Following the seasons

 I've been thinking a lot about what makes me feel good - and what doesn't. And this made me think of tomatoes.

In the summer, a tomato from the farmers market or from my small garden is heaven in a bite: the sweetness and depth of flavor is remarkable, the kind of thing that makes you want to call a friend and say "YOU HAVE GOT TO TRY THIS!"

And a winter tomato tastes like wet cardboard and sadness. It has just enough almost-tomato flavor to make me try again, but every bite is the same, and none of it is good.

In a modern life, it seem that we've totally lost touch with our fresh tomatoes, and everything surrounding them. City folks like me don't follow the seasons with our food, and often not even with our behavior: we spend time in air conditioning and heated homes (both of which have huge up-sides, of course!) and we eat strawberries in winter and apples in summer, and it seems to me that when we live like this everything feels just a bit flatter. Winter tomatoes are flat.

I'm trying to change this in my life.

I have a farmers market just blocks from my home (I know, how lucky am I?!) and I try to go every Sunday. Strolling the stalls, I see old and new friends, get to pet lots of random dogs, and listen to buskers playing quite a selection of music. There are food trucks and food tents, I really think that it's quite lovely, and part of the ritual of my week. But most of all right now, I'm noticing how when I shop that way, I find myself so much more in tune with the seasons.

This week the dahlias were wilted and had some spots; dried statice and cabbage flowers had taken their places. (I'm not going to lie: I mourned that!) I picked up bunches of leeks, carrots, and lacinto kale (I finally figured out one kind of kale that I don't despise). Potatoes, parsnips, radishes, apples filled the stands. Onions, garlic, and mushrooms were in abundance. And jarred items - kiwi jam, kombucha, and apple cider - were all there for the taking. I'm trying to map my eating to this kind of seasonality this year, and I don't know if it's my imagination but I really do think that the potatoes taste better, the carrots sweeter and crunchier.

But it's not just food, it's all of it.

As a teacher, I find that my work year is much more in tune with the seasons, even though we're indoors. "New Year" is autumn, just as in the pagan calendar. I love the ritual of freshening up office supplies, setting my classroom in order, and making plans to have creative, interesting lessons that will make the year sweeter for me and for my kids. September is the mad rush of trying to get to know the students, rolling out new curricula; October is all about finding our groove and getting work done; November is all about applying lessons and really getting down to business. December is about diving in - but then it's about raising our heads to catch our breath, sprinting out of the building, and enjoying a two week break.

January may be New Year's again. Refreshed, we're ready to dive back in, to close out the semester strong. And then, just when we're feeling tired, we get two things: a new quarter with a fresh start, and then a week of break. The we power through March and April to the AP exams, and then in late May and June we wind down with our college essay and the dreams of a new life.

And then? And then we get summer. Travel, oceans, suntans, festivals, concerts, picnics.

Having an arc to my year in this way is useful to me, and I find it soothing. Just like the tomatoes, when I try to rush in the wrong season - in September if I dive in too fast, we don't build community, and then they don't learn as well! - then I don't do well; in winter we really go deep into the material, and that feels right, too.

But I want my whole life to be like this, and more.

I want to really live each minute of the seasons, taking the gifts each season - month, week, day - can offer, and enjoying the gifts quite thoroughly.

It's mid-November and daylight savings is in effect, and suddenly it really is quite dark. Instead of complaining about this (there is so much complaining about this!), I don't want to fight it, I want to embrace it. In this season of darkness, I want:

- candles

- reading

- warm stews and soups (vegetarian for me, please!); butternut squash lasagna; roasted Brussels sprouts; lentil stew; vegetable soup with kale and carrots and potatoes; mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy

- oodles of hot drinks

Today I had fun grabbing my bright puffy coat, my waterproof (but cute!) lace up boots, and putting on my wool hat with a pompom and my matching thin gloves, and walking around the farmers market with my bag in the cold air, perfectly content because of my clothing. The cool air felt good in my lungs; my legs appreciated the stretch. Earlier, I walked through Lincoln Park and found myself enjoying a walk on the actual beach, admiring the shells and different seaweeds washed up in the strong autumn tides. (I saw a particularly beautiful chiton, bright blue inside; and a perfect snail shell; and so many lovely stones mixed in with the kelp and sea lettuce and other seaweeds I can't yet name.) When at home, I read for a while; I journaled for a while. I put my laundry away, and washed my sheets (and what is yummier than fresh clean sheets and a feather comforter on a cold night?). Back in the park, I found pinecones and bright leaves and a couple small cedar branches, and I brought them home and arranged candles in tin around them, and took satisfaction in bringing their autumn color and scents into my home.

On Friday night I had some friends over, and I made a vegetarian chili that included green chilies that I purchased at last week's farmers market and then roasted; it also had pumpkin in it. Lighting candles and setting the table in an autumn color palette was soothing to me; nurturing my friends on a cold night with warm food and a cozy home felt blissful.

