Category Archives: aging

Jul4

Happy Independence Day, Hero

Posted on by
Standard

Any chance you might have an issue with authority? If so, I’m just sure we can be friends. To say I am resistant to suggestion would be an understatement, and yet I am constantly seeking advise, input, more input, ideas, opinions and help from any number of sources.

My dearest friends will attest that I directly – and regularly – say to them, “Tell me what to do.” They think I’m funny. They have known me long enough to know that telling me what to do is futile. Even when I ask, there’s maybe a 30% chance of follow through. Maybe.

Now let us not confuse my fierce independence with any remote understanding of healthy boundaries. Those close to me have also seen me make absolutely stupid decisions just for the sake of being contrary. What can I say? Growing up is hard to do…

Just this week I had a bit of a tete-a-tete with my past. My ex called and wanted to talk. This would generally send me into a tailspin of anxiety. What was he up to?

We met a few days later for breakfast. It was quite pleasant. He is 17 years older than me and has had some serious health challenges. So, he is face to face with his own mortality. That is humbling. But it was just a few hours later that he called again. Strange. This time he barked at me to pull up a website on my computer. He wanted me to look at a car for sale. He had asked about my Jeep at breakfast. The previous time we met for a “catch up” the Jeep had limped into the restaurant parking lot squealing and lurching. It’s the old car I had from our marriage, now 13 years dissolved. It’s on it’s last leg before the scrap heap and I’ve been trying to figure out how I will afford to replace it.

When he asked about it I had quipped, “It’s running well. It’s about time to think about looking for a car.” Ever-so nonchalant. Pardon me, but I’ve had more than 30 years with him to learn to generalize my answers. I give out very little information. It’s not so much a conversation as an interrogation, or a relationship as a transaction. He is never without an agenda.

Sure enough, several hours later and he’s found me a car. Mind you, we had not discussed anything about my looking for a car. No details were asked for or volunteered, no direct inquiries, no interest feigned. This was entirely based on his assumptions. He found me a car. Another Jeep (I had not been considering buying another Jeep. For one thing, I can barely climb in and out of this one anymore.)

This is how that second phone call went: “Hi. What’s up?” I was taken by surprise. “Get to your computer! Look at this website!” I had no idea what this was about until my laptop had booted up and I asked for the website name. It was a car dealership. “Look at this Jeep! If you’re interested I could go drive that for you tomorrow.” As if I don’t drive…or he has any mechanical prowess. But I do forget sometimes how utterly incompetent I am. He sounded like he was on speed (what is in those Manhattans?) He desperately needs a project, and he needs it to be me.

Wait. What? S L O W the heck down…why are you directing me to look at a car? Well…he could “help me” buy that. Sadly, I’ve also got 30+ years experience knowing that this is going to be a long, convoluted process that will somehow end up costing me sleep, peace of mind, money, and self respect. I graciously declined. I have learned a little over the decades. For better or worse, I have learned to be my own hero.

I thanked him for his concern and generosity. I don’t want to generate any animosity. I’m careful not to invite the repercussions of his wrath. I am struggling with my health also, but unlike my ex, I am also struggling financially. There was no room for partnership in that marriage, nor fairness in the divorce. I receive spousal support (the new word for alimony) which is a small fraction of his income and 90% of mine. Less than law would allow, but as much as I was willing to fight for. I wanted out intact. Okay, that’s not true – I wanted out alive. It was too late for intact.

My former husband is not a bad man. He is charming, highly intelligent and extremely like-able. There are many wonderful things about him, and I wish I knew how to have him in my life. He is what is known as a vulnerable narcissist. He would do anything to help. It’s just gonna have a few little almost invisible strings attached…kinda like walking into a spiderweb. Sticky.

Now with the hard-earned wisdom of distance, all of this simply makes me enormously sad. We are both alone in our old age. But I know my true value. Not only will he never know mine; he will never know his own. We are all so very fragile. As Maira is inclined to notice, we are all striving, and we are all heroic.

