I watched 'On Golden Pond' tonight. It's an old movie from the 80's but I'd never seen it. Jane Fonda looked so 80's with her winged hair. Katherine Hepburn had that disease, Parkinson's I think, where your head shakes from side to side all the time. And Henry Fonda looked so old and was so doddering. Was he acting or was it real?

I can't imagine what it's like to be old. It's bad enough growing old now, I can't imagine what it would be like to be 70 or even 80 years old. I have no desire to live to a ripe old age. I know a friend who swore he was going to live till 105 and was looking forward to it. Not me.

To tell you the truth, I'm afraid of growing old. From what I've seen, it's not a fun experience. You're on so much medication, you can barely walk and your mind starts to deteriorate. But if you're one of the lucky ones, you're still strong, you're still fit and lucid. I once watched a 90 year old japanese woman chop a tree once when I was 13 years old. It was awesome. Somehow I don't think I shall be as healthy as that woman. She died in her sleep when she was 97. I've always wondered what she thought of life. She lived in an old dirty run down house on the edge of the town I grew up in and my mother, who was a social worker, was visiting her. That's when I watched her chop a tree from the car; a frail and thin looking, white haired, wrinkled japanese woman with a big axe. The axe looked too heavy for her to even pick up, but that old woman was strong. And her outfit. She was wearing a 60's style polyester white dress with small blue flowers, a navy blue sweater, that ugly brown support hose and thick soled black shoes. The outlines of old woman's body completely disappeared in the folds of dress like she was some stick doll.

I don't know why I still remember her so vividly after all these years, but I still love the thought that she could chop a tree at 90, that she was so strong and from a generation where women weren't tuaght to be strong. I liked that she lived all alone at the edge of town, in a small run down house. Did she have any children? Did she have a husband once? Or did she grow old all alone? Was she strong because she was that way inside or did she grow strong out of necessity and out of loneliness? I wish I knew. I wished I had asked my mom what her story was. Maybe I did, but I don't remember any of it now. I wonder if I will be as strong in my old age like that woman was. I wonder if I will end up as a memory in some other young girl's mind, a memory that will haunt her all her days as this woman's image has haunted mine.