Year End: On growing older

Some years ago, the other member of YMO, Haruomi Hosono, he’s five years older than we are, went to Cuba to look for some musicians, and he saw a very old musician, maybe in his 80s, playing bass in a club or a bar, and his expression about this old musician was, “This old guy plays the bass like cutting tofu.” You must be very gentle cutting tofu, otherwise you can damage it, break it. I love that expression, and I want to be like that. I should be like that at 80.

I don’t know if it’s getting older, but experience has led me to recognize that it’s okay to ask for help. I don’t have the answers to everything and, in some cases, anything. I have learned to be open to ideas and advice. Whether it’s in the morning working out, or from friends, or even people I don’t know, I like hearing how others are handling their situations. Watching friends and loved ones who I deeply respect ask for the help they need and how they arrived at those moments has been a profound lesson for me. I feel like I am in this beautiful moment of having a capable body and just enough wisdom to recognize where I can help others, and that I also need help. Asking for help is expressing vulnerability, and being vulnerable is a very deep multi-sensory way to observe. I’m learning how to be in that space more often. I like to think that what I am talking about is more like the baleen of the whale filtering the sea for food rather than the talons of an eagle preying on field mice with precision.

I’m very much a loner, and I try to be alone with my thoughts a lot more now, as I’m getting older, so that I can be clear about the things that work for me and don’t work for me. What I need to put energy into, what I don’t need to put energy into. What is uplifting me and what’s not uplifting me.

As somebody in their late 20s who’s feeling like they’re dying and being reborn over and over again, I think it’s really important for me to see things in the world that I want for myself, and then find ways to be those things.

I see how art impacts people who are dying. It means so much to them. How could that not be worth doing or how could that be futile? We’re all going to die, so you might as well at least spend part of your life doing something you genuinely love, because what if there’s nothing after? Your time is precious, so you might as well enjoy it.

I’m always reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. It’s a spiritual text that is everything I want from a spiritual text. Always talking about how to live in a way that makes you be at peace with your death, and how that can proliferate into your relationships. Getting rid of unhealthy attachments. I read a paragraph at a time and I feel like I’m sated spiritually for a month.

Two years ago, I was keeping a dream diary of every time my late husband, Dale, appeared in a dream. I would write it down. That is something that I did, but then I took the book and put it in a safety deposit box. I think I made it mysterious for myself, and I made it inaccessible, so that I can actually mark time. After Dale died, I couldn’t remember our marriage at all for three months. People say that’s common, that you don’t remember anything when you’re in shock. I wanted to leave it in its own space

What happened during the period of mourning my father’s death was that something within me cracked open and the only way I could healthily pour out those emotions was through writing. Now, I’m not saying you need grief or any negative circumstance to tap into your deepest feelings. Rather, what I would encourage you to do is not to shy away from, or fear, these types of emotions.

While we’re breathing—which is miraculous, and won’t be happening some day—all we’re doing is learning and growing. That’s all, learning and growing.

I’ve been so much more interested in live music, getting older and looking for models of artists who are 10 to 15 years older than me and being like, “Who would I, if everything went right, want to be like when I’m in my early fifties?

I feel my body aging. It feels a lot more fragile than it was 10 years ago. It feels different, and part of that is because I’m doing things like biking and rock climbing, and maybe I don’t quite stretch enough. It’s this real contracting energy…but it’s nice. I’ve found that engaging with the world and feeling strong and feeling a source of energy that’s derived from something that I’m physically doing is holistic.

My aging body is a part of who I am and my work, so in whatever form I exist, I’ll make that an important part of my practice.

You’re free if you acknowledge what the confines are and are willing to get out of it. It can either be your cage or it can be your ladder out of the cage. Just keep going.