Jul1

“If it’s true, you tell ’em…”

Posted on by
Standard

Maurice Sendack died in May of 2012 at the age of 84. What an extraordinary ordinary life he lived. I was 10 years old when he published Where the Wild Things Are, but I would not learn of it until raising my own child over two decades later. And I did not really begin to fully appreciate him until recently.

He lost many of his closest family members in the Holocaust. He spent 50 years with his beloved partner, Eugene. But what strikes me as most remarkable is to hear him talk about how much he loved his life, how he valued the love he had and the work he enjoyed. A simple man, a simple life, a sacred life. As he says here, a transcendent life. May we all find that we do not need to be “earth shakingly important…” and have the peace and clarity to clear the decks, and to learn not to take ourselves so seriously.

Jun30

I Wouldn’t Trade You For the World

Posted on by
Standard

It’s just after 11 a.m. I’m beginning my second morning. It starts around ten or eleven, depending on how long I’ve been up. I wake most days between four and five. I have water, my chewable vitamins, and I write. First, Morning Pages according to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I made that contract with myself in 1997 and I intend to honor it the rest of my days. Then, I might write on the blog here, sometimes one or two posts, and schedule them for publication. While I’m writing I make coffee and I might throw in a load of wash. Or, I might get back into bed instead of making it…have a “napitation.” That’s where I start out meditating and end up napping. By this time it’s getting to be nine or ten-ish. Later if I napped for a couple of hours. And so begins my “second morning.” My day is a success and it isn’t even noon yet!

This morning when I woke from my nap I went out and mowed the back lawn before jumping in the shower. Now it is raining – that soft, cool rain that smells of cedar and wood fire; that only comes leeside of the lake tucked among the dunes. There is nothing better than rural Michigan in the summer.

To say that I am enjoying retirement would be a gross understatement. I have never loved my life more. It has taken seventy years to find “the house of my belonging.” But I am also struggling. It is a different stress than when I was younger, married then divorced, married again and then divorced again, raising a son through all the chaos, working a job or two, keeping up a home – always far, far too busy, living a “scramble” life.

On these sumptuous mornings I am filled with gratitude. I want nothing more than to listen intently to the sparrow listing it’s recent discoveries as if the inventory is of utmost importance, the cat obliviously asleep at my side. I wouldn’t trade a moment of this for the world.

The foxgloves are dropping their purple hats just as the daisies are about to announce the certainty of summer. They aver: don’t look back. But I do look back. I am full of every day I have known so far, and I don’t want to forget a second of it. I seem to have lived a thousand lifetimes in this one. I cherish them all.

I miss my Mother terribly. She’s been gone 21 years now, stolen from me far too young by Liposarcoma, the “angry cancer,” the cancer of the soft, fatty tissue of the abdomen – though she barely weighed a hundred pounds at 5 foot 5. I never once saw her get angry in her life. Apparently she kept it hidden in her deepest recesses.

She had more reason to get angry than you or I ever will. Anger seemed to hurt her. I would watch her face contort into grief when faced with the atrocities of her life. I cannot hold a candle to her level of understanding or forgiveness, let alone her unending gratitude. Faced with the same abuse, I’d have committed murder and been writing this from a prison cell. I don’t have a fraction of her strength.

My son was her first grandchild, and she was obnoxious with the photos. She carried a “Brag Book” in her purse, and I’d introduce her to friends or coworkers saying, “This is my Mother, Doris – would you like to see the photos of her grandchild now or later?” The sun rose and set with him. Many of my happiest memories are because of her, and my son and I know we were so privileged to have had her. She was a remarkable person, and the world is undeniably a better place because she lived.