This season I am nesting by journaling, spending more time at home being an introvert than I do in summer. I'm reading more. Writing more. Observing more. I'm taking a yoga class at a studio and enjoying doing it in community, instead of in my basement, glad to exercise my body without fighting the elements. It's a perfect fall activity, I think.

Instead of cursing the early dark, when I noticed the sky turning pink tonight I grabbed my puffy coat etc. and added a travel mug of hot tea ("Yogi Tea for Immune Support" felt right!) and hurried back to Lowman Beach to sit on a log and watch the sun setting. Bundled up, I felt no complaints, and the rich pink of the sky and the sound of the waves was no less beautiful than when I swam there this summer or lounged there with a book in a sundress or a bathing suit on a hot day. I felt fully present, so grateful that the November air was clean and fresh, and that the beach offered its gifts.

I'm already preparing for the winter season right around the corner, though I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself. I'm reading pie recipes for Thanksgiving, and looking up all of the festivals and activities that I enjoy in winter. I don't want to miss the Christmas Ships, or the Pathway of Lights, or our local Night Markets. I've got tickets for a play in hand, and hope to find another. One friend's annual party in December is already on the calendar, and I've already invited friends to a "Sparkle" party and included "the kids" (who are mostly turning 20 this year!) because they'll enjoy gathering, too.

On Thanksgiving morning, the yoga studio is offering a "gratitude" practice. While I will no doubt be running around like mad in my kitchen, wishing I'd done more the night before, I'm going. Reveling in gratitude is a part of Thanksgiving, and I can't wait. And speaking of gratitude: I've already pulled out the Thanksgiving Journal. When Tessa was little I read about this practice of keeping a book where all of one's Thanksgiving guests write in it when they gather on Thanksgiving and I started it at least 15 years ago. The book has now watched cousins fall in love, get married; have children; it's weathered my divorce and the new life that came afterwards. It's seen grandparents pass, and it's seen babies being born. It's seen big Thanksgiving parties of 22, and a tiny one of just 3 for Covid. My regular Thanksgiving crew reminds me about it - they not only want to write in it, but going back and reading years gone by is a treasured tradition.

***

I know I'm rambling, so let me try to say what I came to say.

I want a good life, where I relish the gifts put before me. I don't want to curse the darkness, because cursing it will not bring the light. I want to embrace it all: the light, the darkness; the tomatoes, the butternut squash. I want to remember to get cozy in my home with fuzzy socks and favorite sweaters and a journal or a book, and I want to remember to strip down to only the lightest clothes and walk along the edges of the waves in the sunshine. I want to sleep under starry skies in summer, looking up and gasping at their beauty through tired eyes; and I want to light candles and smile at the warm light in my home in winter as warm scents come from my kitchen and friends come to the door. I want to look for signs of spring - those bright crocuses bring such joy! - but I also want to marvel at the lacy patterns of the trees, the beauty of hoarfrost, the steadfast water fowl who spend the winter without apparent regret, swimming in the Sound. I want to participate in the lighting of lights - candles, Christmas trees - and I want to be filled with gratitude that I am here to see them.

I don't want to fight the darkness, I want to find the beauty in it. I don't want to long for tomatoes, strawberries, and peaches, I want to savor pumpkin curry and pomegranate kale and cranberry bread.

I want to embrace the seasons of the year, and of my life.

Right now, my hair is thinner and grayer than it was. My belly is a different shape. My eyes have crinkles in the corners. I am not a young woman; this is not the spring of my life. But it seems to me, there is so much beauty at this phase of life, too.

Instead of taut skin, I have a stronger sense of self worth.

Instead of glossy, dark hair, I have the knowledge that I can overcome.

Instead of a sad marriage, I have freedom.

Instead of a baby in my arms, I have a daughter who is exploring her dreams at college and comes home to me at breaks.

Instead of learning a path, I have a steady career that feels solid.

Instead of building a home, I have a home that is safe, warm, and filled with comforts.

Much like in my youth, I'm still filled with dreams, hopes, and desires. But unlike in my youth, I'm not panicking that I haven't fulfilled them yet. I know that some will happen, and some might not, but that I am okay - no, better than okay! - either way.

Just as the day has light and dark, and the light and dark return right on schedule; just as the seasons surely rotate, the leaves bursting forth, shimmying in the breeze, bursting with color, then dropping to reveal the trees' architecture... my life has these patterns, too. I refuse to say that one season is worse, or better; they're just all so different, and each relies on the other. It's autumn, and I am in autumn, too. But this is the season for gratitude, and I am grateful.

I have had summers that hurt; I have had springs that birthed disease and divorce. Yes, some winters are weary (the Covid isolation of winter 2021 was ROUGH); but not all of them are. Some are filled with Christmas parties and solstice celebrations and snowshoeing and skiing and dinner parties and game nights and weekend getaways and such good books. Some are filled with success at work, and joyful breaks. I became a mother in winter - what is more lovely than that?

I'm a little slower this late autumn than I was in summer - no rushing about from train to train in Italy; no jumping from festival to festival or concert to concert. But the slowness suits me, too. It's the season for it. I spent an hour in a bookstore yesterday, a gift to myself.

