Create a Your Own Blue Zone—Living Longer Better
When I was fourteen years old, we moved in with my widowed maternal grandmother. My parents had just divorced and we stayed with her until about a year later when my mother bought the house next door. My grandmother was a retired school teacher and professional artist. Although she was quiet and shy, she was a brilliant woman who was passionate and educated. She was active in the community and she was respected by all who knew her. She was a woman of few words, but when she spoke–people listened.
I didn’t know my grandmother well before we moved in with her. I was a bratty, conflicted teenager trying to make sense of my family’s post-divorce world and doing my best to adjust to being the new kid, at a new school, in a new town. I was defensive, wounded, angry, self-conscious. That year living with her was a little rough. I was reveling in all my teenage glory–rebellious and angsty as all get out. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for my grandmother to have her daughter and two teenage grandchildren invade her space. Likewise, we felt the discomfort of not having our own comfort zone space. Her humble (one bathroom!) house was at the same time bursting at the seams and home to none of us.
No doubt, my parents were concerned about my adjustment. But they were also consumed with their own post-divorce adjustments and stressors. My mother was hired as a full-time teacher for the local public school and filled up her evenings with prep for the next day and teaching private music lessons. Even if she had enjoyed cooking (which she didn’t), there wasn’t much time or energy left in the day for a thoughtfully prepared meal. So we often found ourselves at the local fast food establishments. I drank 2-3 sodas per day and ate a steady stream of candy and junk food whilst feeding my mind the likes of Days of Our Lives and Three’s Company.
Enter my grandmother. Her diet and lifestyle habits were the polar opposite of ours. She had an organic garden and made most of her food from scratch. She shopped at the local health food store and at 75 was walking 5-7 miles per day. The only television she watched was the news and if she wasn’t walking, gardening, painting, or cooking, she was reading.
I only remember her making one comment as she observed (with horror, no doubt) the atrocities of our lifestyle. I was watching TV in a banana chair and absent-mindedly drinking a soda, perhaps my second or third for the day. Walking by, she very meekly and casually said, “Maybe you shouldn’t have three sodas a day.” I think I probably grunted in reply. I remember feeling mostly embarrassed, partly annoyed, and ever so slightly curious. Of course, even at that age, I knew she was right. But I never would have admitted it at the time.
I’m sure she thought the comment went in one ear and out the other. But it didn’t. Nothing changed that day or that week or that year. I still had a many years journey ahead with food and body image. But the part of my consciousness that was curious started watching her, observing what she was doing and how she was living.
When my mother was able to buy the house next door, there was a better balance of personal space. We weren’t on top of each other anymore, yet my grandmother continued to be a presence. She was never demeaning or pushy. But little by little she started infiltrating my life. It started with a pot of oatmeal. She would bring it over in the mornings as hairbrushes and clothes and threats of “I can’t be late for work” jostled the climate like a tropical storm. She would sneak in, put the pot on the stove, and sneak out. Sometimes we ate it, sometimes we didn’t. She never said anything.
As I became disillusioned with the trappings of teenage life, I found myself wandering over to her house more and more. She always had something ready to eat–homemade garlic cornbread, a hearty soup, dried fruit, raw nuts. She mostly listened, but she also occasionally told me about what she was reading or what she thought about the most recent news stories. She started inviting me to come on walks with her. And sometimes I went.
I spent time with my other grandmothers as well and while they were a positive influence in my life in their own ways, I noticed striking differences between their health and lifestyle habits. Conversations between the adults often revolved around their physical afflictions (diabetes, arthritis, weakness), their doctor’s appointments and medicines, and their struggles with being overweight. They made most of their meals at home, but there was a generous supply of junk food and candy. They spent their evenings sitting in overstuffed comfy chairs, watching Wheel of Fortune and Dallas. I wasn’t judging them. They had hard-working, good people too and I had yet to decide what I thought was a better way to live. But I noticed a pattern in the contrasting habits between their lives and my grandmother’s life.
Fast forward 35 years and here I am, writing a blog about health and wellness.
I have been reflecting on my grandmother’s influence these last few days because, while cycling in the pain cave, I watched a new Netflix documentary called Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones. Blue Zones are areas in the world where there is a dramatically higher percentage of people who live to be 100+ years old. The host, Dan Buettner, has spent his life studying Blue Zones and what people in these zones are doing to live longer, healthier lives. It is well done and worth watching and it got me thinking. It inspired me to continue this quest of living a healthy life and share what I have learned. It also reminded me of my grandmother, who lived to see her 100th year.
What my grandmother didn’t realize at the time was that she was creating a Blue Zone, island of one. What I didn’t realize, at fifteen, was that she was sending me an invitation to join her. What neither of us realized was that her quiet example and loving service would change the trajectory of my life.
There is an abundance of bad news in our world today about rising obesity rates, cancer rates, diabetes rates. The discouragement is overwhelming, from the sad state of society as a whole to the individual struggling with these issues every minute of every day.
But I say there is hope. I say, in a world where so many things seem out of our control, this is the one thing that is very much within our ability to change. Dan Buettner is on a mission to make change. He has started the Blue Zone Project, an organization dedicated to helping cities implement Blue Zone lifestyle habits in their communities. He has an awesome social media feed with practical advice for living a Blue Zone life.
It is also my hope to empower people to live healthier lives. Creating change can feel overwhelming, but my grandmother’s influence just goes to show that you never know when one person who says just the right thing, in just the right moment, in just the right way can change another person’s life for the better. Carry on Dan, we are listening. And thank you grandma. I know you weren’t sure it would make a difference, but I was listening.
“To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson; philosopher, poet, author, essayist.
Dedicated to Winifred Edith Butler Minor, 1913-2014; teacher, artist, activist, philosopher, health enthusiast, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother.
Grandma Winifred and myself at her 100th birthday. She loved growing and painting roses; the last picture is a quick watercolor she painted of her favorite rose, The Peace Rose, for my 16th birthday. Although she is no longer with us, her influence lives on in the form of her paintings on my walls, the roses I grow in my own garden, and the passion for healthy living that I am trying to emulate and share.