But growing up we five children teased her mercilessly. Not least of which about her singing. She taught herself to play the guitar and she practiced, usually alone in her room at night, and sung quietly. In the decades to follow she would often look at me lovingly and sing a line or two…if I could, I’d sing to you:

Jun26

Fortune Sides With She Who Dares

Posted on by
Standard

Decades ago I bought a cheap cuff at a sidewalk fair. I simply loved the inscription: Fortune Sides With She Who Dares. The inside of the bracelet also has an inscription: I Will Make My Optimism Come True.

This thing is made of some cheap alloy and is worn thin, tarnished and bent out of shape. I treasure it. I will make my optimism come true, it says. Long before the concept of “toxic positivity” came into being I was busy re-inventing myself for the umpteenth time. Turns out, it’s a way of life. As they say, it beats the alternative. But I’ve never been toxically positive. Those who know me will attest that I’m barely positive at all. I lean towards the cynical view of life, but really only in the short term. I am eternally optimistic. And only ever momentarily deterred.

My seventh decade is proving a daunting challenge. Perhaps most of my generation have this in common. We grew up with a lot of cultural expectations about what our old age would look like and those are all proving to be untrue. Health concerns aside, my retirement income doesn’t cut it any more. Retirement was great while it lasted; it’s no longer practical. For starters, the appliances are mocking me. The dishwasher’s heating element is burnt out (a metaphor?) and last night’s lightning turned the clothes dryer into R2D2. It’s blinking frenetically and won’t quit talking jibberish.

So I am having to learn new skills. The work I did to support myself in the past isn’t a viable option as I can no longer spend hours on my feet. I’m learning technical skills now and looking forward to expanding my earning potential, reinventing myself still and again. My lifelong curiosity serves me well. And I do have some wisdom to share, and hopefully a modicum of inspiration.

My Mother was the epitome of optimism and determination. On those days when I can barely get out of bed, or I’m really feeling down and defeated, I remember to “channel my inner Doris…” She never lost her sense of humor. Upon hearing us children complain she would often quip drolly, “other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” She was a master of perspective.

I have lost small fortunes in my life. I have joked when people asked me what I do for a living, “I’m a career researcher…” while wishing I had stuck with something, anything, been more consistent and made wiser investments. Exercised my intellect more and emotions less, perhaps loved myself a little more. I suppose if I’m paying attention, I fall in and out of love with myself a dozen times a day. In truth, I’ve never understood the tenet “love yourself.” That sounds rather airy-fairy to me. But I do know how to love my life. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: you just have to be a fraction more curious than scared. Some days a fraction is all I can muster.

So by measure of risk taking, I can only say that I wish I’d done more of that – taken bigger risks on myself. Trusted myself more deeply, invested in my own creativity. I wish I’d learned earlier that boundaries are the property lines by which we proclaim ownership of ourselves and keep out the thieves who would steal our souls.

Georgia O’Keeffe said “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life, and I never let it keep me from a single thing that I wanted to do.” She Who Dares. Turns out there are a lot of people in this boat with me. We will show up every day – making our optimism come true. How will YOU show up brave today?

Personalized Cuff Bracelet, affiliate link may result in paid commission; https://amzn.to/3xqOtUp

May29

Tchotchke City here we come…

Posted on by
Standard

The year was 1966. My Mom took me to Macy’s in New York for school clothes and we bought Betsey Johnson paper mini-dresses…I was obsessed. I asked her if she could paint matching flowers on my face for the first day of junior high. About halfway through the day the Vice-Principal grabbed me by the arm with a stern look and nodded me toward his office. I was told in no uncertain terms to walk home for lunch and return without that stuff on my face.

My Mother was quite surprised when I walked in the door just after noon. She wasn’t expecting me. When I told her why I was home she was livid. She marched me right back into the Principal’s office – but I wasn’t in trouble – HE WAS! I wore painted flowers on my cheek every day after that. It wouldn’t be long before I asked my Dad to contribute: he gave up a pair of black socks so I could cut them into strips and hem the edges and my friends and I would wear them around our right upper arms. Black armbands signified our protest of the Vietnam war. My life as troublemaker had begun…and my wild parents sanctioned it.