I am skipping the fresh tomatoes for now, because I don't like soggy cardboard. And I'm embracing the dark, because I love lighting candles in the dark, and because a starry winter night is so gorgeous, and because I do love to see the Christmas lights against a dark sky. And I'm embracing every kind of potato, and all of the pies (but especially pumpkin).

And here I am, writing again, when all summer I struggled to do so, and that feels right, too. (Maybe I'll even go back and edit this, because boy it took me a long time to get to my point! :-) ).

I want to leave by the seasons, all of their light and dark, all of their sweet and savory. I refuse to dread the darkness, when I know that the darkness also brings the gift of snow days and apple cider and the smell of a Christmas tree in my house. There is so much to look forward to - and I'm looking forward to it! And I refuse to dread the autumn of my life, because it has gifts, too, and because the brightness of the leaves is no less knowing that they will fall, and because the winter around the corner has gifts to reveal, too.

And now: off to make a late dinner. Tonight it's mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, and roasted broccoli. Yum. Nothing to be sad about there - comfort food at it's finest!

Selfless, Selfish, Myself

 As a woman and a mother, I have received many commands to be selfless.

Selfless mothers put their children's needs before their own. Selfless women give to community, to their jobs, to their families, to their friends. As a society, we revere them in their selflessness: we hold them up as paragons of virtue, as role models.

Selfish women, on the other hand, are at best chastised and at worst shamed and belittled. The woman at the park who was staring at her phone as her child yelled, "Watch me!" from the monkey bars got stares and eye rolls. The woman who dared to say "No," without explanation or apology, shocked the room into silence.

I was taught to be selfless. I was taught to give of myself until there was nothing left to give. I was taught to not only turn the other cheek but to say "sorry" and then "thank you" when I received the slaps. My family and society at large gave me loud messages about how giving up myself, sacrificing for others, and emptying myself of want or desire was the end goal, the proof that I had followed the script that had been handed to me.

Don't believe me? Read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. The beloved children's classic is about a boy and a tree, and the tree gives of itself until it is literally just a stump, and the boy - absolutely unaware that he has sapped the tree of everything by taking its apples, branches, and then even the trunk - then sits on that stump and the tree is still glad that (she?) has something left to give.

I hate this book. A child should not take until all that is left of the giver is a stump. It is, indeed, selfless love on the part of the tree... but isn't it also co-dependent garbage where the tree gets its self worth from how many limbs it is willing to chop off in the name of love? Isn't that abusive and ugly? And yet, the book is revered by many. Is this the model of motherhood that I am supposed to adore?

The messages aren't just in children's books, and I don't think I have to tell you where to find them. If you look, they're everywhere. "We" admire people, especially mothers, who give until it hurts. Such women are lauded as examples of womanhood, motherhood, and wife-dom.

And the reverse? We have names for women who are selfish. Names that rhyme with witch.

And I'm sick of it. Why would I choose to be a stump or a bitch? Surely there is more to life than putting my own needs dead last, or disregarding everyone around me without offering nurture or care?

I don't want to be selfless, and I don't want to be selfish. I just want to be myself.

***

Lately I've been taking a yoga class. It's a real gift to myself: I've carved out time and money to make it happen. I haven't done yoga in a class for several years (thanks, Covid) and I've never been particularly good at it; I've done yoga on and off for thirty years (what?!) but I've never had a truly regular practice. But this year, as Tessa is at school and I'm trying to remake my life into the shape that fits the time and place, I decided that yoga would benefit mind, body, and soul, so I went to a couple different studios until I found one that works for me. It's only a couple miles from home, and I only go once a week for now... but I'm finding it transformative.

First, there is the act of organizing my life around this thing that I want to do. I have to get off work on time, leaving a meeting even if it runs late. Then I bought myself a few items to wear, because my workout gear was getting a little shabby (or, in some cases, just too tight - oops). And I needed to pay money to do take the classes, even though I could do free videos in my basement. And then... I needed to show up for myself.

There is something about being in community during yoga. Something wonderfully unpolished about the humanity of the instructor ("take your right foot - oh, sorry, I mean your left foot!"); about being in a room with people younger than me and older than me, in better shape than me or worse shape than me; about the way the studio puts small vases of flowers around the edges of the room. There is magic in a small group of people sitting in stillness and quietly setting their intentions. And there is such release in savasana at the end of the practice. When it's all over and we softly call out "namaste" (the light in me sees the light in you) to the instructor, my whole body feels the gratitude of the words. It helps my body for sure, but it releases my mind and frees my soul even more than it tightens my muscles or improves my balance.

And it is... selfish? To take this time just for myself, not for fitness, but simply because I want to.

I don't think it's selfish. I was taught to believe that it's selfish. But I think it is just me being fully myself.

***

I have become friends with two "new" sets of neighbors who moved in close to my house. Both families have babies as well as older kids, and both families are positively lovely people who are exactly the kind of neighbors one hopes for. There are borrowed groceries, shared bottles of wine, invitations to visit. Babies get passed around, and younger children that tell me wild stories about worms in the garden ("It was six feet long - really!") with sparkling eyes. Both of these women have gone to yoga with me, and I am absolutely blown away by it, the way that they are creating space in their lives for themselves. When Tessa was little, I wasn't good at that... at all. I envy them this.

