I Shrunk

 I shrunk. I went to get my annual physical check-up, and I came out 6 centimeters shorter than I thought I was going in. From 188 cm to 182cc! I might lose another 6 centimeters if I am lucky enough to continue to age. It’s mainly in my torso, as what has shrunk is the soft tissue in between my vertebrae in my spine. There are 33 of them, all stacked one on top of the other. In humans, the 24 upper vertebrae are separated by discs that allow movement, while the 9 lower vertebrae are fused. Usually, these discs shrink because of osteoporosis, but in my case, it is pure aging. The discs lose some of their moisture and shrink as we age. We become drier. A human embryo is about 90 percent water, a newborn child about 80 percent, a mature adult about 70 percent, and an older adult about 60 percent water, while those between 70-80 years of age are only 50 percent water. I wonder what water percentage a 100-year-old would have.

Driving home from the clinic, as I was thinking how lucky I am to be able to enjoy aging, despite shrinking, I remembered the Aristotelian view of aging. I use this example with my students. Aristotle defined aging as a natural, inevitable process of becoming cold and dry, characterizing it as a "natural disease" and the gradual extinction of innate heat. He believed life requires warmth and moisture, but over time, the body’s "innate heat" diminishes due to the consumption of "radical moisture" or fuel. If you believe that you get old because you are drying out and losing heat, then the therapy that would reverse this is a sauna. Which is why hot baths were so popular in the gymnasiums during Roman times. They believed that this method of moisturizing rejuvenated the lost moisture and heat. 

Romans followed a ritualized sequence: beginning in the tepidarium (warm room), moving to the caldarium (hot, steamy room), using the laconicum (hottest dry room), and finishing in the frigidarium (cold plunge). Recent studies have supported these beliefs. In a 2017 study on a Finnish male population, Tanjaniina Laukkanen and his colleagues reported that moderate to high frequency of sauna bathing was associated with lowered risks of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. In a review, the same researcher reported that saunas are linked to several health benefits. These include a reduction in the risk of heart diseases such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary diseases, as well as less arthritis, headache, and flu. Maybe Aristotle was onto something when he identified water as the giver of life. But as we get older, we do not feel as thirsty as we did when younger and therefore drink less. This results in less water around our cells and points to an increased risk for dehydration. 

Japanese culture is also centered around the bath, more so than just cleanliness. So, we expect to see this advantage reflected in life expectancy. Finnish life expectancy at around 81-82 is less than Japan’s 84-85. Although moisture might be a contributing factor to long life, there are other things that promote long life. While we all ponder this, remember that we are still shrinking, and although some might also experience reduced spinal mobility because of this dryness, it does not have to restrict mobility. There are things we can do to remain active, stay hydrated, and enjoy our shrinking lives.

Growing up in Malta

Walk through any Mediterranean city and the fast food on sale has nothing to compare with the ideal diet that academics think we eat. 

Fast foods are accessible to everyone:  kebabs, burgers, butter and lard pastries, sweets, ice cream, donuts, fried chicken, and sodas are all the opposite of traditional diets. But the world is changing again. The growth of traditional food, inspired by our neighbors the Italians' "slow food" movement has brought back some of the local dishes, mostly from the Arabs. Food based on legumes cooked with garlic and chilies, roasted vegetables, and lean rabbit cooked in garlic and red wine. We ate fish pie nearly twice a week in summer when the fishermen came back to shore with their boats brimming with the local catch of Mahi Mahi (Lampuki). Before the popularity of fridges, everything had to be eaten fresh. The Mahi Mahi were so cheap that we had fish for a month and the housewives got creative in how to cook it. Fried, roasted, or in soup with lemon and rice ("aliota"). But the pie won favor as it included fish, spinach, and ricotta in a flour pastry shell. 

Then came the sweet pastries made without baking using leftover cake and biscuits mixed with nuts and candied fruits and drenched in evaporated condensed milk.  Some fruits that only grow in Malta are also making a comeback. A small sweet pear called a "Bambinella" (from the Italian meaning a small girl) is still a popular indigenous fruit. We had lots of healthy soups, such as minestrone made with squash that had been harvested and then left on top of the roofs of the farms to mature in the sun. When cut open and a slice is purchased it gives the soup a mellow rich body with that traditional orange color. But the absolute favorite foods have never left the island. The local "pastizzi" of filo pastry filled with ricotta or peas. And there is always the local bread baked in a traditional wood-fired oven that is rare to find nowadays, but you can still find it. 

Our memories of the past are tied to the foods we ate at the time. When I visit my parents, which I try and do every year, I go and look for these wonderful foods. Some restaurants cater to this new demographic. Food has become a time portal for me as it is the best way to transport myself to the past. I have a secret pleasure of going away on my own to the city and in some of the local shops that still make traditional "pastizzi" I order 6 and walk to the garden overlooking the harbor and watch the ships as I devour these small pastries. Such fleeting escapades remind me of who I am and where I came from. It anchors me to my culture and my foundation. Food has a way of transporting me across time and mostly good times.

Now, living in the United States, the food tastes like plastic. I try to capture the taste by buying organic and local produce, which is an improvement, but I cannot capture the same flavor of my past. Only when I travel back to Europe, especially Turkey and Sicily do I  taste some of those flavors again. Perhaps that is why I like traveling so much. But it is more than food. It is how I felt as a young boy. That feeling of hope, of having a whole world to explore. The hunger was not just for food but for the excitement of all those opportunities that I believed existed for me, all I had to do was be adventurous. Perhaps by trying to capture the foods of my past, I am trying to capture that feeling of hope, that the world is full of opportunities. 

Perhaps that is the secret, being able to meditate and enjoy the world around us, and food certainly helps.

It is that feeling of belonging that we are trying to capture. As a child, I felt close to my family. I used to rush home from school and I knew that I had a safe place and that mum would be cooking and we get to eat together and maybe dad would tell us stories about his work. There were always the vendors that came pulling their carts selling "bigilla" (bean chili paste) or just fresh stalks of chickpeas still on their branch. 

My favorite was the vendor who sold romance novels. Mum who never went to school could read in Maltese, English, and Italian. I used to go and buy the sheet from the vendor. It measured something like 4 by 4 feet. I will take it to the kitchen table fold it and very carefully, using the only knife we had, a serrated bread knife, cut the paper into individual pages. Mum would then sew the pages together to make a book. She used to follow these romance novels religiously, and every month another chapter was added and I had my job, cutting the pages. 

There was always something happening and I belonged with this family. Sharing the food was not so much about sharing, as we devoured our food like stray cats. Sharing meant being together. We cannot recapture that now as we rarely see each other as a family. Like most of us, we have our own families now. My mum has severe dementia and my dad is angry at the world. He did not expect his life to end like this. We, the children are lost, despite having our own families our parents still remain our foundation and how we knew we belonged. Now we offer this belonging to our children even though we seem to have lost it for ourselves.