Gil-Scott Heron told us the revolution would not be televised. Bess Myserson told Mrs. Smith that she didn’t have to buy war. And Betsey Johnson gave us fuchsia pink and lime green mini skirts. I was born this way, baby!

Suffice it to say Betsey Johnson has been a personal icon for over five decades now. I was in my 20’s when a roller skating friend came over to help bake cookies and declared my home “Tchotchke City.” Apparently there was a lot of stuff. Once again, light years ahead of my time (okay, a couple decades) I was a self proclaimed maximalist. I loved it when McDonalds started making Happy Meals. I collected the toys and proudly lined them up on the kitchen windowsill. Like my parents before me, I was a child with a child…in case I needed an excuse.

Betsey did not need an excuse. She never lost her playful spirit through codependency, as far as I can guess, because she didn’t have to. It was another influence, Virginia Woolf, who so wisely said, “Money justifies what would otherwise be frivolous.” I was young and my parents were still quite affluent and I had no idea of hardship. Not consciously, anyway. Life was still a lot of fun.

When did life become not-so-fun? I do know the answer to that question. I would never go back. That’s a saga that would span more than fifty years (so far,) and I am only now beginning to unravel the complexities of my life. I will say, if I have anything worthwhile to share as we venture forth, it’s that we must learn to live in the contradictions.

Last week I asked you to join me on a little adventure, to explore the connection between fashion, storytelling and sleep…and then I had a bout with illness. Seems I have to factor that in to my enthusiastic (and often unrealistic) time goals. Okay. But I am fascinated by the idea of what motivates us, how we treasure our creative spark as long as we live, and why. Do we lose our mojo because we get old, or do we get old because we lose our mojo? You don’t need me to answer that, do you?!

Let’s change sleep to rest and re-visit the concept of rest as conscious resistance, as withdrawal from the culture and our learned dissatisfaction. Let’s re-frame some of this curious exploration and learn to live in the questions – but let’s keep going. We owe this to ourselves, to get to the healing. Let’s honor that inner child and take her out to play…

Betsey Johnson Earrings: https://amzn.to/3KriCFG

May18

Preservation Resource Center…

Posted on by
Standard

WHO isn’t up for some preservation resources?!

I have often felt like my Dad was born in the wrong place and time – for which I’m grateful, of course (because…well…me.) He was gay, for one thing. He confided that to us after my parents 27 year marriage ended in their forties. But that was not something he was safe to disclose as a younger man, born in 1933, working in the factories of Detroit. He and my Mother both were talented beyond measure, both visually and musically. They never had much opportunity to be artists; they nurtured and encouraged it in us children. The expression that could not be contained, or even managed, was their rebellious spirits. You’ve heard me say that my parents were beatniks in the 50’s and became hippies in the 60’s…he did like to sport a colorful bandana around his forehead.

He played the piano, daily. We had a baby grand tucked in the corner of the living room where you would often find him tinkering. He played all the classics, but honky-tonk was his passion, and I suspect his sanity. I’m not exaggerating that his voice sounded like Frank Sinatra, and he was extraordinarily handsome throughout his lifetime. Circumstances being different, he’d certainly have given Sinatra some competition.

My father was not a particularly kind man. In fact, I’ve identified him in my older years of therapy as a narcissist, a sociopath. A man of extremely high intelligence and very low empathy. But I can’t help wondering who he might have been if born in a more tolerant time and culture, were he given even a bit more freedom of expression. Repression forces our personality out sideways in unhealthy choices, into addictions and immature abuses. I’m but one child of that fact. Please, God, may we finally learn that now, if we are to have any chance at all of a healthier future. Preferably before another world war. Preferably before the complete collapse of this empire. We have all suffered the consequences of oppression. Our society, our country, is bereft because of it. Our collective spirit is bound by grief, but we shall each know it personally. It’s our wake-up call.