***

This post isn't about yoga. This post is about figuring out how to be myself, without apology or explanation. This is about me refusing to give of myself until I am only a stump, while still living as a nurturing, generous, loving person. Because I do believe that I am generous, and nurturing, and that I have love to give. But I also believe that it is not my job to solve everyone else's problems and emergencies of their own making, and that if I leave work on time the world will not fall apart, and that if I create space to do the things I love - even when they cost money, or take me away from things other people might wish me to do - it's okay.

I don't want selfish, and I don't want selfless. I want to fully inhabit my own life, my own body, my own dreams.

With Tessa living her own life, following her dreams, I see the importance of following my own dreams even more. If not now, when? I'm 53 years old and I feel so strongly that the best is yet to come, and that I'm not done giving or receiving gifts in life. In this second half of my life, though, I don't want to be selfless anymore. I want to take care of my own wants, desires, longings, and needs... knowing that I can do so without selfishness. I want to, at long last, be in a relationship where not only do I know how to ask for what I need, but also to - without apology - create space for what I need within myself.

No excuses. No explanations. Just yes when I mean yes, and no when I mean no.

I took a workshop once where the instructor gave an analogy about filling our cups. He said that we should picture our lives like a teacup being filled by a waterfall. We could imagine the waterfall filling the cup... and then overflowing into the saucer. He said that when we allowed ourselves to fill up, we could help others with the overflow, and be glad to do so - we would be able to give generously without depleting our own resources. I really like this analogy, but even though I heard it over a decade ago, I think I'm just now starting to get what it might look like in my own life.

It looks like boundaries around work. (I don't work on weekends, I decided. I work late two nights a week, and the other nights are for me. This feels - miraculous. And I should point out that I still put in plenty of unpaid overtime, but it's more on a schedule that works for me.)

It looks like investing in myself. A yoga class, a trip, a pair of lovely yoga tights that don't rise up or show my underwear when I bend over. There is a financial element that I still need to be careful with, but there needs to be space for me, too.

It looks like guarding my time, giving it to people whose energy fuels me rather than depletes me, and it looks like learning that my time alone is worth protecting, too. "I'm sorry, I have plans" is perfectly appropriate if I have scheduled time for myself to write, to read, or to have a quiet evening.

Not a stump.

Not a bitch.

Just - myself, at the center of my own life, surrounded by community, working hard, but giving myself space to breathe.

It's not rocket science, but it still feels new to me. New, and beautiful, and miraculous, and magic. I love it, and I'll take all the magic I can get.

Reinventing Middle Age

 Dear Reader,

I'm trying to figure out what middle age looks like.

Do you know what it looks like? If so, can you please tell me? Because I can't find a roadmap that makes sense to me.

I think twenty or thirty years ago if you'd asked me what it looked like I would have made a snarky joke about buying a sports car, or about saggy boobs, but the truth is I didn't have a clue then, and I don't have a clue now. (Joke's on me: I have no desire nor funds for an impractical sports car, and thanks to breast cancer reconstruction my girls will be perky forever thanks to the silicone blobs that have replaced my feminine flesh.) I certainly wouldn't have predicted the permanent changes brought by cancer treatment, but I REALLY wouldn't have predicted a decade old divorce and living alone. I think my twenty-something self would have been horrified, and would have cried herself to sleep at the thought.

There-there, twenty-something self. It's really not that bad. Actually... it's really good. No, really, I'm not just saying that!

My twenty-something self was a people pleaser. She knew some very important things - like that she was strong and capable, and that her friendships would be her salvation, and that she wanted a life that was meaningful. She was filled with fire, but she bit her tongue too often around men, and played the part that she was told to play. She really, truly believed that she was unworthy of love, and so when people behaved badly she knew that this was just how it went for her. She looked at people who seemed to have it figured out and she took notes: how did they get like that? She couldn't figure it out, but she kept trying, determined and hopeful even when she was scared. (She was pretty scared.) She was aware of her people pleasing and starting to work on it.

My twenty-something self had a roadmap. There was a list of things to accomplish before marriage: college degree, career, financial independence, world travel, multiple boyfriends, live alone without roommates. The minute she ticked off those boxes, she got engaged to a nice guy, and got married a week before her 30th birthday, right on time. She knew what the future looked like: career. House. Dog. Baby. Motherhood.

And then...? I don't know. It stopped with motherhood. I could imagine PTA meetings (note: I find them colossally boring and I am a horrible PTA member, as it turns out), field trips (I loved going on Tessa's field trips!), dinner parties, sleepovers. I carved out little slivers for myself: a girls' weekend once a year if I was lucky, the occasional happy hour.

But I had no idea what came next. Anything past 40 just looked - well, it didn't look like anything. Maybe that's because I was lacking in imagination, or maybe that's because my mother's life was so different than my own (at 40, I had a 7 year old and was deep into parenting; at 40 my own mother had a daughter a couple years into college).

