Since I moved a few months ago, my neighbors are no longer rowdy New Yorkers stomping up the stairs with groceries, parties filtering in at 3am, or a lost cat from 3A meowing outside our door.
They’re an elderly couple, both in their early 90s and sweet as ever. Between our daily interactions and my gentle eavesdropping, I’ve learned a lot about life.
Every morning, my two neighbors discuss which flower opened overnight. Today, it was the rosebush. I was just admiring it yesterday. Three half-bloomed buds. Overnight, it burst into nine perfectly pink blooms. I was in awe. They were in awe. We were all standing there like it was a miracle, and honestly, it sort of was.
This is their routine. They examine their pots, the garden, the newly planted trees every morning. Smiling, chatting about what’s doing well, what’s blooming, what’s yet to come. Their routine is joyful, filled with curiosity. Even after 9+ decades, they’re still excited by what opened overnight.
You can have a fruitful career, climb the ladder, move all over the world adding C-level roles to your resume — like my neighbor did. And at the end of the day, the thing that gets him out of bed in the morning is nine pink roses that weren’t there yesterday. Life is really about these “small” moments of awe. The presents you get to wake up to.
Every morning, stop and smell the roses.
Talking to a neighbor about the upcoming thunderstorm, the holiday weekend, or their growing rosebush is how connection starts. I see these conversations, however small, as the first bricks of a relationship. Not every relationship needs to be your best friend.
The other day, I was waiting for the fax machine at UPS — as my mom says, finding a fax machine is like dinosaur hunting. The man behind the counter struck up small talk. We talked about the weather, a very important topic for Midwesterners, and somehow landed on the fact that his birthday is in June. I wished him a happy early birthday. He faxed my letter. And we both walked away from a kind interaction of just being human.
There’s so much discourse around small talk — people wear “hater of small talk” like a badge. I don’t think that’s depth. I think the longer you wear it, the more it looks like apathy. An aversion to reaching out to another person because you’ve nearly decided it’s beneath you.
Vogue wrote something interesting about this — small talk is linked to improved daily wellbeing, a stronger sense of connection, and it actually acts as a bridge for deeper conversations. I need depth in my relationships. But I don't believe in snubbing the small chitchat. That's usually where the deeper stuff starts.
“Aging” is a feeling.
Keep your brain sharp. Read books. Watch the news. Stay informed. Play sudoku. Volunteer. Know the baristas. Take walks. Ride your bike. Plant a garden. Live near your family. Tell jokes; laugh at bad ones. Bake for others. Bake for yourself. Keep a recipe index. Tell stories. Learn a sport. Learn a language.
Every weekend, I see grandkids and their adult children fly in and out of their house. A small dog every so often (not theirs). Voices from the opened screen door. At 92, the husband still drives. He keeps the garden tidy. We talk nearly every day — small catch-ups, debriefs on the landscaping.
At some point you hear enough about longevity and community and Blue Zones and you think you understand it. Then you see it next door, every single day, and it's different. It's two people who keep showing up in their own lives.
Don’t let another person dampen your joy. These two keep theirs — about their family, their travels, their garden, each other.
Recently they celebrated their 67th anniversary. We caught them sitting together on the porch as we were leaving. They said they were celebrating and she goes, “Marriage is beautiful. 67 years. You work on it together.”
She lived in New York City for years during the height of his career. She still calls herself a “city girl.” That brings me so much joy — because it’s proof that the city never really leaves you.
Smell the roses. Talk to your neighbor. Keep active. Stay joyful.
Raye 💌
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