Yesterday I discovered a fabulous new (to me) YouTube channel. Sorry (not sorry) to report – but I am a YT junkie. And home tours are my guilty pleasure, but I’m ever so picky. I want a lot of visual grist. This channel features restored historical homes of New Orleans, post Katrina. Let’s explore a few of these treats this coming week, beginning with this story, which brought me to tears for obvious reasons. THIS was so much like my childhood. Freeze this video on any frame at all and I will point out at least three things that spark memories. I am an endless fount of story, and I’m done apologizing for that. What awareness does this treasure spark for you?

Apr3

when it’s nobody’s business

Posted on by
Standard

Heart pounding anxiety woke me up at 3 a.m; which is not unusual anymore. I managed to talk myself off that ledge in about a minute. I’m getting better at it. My goal was freedom. The goal is always going to be freedom. Because I feel like my dream world, my rest, was hijacked. It’s mine. I want it back.

My friends and I are all worried about our adult children. They are struggling to find their footing in a culture that is undermining them every step of the way. And we are not sure how to help, or if we can. Mind you, they were raised as we were, in decent middle class families. We were well educated, but our current incomes are not cutting it. We don’t have the financial security we thought we were building all our work life. Our children left school in debt with no guarantee of a job, let alone a living wage. I read a news article last week that shocked me to my core: recent studies have shown that at least fifty percent of the baby boomers in the U.S. are financially supporting adult children. In many cases it’s the adult child and their family. They came home to get their feet back on the ground – in one case cited, 13 years ago.

Children or not, everyone I know is struggling. We are all trying to figure this out as we go along. We have no role models. We’re outliving our parents, and we are in entirely uncharted territory. We are the first generation that is openly talking about the abuse our parents and grandparents kept secret. No one was consciously dealing with narcissistic abuse 20 years ago. Or 10. No one recognized that past generations were being groomed for sexual abuse. The culture tolerated it, they tolerated verbal abuse, even laughed about it. They tolerated bad behavior, made excuses for it. Hell, we’ve voted it into the White House. Taking accountability for your behavior was optional. Do you wonder we have an epidemic of dementia?! (Help me forget!) Addiction? Of narcissism? Of sex trafficking? Of all manner of spiritual bankruptcy? Can no one connect the dots here?! That pandemic was no accident – it was a physical manifestation of a spiritual problem. It’s time to pull our heads out of the sand.

Meanwhile, I’m struggling with my health. Last week I called for a doctor appointment and was reminded that I have to be interrogated by a nurse over the phone to determine whether or not I am sick enough to qualify for a precious appointment. I have to beg just to be seen. Then before I can be given the necessary antibiotic I have to endure a week’s worth of tests. Meanwhile, I was prescribed a temporary superficial treatment. Medicare doesn’t cover that prescription, so I didn’t fill it. I can’t do that and buy groceries. And I’m angry about that.

Now, lest you think me ungrateful, or just a whiner, I am aware of opportunity hiding here in plain sight. When worry and anxiety seem to steal my peace I know my training is not yet complete. And I’m not havoc-ing it anymore (see blog post of March 15th.) Intellectually I know that the way out of angst is gratitude. But my intellect is not easily coerced. I can’t expect to start pontificating about big, general platitudes and get myself free. Those old affirmations aren’t working anymore; this feels like spiritual warfare.

But. I can start small…go back to basics. I’m sure glad I bought an orange desk chair instead of black. Orange is the happiest color. Wow, I love my bed. I love my wide Frodo feet. I walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I say “Thank You” to everything I pass (yes, out loud) – the floor, the countertop, the cat, the doorway, the moon outside. Try it. There are big things I am grateful for, too – like my son having survived cancer. He is struggling through his self-proclaimed “mid-life crisis”…but he’s here for it. Not all of his friends have made it past 40.