My twenty-something self had no idea. But honestly? My forty-something self didn't, either. Aside from noticing some crinkles around my eyes or how my knees hurt more with running, my forty-something self wasn't that different than my thirty-something self.

But here I am, fifty-something (53, if you care), and it only now occurs to me that THERE IS NO ROADMAP. Nobody wrote it. There are certainly women out there, ahead of me, forging their best lives, but I am not privy to their experiences, and often I just don't know who they are. Hollywood certainly doesn't help (Emma Thompson is a favorite actress, but I still can't get over her middle aged depiction in Love, Actually - her character is so utterly lost in her own life, so lacking spark and vitality...).

Now, before some helpful person tells me about the books that are available on middle age, and that there is a road map RIGHT HERE, let me tell you that Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway might be a brilliant character, but in no way do I desire her particular map of life. Nor do I desire to follow Maggie in Breathing Lessons.

I read every book I could find about pregnancy, parenting, marriage. But I haven't read many books about middle age. I tried recently to read a bestseller book about finding joy "in the second half of life" but I could not find myself in it - the people it was writing for are miserable, I think, and I am not miserable. Maybe I read the wrong book. I quit partway through, because it really wasn't written for me. I couldn't relate at all.

So I'm writing my own roadmap.

I have this metaphor I've been thinking about: we are often told to give our children roots and wings. When they're little we're constantly trying to make sure that they don't fly off and get lost so we clip their wings with hand holding and curfews and other sensible restraints, but now that they are launching into adulthood we are to let them fly. But I also read something that said that a child will only come into adulthood as emotionally mature as their parent(s), and so this made me think of my family's history and how in many ways I feel that I started in a dark place, and as Tessa has grown I asked her to climb onto my back, and I've been climbing the walls of this dark place, heading toward the light, carrying us both. As I've climbed, I've shown her how to climb, how to keep looking toward the life, how to continue even when exhausted, how to find footholds and places to grasp even when they aren't immediately apparent. But now she's an adult, and in moving to college, she needs to let go of my shoulders, flutter her new wings, and continue climbing and flying on her own.

The day we dropped her off at college last year, I watched her new wings unfold, and with happy tears in my eyes, hugged her and promised her that she was ready to fly. I watched her as she fluttered her wings, rose off the ground, circled above me. "Look up, Mom! I'm flying! I can fly!" I heard her spirit exclaim as we put the finishing touches on her dorm room, as I walked to the car alone.

But what I didn't know is that when I left her to fly, my own load was lighter. For better or for worse, I've taken her as high as I can go, given her my best, but what she does now is her path, not mine. I can worry, but my worry will not change things. I can advise, but she can take my advice or not. It is her life, not mine, and when she let go of me to find that life... I lightened. It is not my responsibility to find her path anymore, it is hers. My job is to cheer and support, but not to lead.

And the lightness of this is extraordinary. I didn't realize how much effort it took to carry us both out of that dark place and to the light. But when I looked up and saw the sky, I saw her circling overhead, and my heart was filled with joy. With that joy, I felt my own wings fluttering. I'd forgotten them! But they've been there all along. I can fly, too! I am lighter, and my wings can carry me now. The climbing was arduous, but the flying has such joy! I am aloft, feeling wonder, looking down at the world, my life, the path I've taken, and I'm in awe that I'm here at all.

What I want now - my roadmap - is to fly up into the sky, to experiment with floating on the currents, making lazy circles of delight, and then zooming here and there to places I want to explore. When Tessa and I find ourselves floating the same current, it's a delight: look at us flying! Hello! Helllooooo! But we also go our own ways, on our own paths. We can meet in the air, and we can meet at home (my home will always be her home, even when it's not), and we can tell each other about the adventures we've had. Sometimes we can share adventures. We can float apart, and then come back together. The nest is always here for our rest. She will undoubtedly go higher and faster and farther than I'm comfortable with. I hope she does. I'll hold my breath until she comes back, but when she does, I know that when I hear her stories I'll think, "Wait, I want to try these new things, too!" and I will fly farther and faster, too. She's teaching me, and I'm teaching her. I try to stay a few steps ahead, but when she passes me it's okay. Isn't that what I always wanted for her?

This is my map. I want to float in the currents, resume my explorations. I want to fly so that my daughter will know that she can fly, too. I want to soar so that my heart can soar.

I worked hard to get out of the dark place. My parents were young when they had me, and their parents didn't give them a model of what it's like to grow or to become who they were meant to be: some parenting manuals might have come in handy, and some support around trauma would have changed everything. I had to figure out a lot on my own; this isn't even their fault (their trauma was inherited, too), but I think it's the truth. But I've been working on it my whole life, and I hope that I brought my daughter much closer to the sky than they were able to bring me, and that I showed her a way to find her own path, and that I told the truth. I hope her journey was easier because of how far I carried her, and I hope that we never clip our wings again, never again forget that we were born to fly.

And now it's time for me to keep going, to stay a step ahead of her, to forge a beautiful life at every age and circumstance.

