Watching my 86-year-old mother has led me to the conclusion that habits do, indeed, die hard. I observe, to see if there are any hints of my own geriatric future.

What remains with her after all these years?

(1) Her morning beauty routine, which involves an intensive makeup applying session. I imagine that in her youth, this routine did not take the two full hours it takes now. I don’t have to worry about carrying this routine to my old age because I have never worn makeup a day in my life. Score!

It does amaze me, however, how insistent she is about getting fully decked out every day. To the quadruple nines, this woman! Spectacular outfits, shoes, earrings, jewelry, and aforementioned makeup. It exhausts me just watching her. I would be willing to spend that much time on a beauty routine only on days that I have been invited to a wedding, or the red carpet.

(2) Her need to be useful, to participate in the activities of the people around her. She wants to cook, and drive, and generally dictate the decisions of the day. But she is unable to do those things anymore. She will not give up trying, though, which leaves us in a literal Mexican standoff at least three times a day.

I can imagine being stubborn about continuing to be independent and useful until the day I die. I have been financially and physically and emotionally independent since I was 16. I cannot imagine giving up my daily decisions to anyone. Since I don’t have children, I guess I won’t have to. But what will become of me and my hardheadedness? Belgium, California, Kevorkian?

I’m not going to worry about that today. Today I have to make all the daily decisions and find a way to let her believe that she made them. It’s the only way I can think of to avoid a Mexican standoff.

Do you believe in omens? Today I heard a huge thud somewhere outside the house. I jumped up and went out the front door to discover a dead bird, claws straight up in the air. I swear it looked like a cartoon drawing. It was perfectly beautiful except it was dead. It had smacked straight into the house.

My brain went crazy. Would I have to dispose of it? How would I do that without touching it and contracting some strange avian disease? I would have to get rid of it before Mom got home. It would  certainly upset her, death so much on her mind, and her recent love affair with Star, the cutest bird on the planet.

But I couldn’t find the strength to deal with it. I was preparing for a singles tennis match, only a couple of hours away. Why God why me why now? A dead bird, really, Universe? That’s what you serve up to me today?

A few months before Gail passed, a bat entered our house and terrorized us for two consecutive nights. In 15 years of living in that old Victorian house, we had never had one bat occurrence. It felt like an ominous omen. Forgive the linguistic stutter.

The CDC had recently changed its rules, we came to find out. Now, if you are asleep in a room where a bat is found, you must take the series of rabies shots whether you have physical signs of a bite or not.

Gail had heard the bat on the floor by her side of the bed, and we had immediately evacuated. We were pretty sure we hadn’t been bitten, but the CDC didn’t care. With my high freelance deductible, I ended up paying over $2K for the shots. Gail’s bills were covered 80% by Medicare.

We had to call The Bat Guys (this is literally the name of their company). They could not locate the bat, even though it returned the next night. The Newport emergency room informed us that there had been a severe infestation that year of bats in Newport’s old houses. They nonchalantly reported that they had had to inoculate entire families that month. We slept with the lights on for the rest of the summer, because bats notoriously hate the light.

It wasn’t until Gail died five months later that I started seriously thinking of that bat as an omen. At the time, there was definitely an eerie sensation accompanying  the entire event, but my superstitious mind refused to consider it an omen, because then it might become one.

Back to today’s inert cartoon-like bird. I had this thought: wouldn’t it be great if one of those stray cats would come and take it away?

I went upstairs to put on my tennis gear. I looked out the window and, sure enough, I saw a cat. It looked up at me and acknowledged my presence. But it seemed to have no interest in the dead bird, even though it was less than a foot away.

Damn cat, I thought. Why doesn’t it follow its instincts and help a girl out?

When I went out, only a few minutes later, both the cat and the bird were gone. There was not one stray feather, not one sign that a dead bird had just minutes before, been lying there.

Did the cat telepathically get my message? Was my thought so powerful that it created the reality I wanted? Was the entire scene an omen of the potent presence of death, and then suddenly, its absence?

Or is a dead bird sometimes just a dead bird? And a cat just a cat following its hunger instincts?

Why does my mind want to create a portentous story about a bat and a bird and the death that always surrounds us?

I was grateful. I didn’t have to dispose of the bird. And I won my tennis match.

Last night on the tennis court, I saw a side of myself that I don’t particularly like. In both the second set and the third-set tiebreaker, I saw myself acting like a coward.

In the first set, I was aggressive, going for my shots without fear or hesitation. But once we won the first set, easily, I might add, at 6-1, I began to worry about losing. And once the doubts set in, I stopped playing on all cylinders.

I started going for the easy, safe shots. I started playing to “not miss”. And you cannot win that way. Both tennis and fortune favor the bold.

In tennis, this behavior is called “protecting your lead”. Everyone knows that this method does not produce victories. And yet, it’s hard not to behave that way when you’re under pressure. The commentators say only champions hit harder on the pressure points. They also say it is something you cannot teach.

It made me start thinking about playing it safe in life. Do I exhibit the same cowardly characteristics on the playing field of life?

I have taken many risks.  I went to Yale at 16 when I had never been on a plane, or to the East Coast, or seen snow. I moved to Boston at 21 with $500 and no job and no place to live. I applied for a job in publishing that the human resources department told me I would never get. I submitted a textbook proposal knowing full well that publishers only wanted authors who were also professors. I walked 440 miles across northern Spain because it felt important to prove to myself that I could do it. When my partner of 30 years passed, I pulled myself out of my grief long enough to pack up the house and sell it. At 57, I moved back to Texas to take care of my mother. (This last one is probably the bravest thing I’ve ever done!)

I don’t think I’m a coward in life. I don’t think I “protect my lead” when a challenge presents itself. And yet, I did that on the tennis court last night and we lost. Is it a product of age? What the heck happened?

When my tennis teammates who watched the match told me afterwards that I was not acting like myself, that I looked uncomfortable and unwilling to go for broke, my heart sank. I wanted to be grateful for their observations, but truth be told, they stung. Because what they were saying was true.

I’ll see what happens next time I’m on the court in the same situation. I have no trouble hitting all out when I’m losing. The underdog position suits me. It’s when I’m winning that the fear sets in.

All just to say: what do you say we go for broke? In life and on the court. What have we got to lose?