I can re-member myself whole. I have resources in my spiritual tool box: friends, some of my family, a loving therapist, tarot cards! At 3 a.m. with a racing heart I call in invisible help: “Christ Jesus, Archangel Michael, Ancestors! Any and all available light workers.” That’s step one. I am NOT TO BE TOILED WITH here. Neither are you – know that. God didn’t make a mistake. You were not a cosmic afterthought. You do not need to “find your purpose”…you ARE your purpose. Live like you belong here. There are no qualifications you haven’t fulfilled. You have exactly the same right to be here as 8,019,876,189 other people. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Since that has been established, I can be the narcissist’s worse nightmare. My home, my mind, and my body – my sanctuary – is a no tolerance zone. No talking down to anyone. I carry an expectation that you will be on your very best behavior around me and show up as present as possible. Don’t ever settle for anything less from anyone. Not your teacher, not your boss, not your doctor, and certainly not your family. I can laugh at myself with the best of them – when I’m silly or wrong. But don’t make fun of me at my expense. Don’t ridicule me. I’m a fucking spiritual Jedi, and I’ve trained my boundaries to be stronger than my empathy. Everybody sing along now…

Apr1

Resisting a Rest

Posted on by
Standard

You will see the name of this blog change soon, to A Painterly Life. Let’s face it, it isn’t a blog about home so much as about life. And the content will broaden. We will venture out to explore the beautiful nature I am grateful to live in and near. We will continue to explore lifestyle, particularly through the lens of an aging woman…a creative woman who has survived incest, near-death experiences, growing up in an extremely dysfunctional family in the wild sixties, profound loss, decades of narcissistic abuse, and who is surviving chronic illness. But mostly, a woman who wants to live as open-heartedly as possible moving forward. Moving life forward will be the theme here.

Like most of us, from all walks of life, we are figuring it out as we go along. Our culture is changing fast – as it must. It’s archaic in so many ways. Those of us who long to see a new far more sustainable world for future generations must make serious and often difficult changes – and quickly – to keep our lives moving forward. To feel relative. We must learn to live as a verb rather than a noun.

“I want to learn to live my life as a liquid.” – Cody, Dinner At the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

These days my body and my psyche require an unreasonable amount of rest. I do resist, albeit futilely. I have so much to do. I find myself wondering how anyone works and does everything else, but in truth, we don’t. I didn’t. I ignored more than was healthy to ignore. I lived in a constant state of overwhelm. I suffered in silence, but I also caused an unnecessary amount of suffering in my bull-in-a-china-shop charge through life. But I survived. I’m a survivor.

So are you. And I maintain a foundational premise I have adamantly defended since adolescence – that creativity is the only way through this chaos. Art, to be specific. And art is not a thing, it is a process, a way of life.

And so I aver: ULTIMATELY, IT WILL BE THE ARTISTS WHO SAVE US. You’re not an artist, you say? I beg to differ. Do you problem solve? Art. Cook? Art. Sing when alone in the car, maybe even off-key? Art. Notice the lichen on the fallen log? Artist! Love crisp, clean sheets? Know when something just feels “off”? Have a favorite color? Savor coffee with dessert? I can go on, oh, and I will…stick with me.

Let’s talk about this plaque of deep fatigue, physically and psychologically. Perhaps more so psychically. Don’t think you’re psychic? Well, I will prove that you are that, too. And it is required of us now to acknowledge and develop this atrophied gift. It is part of living artistically. It is part of living.

We are human. We are alive. We are artists. We are now.

Mar24

your great mistake

Posted on by
Standard

“Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings.”

Because I am inexplicably blessed with remarkable women as friends, I have been engaged in an ongoing conversation about what it means to live alone and to be isolated. Is isolation a healthy choice? There are many of us who have chosen to live alone in recent years, despite being women of advancing age. It certainly doesn’t look wise. But what if compromising our mental and emotional health in order to remain attached isn’t a viable option any longer?