Middle age is learning new things.

Middle age is knowing what I love.

Middle age is keeping my close relationship to my daughter AND letting her fly.

Middle age is being honest with myself.

Middle age is having friendships that have spanned decades, and treasuring them.

Middle age is knowing that terrible things happen, but that beautiful and amazing things happen too, so I just need to ride out the former to get to the latter.

Middle age is a chance to get closer to my truth.

Middle age is a chance to let go of old lies - that I'm too fat, not good enough, not loveable, not worthy - and embrace new truths: that my body is strong, that I'm filled with love and light, that I have beautiful community, that I'm still discovering my gifts.

There is going to be loss: bodies do not always age gracefully. But I already knew that! At 35, my body got me through cancer, and there was loss, but I am still here, and in that there is so much beauty. At 42 I lost my marriage, but maybe what I lost is not as big as what I gained.

Middle age is what I make of it.

I don't have more than a glass of wine every few weeks because it makes me feel sluggish. I drink gallons of herbal tea.

I am delighted that sneakers are fashionable, because my days of shoving my feet into pointy heels that are hard to walk in are done. 

I still like a plunging neckline when I'm feeling sassy.

A bikini body is a body wearing a bikini, and since I like swimming at the beach I have a bikini body. Not a supermodel body, a bikini body. A body in a bikini.

I'm rescheduling the dinner party that got canceled due to Covid. I have a hike on the calendar for next weekend. I'm determined to write. I love my job. I still believe in love in my future, despite it all. My turn will come.

It's not pointless, and it's not sad, and it's not lonely. It's my job to find the point, to navigate sadness and find joy where it exists, and to remember the community that I have spent decades building and to feel their love.

Tessa will come home for Thanksgiving, and I will pick her up at the bus stop at the airport, and I will squeeze her so tight. She will find the silly matching sweatshirts that I bought for us with a Taylor Swift lyric we both like, and she can wear it or not but it gives me pleasure to give it to her. The house will be stocked with her favorite treats. We will follow our tradition of getting our Christmas tree up on Black Friday, reminiscing about each ornament, drinking hot cocoa, playing carols. And then afterwards I'll lean back and let her go out with her boyfriend or friends, and she'll fly far from me for a bit. I'll fly too, hiking or going to a movie or writing, safe in the knowledge that when she needs me again, she'll find me. By the time I drop her off at the bus stop at the airport, we'll both be ready for her to go. Me to do my routines - yoga class, meeting a friend for happy hour, working late, enjoying a clean sink without her dishes in it! - and her to do hers.

There is joy in this. So much joy. Anything is possible, just like it was when I was 22. I can reinvent myself over and over again, and build community along the way, and lose and discover myself over and over again. Though there has been pain on the journey, it got me to where I am now, and I like where I am now.

I'm strengthening my wings, getting better at flying. I'm discovering new things, new people, new places, new plans. When Tessa and I meet in the currents, I've got a huge smile on my face. We can fly! Look at us, isn't it crazy? Marvelous? Miraculous?

I'm watching my own progress, writing it down, so that one day when my daughter notices that she's got strands of silver in her hair will smile and think, "I've got this!" and she'll see the color of starlight and whitecaps and waterfalls, not decay. No, decay isn't silver.

I have a gray stripe that I thought of dying; my hairdresser was horrified. "People pay to make a stripe like that!" she told me. I don't know if she was lying, but I don't mind. I have grown to like it - my flash of silver in one swoop that frames one side of my face. I don't look 20-something, but I don't think I look "old" either. I just look like myself. Still learning, still hoping, still exploring. Still loving. Still trying. Still believing in the silver light of the stars. Still flying in their light.

And that's enough roadmap for me.

New Ideas

 I love the rituals of the seasons. I throw myself into pumpkins and cinnamon and knee high brown boots and orange scarves in the fall; the day after Thanksgiving I wrap my rooms in garlands and lights and ornaments and nutcrackers. In the summer I love to wear big floppy hats and gauzy swim cover ups and flip flops while I picnic on a beach.

And in the week after Christmas, I dream, I vision, I plot, I ponder.

This year, the heavy emphasis is on plot. I'm writing 1000 words a day. I've already started, because the stories that were inside me when I was born have been developing my whole life, and at long last, I'm not afraid to tell them. I'm not afraid of the critics, I'm not afraid that I'm stupid, I'm not afraid that what I say won't be read by anyone.

I'm not afraid.

This year, I'm writing my book. I'm on my way, sure of it, grateful. The words are spilling out of me. I love my characters, even my antagonist, who I once thought only filled with hate.

I am becoming (thanks, Michelle Obama) the person I was always supposed to be. At 51, it's better late than never, but I feel a young woman's excitement. I'm standing up a little taller, telling my friends, giggling and giddy. I'm a writer. Now I'm a writer for real, because I'm writing. I cannot control the future and I cannot force a publisher to like what I say, but I know this: I'm writing it anyway. I am convinced that I have something to say that the world needs to hear, and that the world will want to share. That is enough.

