I hold you in my heart
My forever-talisman
No one else can see you
But I know you are there
My scarred and broken one
My deepest, darkest night
You will never know despair again
You will never suffer alone
You are what keeps me whole
You are what keeps me sane
I write a lot about being a woman and aging.
(See A Table of One’s Own and On Aging.)
I am committed to changing the narrative around middle-aged and older women (and men.)
I want the women (and men) who come after me to have a better path, a more welcoming one, as they move out of “youth” into their 40’s, 50’s and beyond.
I want them to never have to feel “invisible.”
I blame advertising and other forms of media.
We simply stop seeing people on television and film, for the most part, after they turn 45 or so.
Sure, we see a few as needed for the main story. The parent of the lead. The grandparent of the lead’s kids. A judge, a doctor, maybe — although today, for the most part, you see lawyers and doctors on shows and in movies who are in their mid-20’s to mid 30’s.
Oh, sure, there is the occasional uptight matron, or kooky neighbor or unmarried aunt. Or maybe a ball-busting woman playing a politician or high-ranking military officer.
But usually, we stop seeing any stories of people over 45 until they become grumpy old men or grandma’s on rampage.
In advertising, there is a gap between women and men aged 45 until over 65 or so. We see parents until their kids go off to college, and then “bam”! Nothing until it is time for dentures and Depends.
There’s just this big gap. And in that gap would be those of us between the ages of 45 and 65.
So my theory is that because youth grow up literally not seeing people ages 45 to 65 reflected back to them on TV and in magazines and films, they simply do not see us.
We are invisible to them.
I want this to change. I want to be a part of this change.
I am doing what I can by finding people who are brave enough to write stories that contain middle-aged and older people in central roles and stories and doing all I can to get cast in their pieces or support their work however I can by donating or watching or simply giving them a “Way to go!”
And I am writing my own stories that will reflect that population and am working to produce them.
I can go and support films of the people who have already done this. I can watch shows such as “Grace and Frankie” on Netflix who are featuring stories of people in their 70’s to support the efforts being made to get people over 45 into meaningful stories.
I do not yet know how else, but I know that I will be a part of this change.
It will be a sea change, for sure. But a change is a’coming, if I have my way.
Your hands
I see them first
Long, tapered fingers
So sure, so sensuous
Your fingers holding the tuna
As you slice through it
My first thoughts
Make me blush
I want to be that food
I want to be touched
The way you touch it
I want you to slice me open
Arrange me
Take me into your mouth
Become one in your body
Does a chick know that they’ve hatched
Or do they still feel like they did when they were in the egg
Just in a different environment?
There’s always this feeling that I am incubating
Still developing, still growing
I wonder if I will ever feel fully hatched
You provoke
I provoke
Push and pull
Until someone breaks
Who’s at the helm
Who’s fighting whom
Is it your ancestor or mine
Vying for survival
Where does our love go
When our history floods through
Happiness
Always just beyond my grasp
Until one day
I opened up my hands
And in it flew
Just like that
I love to meander. Either literally or figuratively. In my mind, telling a story or on my feet, I find it so gratifying.
Not always so for others. My husband can be driven a bit crazy by my sometimes long and winding way of coming to the point of a story, for example.
I get it. I love straight lines too. There a times I get to the point! Indeed!
Give me a route, I love to follow the way.
But to let that all go: plans, destinations, paths, pre-determined places to end up or problems to solve by this deadline or that…
To simply go where the wind blows me. To follow my nose. To follow clues.
To listen to the guide from within as old as the sea urging me this way or that.
This is how I find the best places. This is how I end up living the most “perfect” days. (Rarely the days I painstakingly plan.)
To sit and let my mind go from association to association, knowing that nothing is crucial but it is all valuable and each morsel may lead to something wonderful.
That is where my creativity comes alive, in the seemingly random twists and turns of consciousness as they dip into the collective unconscious.
Yes, I am a fan of meandering. As long as it is not in the Internet. That is the one place I am best served by staying to a clear intention and boundaries. Meandering there, I usually end up with regret and an emotional hangover.
But a day like today, meandering about Cape Cod. Priceless. Nourishing. Awesome.
“What?! No!” she desperately exclaimed just after two of the three bank tellers suddenly and without warning flourished “Next Teller, Please” signs and left to do Heaven-knows-what.
This, just after the debacle at Starbuck’s whereupon she stood waiting at the register for five agonizing moments -watching all six employees do whatever the hell they do other than deal with the customers (which is why she had banned going there years ago until in a moment of weakness she decided to give them one last try) – before raising her voice in an attempt to get service, which was a humiliating, abysmal failure.
Taking these events as signs she was just not meant to be in the world today, she scurried back to her apartment, back to safety and the surety of the attention of her cats, both of whom adored her unremittingly and vied to be in her presence 24/7.
I was so relaxed yesterday here in a beautiful old house on the shores of Cape Cod that I forgot to blog!
I slipped! Oops!
But instead of beating myself up, I choose to celebrate this little break from my drive to “get it all done,” this break from my goal of a blog a day, this break from perfectionism.
Just as it feels good to show up for my drive, it also feels good to show up for my need to “be.”
The Urban Dictionary defines “gone fishing” as:
1. To checkout from reality. To be unaware of what’s going on.
2. To drop the duties of daily life and go do something else, something nice.
I hadn’t intended to do that, I always blog no matter what. But you know what, it was nice to “slip.” I think I have always feared relaxing my grip, my drive — that if I do so once, I will slide into some kind of lethargy. Lose all will.
Yet here I am, right back on schedule. Happy to write.
May you give yourself a little break today – some change in your regularly disciplined routine, some shift in your thoughts.
It really is OK. The sun will rise again.
It did this morning.
I’ve been dancing on the skinny branches
It’s been a long time coming
No longer hiding ‘neath the foliage
Or burying myself in the gnarled knots of life
I am ready to fly, put these wings to use
I love the skinny branches, they’ve showed me myself
But the sky is beckoning with winking clouds
And the wind is calling my name
And trees never hold on to anything
So why on earth should I?
Beyond the Skinny Branches 