In recent years I have seen friendships fall away simply because we were at different stages in life. Some friends have become caretakers for grandchildren, and don’t seem to have time for me. I have gone no contact with several friends as my boundaries have become healthier and I was less available for their demands. Beloved family members have died, or slipped into the oblivion of dementia. As I watched alcoholism destroy the minds and bodies of those closest to me, I’ve become less tolerant of addiction. I can’t stand to be around people who are drinking. They think they are entertaining and fun; they aren’t. They are defensively unconscious. My compassion for them has increased; I still love them. But I don’t want to be around them.

And then coming to terms with narcissistic abuse takes it’s toll on everyone. It deals a particularly cruel penance, a psychic solitary confinement. Much like alcoholism, and often combined with it, it extends it’s creeping tentacles into our psyche and rips apart our very lives. Here’s my analogy: You went to sleep in your cuddliest pajamas and you woke standing naked in a distant field, the tornado having just dropped you there. Nothing is recognizable. Dramatic? If you know, you know.

Chosen isolation is transformative. When embraced it is healing. Solitude is a welcome adjustment, health chosen over dis-ease, dysfunction. There is psychological room to breathe, and growth can finally take place. You gain some essential perspective…and then you begin to see the workings of life in the cult of fear. The man behind the curtain is no wizard.

It seems to me that once you can tentatively poke your toe out of survival mode and assess, there is much accountability to face. If you can get beyond your defenses and self loathing, you win. I confess that I used to scoff at people who said that joy can be experienced equal to the grief you have known. Psychobabble alert. But as spring is beginning to emerge here in the cold north (and it is still mighty cold), I am noticing…I am noticing a remarkable expansion. I am feeling less isolated and more connected, even – or maybe especially, to an invisible mystery. It’s enticing me toward something unknown. This is not the end of my story.

Perhaps there are different kinds of isolation, or different levels. Perhaps some isolation is healthy and some is unhealthy; maybe it’s a stage, a transition..maybe…just maybe everything is waiting for you.

“Some bridges are beautiful when they burn. There’s a calmness that takes over when you can’t go back. When you’ve changed. When you’ve decided. When you’ve left behind a version of you that is no longer you. The end of everything is the start of anything.” – zach pogrob

Mar22

maybe a great magnet pulls all souls towards truth

Posted on by
Standard

Well. I’m struggling this week as I think about aging, and women who have inspired me as I become an elder…and I’m compelled to think about my Mom. I’m older now than she was when she died. There is nowhere to look but inward. She has been gone 21 years this week, and I still miss her every day. When I think of writing about her, I don’t know where to start. I could write an epic tome, volumes…17,898 chapters – one for every day we lived at the same time, most of those days in close contact. She was my best best friend.

Doris was a little spit of a woman, barely a hundred pounds, a sparkling fairy with red hair and green eyes and freckles. She looked fragile, but she was a force to be reckoned with. She did not have an easy life, but she was never daunted by challenges. She took everything in stride and pushed into possibility and unwavering hope, always. She was a tireless champion for her five children. And then for her grandchildren, of which my son had the great privilege to be first born. She was obsessed with him. I suspect he came just in time to renew her future imaginings. My son was about five when he said, “I love Nana, she spoils me rotten.” Indeed.

As a young adult I looked to begin a tradition with Mom, to find something we could do together, just the two of us. I started to buy us concert tickets, some to my favorite musicians, and some to hers. I would choose an outdoor venue in the middle of summer and pack us a picnic so we could sit in the parking lot afterwards and talk while we waited for the traffic to clear. I got to have her all to myself. I endured country for her, and Neil Diamond. I drew the line at Willie and implored my sister to take her in my place. I was such a snot (glad I outgrew that…)

One summer I was excited to get us great tickets to see k.d. lang. It would cause quite a rift with my two sisters. They forbid her go. It seems we were not allowed to support artists who were gay. She decided to defy them and go anyway. I reassured my sisters there was no need to worry, that we weren’t going to “sleep with her – we’re only going to listen to her sing.” Oh what I would give for one more day…