***

One thing that I am not doing this year is plotting my weight, my wardrobe, my clothing size. I have no plans to tone my arms, to reduce my belly fat, or to eat ten fruits and vegetables daily. I am not re-joining Weight Watchers (though I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered it). I am not stepping on the scale and measuring my worth by what that number tells me.

Is this because I've achieved perfection? Is this because my waist is trim, my buttocks and thighs smooth, my arms strong?

No.

This is because I have spent too much time in my life worrying about how I looked, and feeling like I wasn't good enough. I've hidden behind drab clothing when I was bigger, and I've strutted like a peacock (but not a peahen) when I was smaller, but I have felt judged, for better or for worse, by my weight, and I'm done with that.

I like who I am becoming, and my body has carried me this far. It has carried me over mountains, and into lakes and oceans; it has birthed a child, it has held lovers. It has stood up to a grizzly, and to an abuser who was threatening his wife and children with a gun and his rage. It has fought cancer, and cancer treatment, and anaphylaxis, and surgeries gone wrong. It is covered with scars that are ugly yet beautiful. Ugly because they replaced something smooth and clean with ragged and jagged; insanely beautiful because they are marks of my survival.

So this year, for new year's, I vow to love my body. I will continue trying to take care of it - I just got back from a wonderful four mile walk with Chance - because I really do feel better when I eat fruits and veggies, and because when I get outside my soul breathes easier, and because I want to live a long life. But I am not convinced that trying to twist my body into a shape that doesn't quite work, and requires constant vigilance, is right for me.

My energy is going to be spent on loving myself, not chastising myself. This is new.

I am not conventionally beautiful. I was not granted supermodel looks through the genetic lottery; I suppose in that way I am quite ordinary.

But I know how to be beautiful.

I am beautiful when I shriek as I jump into an alpine lake, eyes lit up with excitement and the thrill. I'm beautiful when I help a student to work through a problem, to see themself as whole and good. I'm beautiful when I tell the truth. And sometimes, I'm beautiful when I'm paddle boarding, or when I wear a particular dress and heels.

When I'm living my best life, my eyes light up and shine, and some see me as beautiful because they long for the light.

When I'm tugging at my sweater, holding my belly in, and marking down every bite, I'm not beautiful, and I'm not whole, and it takes so much damn energy that I forget how to focus on the things that matter.

***

This year, I am writing a book, and I am focusing all my energy on the ideas I'm trying to express, and on being the writer that I have always been. I accept my body, and I will treat it well, but this is not a year to focus on a marathon or a goal weight. I will walk, or run. I will do yoga, or paddle board, or hike, or snowshoe. I will eat salads, but also pasta.

This is my way of saying that I'm worth it.

This is my declaration to myself that I do not have to change in order to be worthy. I do not have to become something new, or turn everything upside down or inside out in order to be good.

I'm good.

My sheets are in the wash, the fridge is full of good vegetarian food (because we've been playing at vegetarian for a few months, having meat only rarely, and it actually feels great). I have a stack of books to read. I canceled the Hallmark Movies Now subscription, because it was a good way to rest at the beginning of break, but I'm done with it now.

2020 was hard, but it wasn't all bad for me. I slowed down enough to remember some things I really care about. I fell in love with my home all over again. I got unexpected time with Tessa. I missed my friends, but I also connected with them. I wrote.

I have been hoping to fall in love for years now, and it hasn't happened at all the way I'd hoped it would: I am quite, quite single. But now it seems right that it should be so. There is a thing I haven't done, because I told myself I wasn't good enough, and "not good enough" is not good partner material (how I would loathe a relationship with a man who walked through the world believing that about himself).

This year, I'm falling back in love with myself. Not with caveats, but with tenderness.

I'm a writer. I have something to say. I'm not afraid of putting my stories out there, because I know they have worth. I know I have worth. I'm not afraid to pursue my dreams, and when success comes, I won't be afraid of it. When someone says that I am a late bloomer, I will smile at them and shake my head "no" because I've blossomed many times before; this is just a new kind of bloom. Some will think that this is sudden, but not those who have really known me. I've been working on this my whole life, in one way or another, turning the words over in my head, on scraps of paper, on pixels. The only difference now is that I'm ready.

Welcome, 2021. I've been waiting for you, and I'm ready. Happy new year!

Fear

I've always loved the Anais Nin quote:

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“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Today, I'm looking at it differently. I think this quote is about how fear controls us.

Being the eternal optimist, I've always viewed this quote as the hopeful possibility of the future: the potential that lies within all of us. But today, I'm thinking about how the flip side of that possibility is how we let fear become our driving factor, and how we can choose fear because the fear is more comfortable - painful that it may be - than the risk of stepping outside of fear. It occurs to me with some shock that we can choose the comfort of our fear. The comfort of our fear? Isn't fear uncomfortable? Isn't fear the enemy?

Maybe. But we can grow comfortable with the monster we know, and more afraid of the monster that we don't. We can choose to stay where we are because the fear we know is manageable in some way, and we embrace how scared we are because we're used to it.

