolling your eyes. It’ll be fun. And not that much work. Trust me!)
Community, says John, not only fights loneliness, it dispels fear and distrust.
“We’re growing up getting terrified,” he said. “I remember when I first came to the United States, I stayed with my brother just the other side of town. And I was shocked by his kids, who were having breakfast every morning with milk cartons with pictures of missing children on them. I felt like if this is first thing you see every morning, of course you’re gonna be scared of your neighbor, scared of everybody.”
The antidote, John said, is getting to know your neighbors. Whether it’s a walking club, birdwatching society, or environmental justice committee, getting together regularly with a mixed bag of neighbors builds our social capital. We learn to get along and work together — yes, even when we don’t share identical political, social, and cultural perspectives. And learning to work together with diverse people gives us the skills and connections we need if we’re going to make the world more livable.
“Ask yourself,” John suggested, “what should we be doing now that in five years’ time, we’ll wish we had done?”
Community gatherings at Aqus. To me, these look like a lot more fun than scrolling through my phone and browsing Netflix.
FINDING HOPE
This story is part of my series of blog posts exploring ways we help each other find hope in this worrying world. Know someone you think should be featured? Tell me more in the comments section below.
See all the posts in this series.
DON’T MISS OUT!
If you haven’t already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I’ll take it from there.
[email protected]
SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS?
Check your spam folder
.
Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can’t find it, please let me know.
FOR FURTHER READING
My bestselling travel memoirs & guides
Cozy Places to Eat in Seville
My new book:
My San Francisco
If you haven’t read
My San Francisco
yet,
you can order it HERE.
You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at
Rebound Bookstore in
San Rafael, CA
Already read this book? I invite you to
leave a review HERE
.
GOING SOMEWHERE?
Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in
the search box
below
. If I’ve written about it, you’ll find it.
Leave a Reply