I'm experiencing this in three new ways right now:

1) I have been really scared to tell my family story in a meaningful way. While I am crystal clear on my position around my family's Nazi past, I had chosen to stay small with it. I knew that my story was worth telling, but I also feared the repercussions of telling it. I was choosing to stay small. Well, last week I chose to tell it as boldly as I knew how, and I burst through that fear.

2) I have wanted to be a writer ever since I was a little girl, and I have feared that I wasn't good enough or that only "fancy people" could be writers and I was too ordinary or weird and that I could never be a real writer. But this year, I vowed that despite my weirdness or my ordinariness, I'd put myself out there and share what I had to say in an intentional way, and that I could accept if people loved it or hated it, but I had to try anyway.

3) I have a beloved friendship that has spanned many years, but I haven't established healthy boundaries; when things have been uncomfortable, I've chosen to stay quiet. Recently, I set a firm boundary with this friend - and my fears came true. They (I'm not going to reveal their gender as part of anonymity) were angry, hurt, and completely withdrew from me. Two things instantly became clear to me: 1) my fears were founded, and that is why I had not established and maintained healthy boundaries; and 2) I am not who I was, and I am okay despite my friend's reaction.

In all three cases, I've been living smaller than I should have been.

I'm not surprised that in the space of a week all of these things happened. I think that I'm ready, and that I've been setting myself up for growth for a long time, and now the seeds that I've planted are growing.

I grew up in fear that if my parents knew who I really was, they wouldn't love me. It was made clear to me that when I stepped outside of family traditions (gender roles, established patterns, political and religious views, etc.) that I was deviant, unacceptable, mistaken, or just plain stupid. While I've been battling that my whole life (the confines never fit me properly, and I struggled against them), it wasn't until three years ago when my father laid it all out for me that I knew that the line had been crossed - that I did indeed have a boundary, and I'd just discovered it. It's funny that he rejected me, but that was the first time I felt free to say "No."

In the three years since, I've done plenty of reflecting (and therapy) and reading around boundaries, relationships, and why I have the thought patterns that I do, and where those thought patterns serve me and don't serve me. I think I've grown more in three years than I'd grown in the 47 years that came before.

So now that growth is building within me, and I'm not the person I was before. The growth has come with strength: I am much clearer about what I want, what I can tolerate, and what I cannot tolerate. I'm much more clear on what makes me happy, and who I am and who I wish to be (and the overlap between these two is much bigger than it was three years ago).

I made a decision to write; I chose to write about my family history. I am strong enough to weather the consequences - if people resonate with my story, or ignore it, it's okay. If my perspective is flawed, I'm willing to listen. If I have wisdom to offer, I'm willing to own it. My fear, which had been holding me back, suddenly seemed small compared to my desire to be my whole self, to share my truth, and to explore the big world to see what was available to me.

I wasn't consciously thinking about my friendship with X. or how that friendship needed to grow with me. The friendship has many beautiful qualities, and I treasure that friendship genuinely. I see the goodness in X. I also am a different size and shape than I was when the friendship started, but in many ways the friendship hasn't changed shape, and so suddenly I am awoken to the realization that I am uncomfortable, so I said, "I'm uncomfortable, and I need to enforce this boundary, which is about me, not you." X. was hurt and insulted. I looked at my heart, my boundary, my intention. I said, "I do not want to hurt or insult you. This is what I need. I still care about you." I don't know what will happen next, but I know that X. has the right to end the friendship, to refuse to honor my boundary, or to accept my boundary. I am not in charge of X.'s decisions, but I'm not afraid of them. I am at peace with me. I hope that X. and I can remain close, but if we can't, I can accept that too, because I can honor myself as much as I honor our friendship, and because I'm not in charge of other peoples' behavior.

I've never thought of myself as a particularly fearful person. At 22 I traveled Europe alone with a backpack and a Eurorail pass, and found that my spirit was adventuresome. I fought the confines of my family's expectations for me, and created a life of my own. I backpack in bear country. I had the courage to get divorced, I had the courage to change careers. I have faced chemo, radiation, and so many surgeries. I thought I wasn't fearful. People have told me for years how brave I am, and I thought I believed them.

But there are layers to people, and my brave exterior hid an interior that was shaking, frightened, and lately I decided that I was sick of it, that it was time to get real. Pretending to be brave, or being brave only some of the time, no longer serves me.

So here I am, with a clarity that I've never felt before.

Buds are beautiful - they are symbols of hope. But I long to burst into full bloom, to explode with color and gorgeous fragrance and the luxurious velvet of petals. I long for the honeybee to pause, to gorge itself with sticky sweet pollen, to rest on me.

I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid that I will not be beautiful enough, that nobody will enjoy my fragrance. I suddenly that bees love all blossoms, and that my destiny was always to blossom, whether I am the kind of flower that people notice with awe, or whether I am a dandelion in the lawn. I don't know yet what my bloom will look like, but I want to know, and I'm willing to try, because the bud is too small and I can't move and it feels tight and painful. If I'm a dandelion, I hope a child clutches me and presents me as a gift to someone loved. If I'm a rose, I hope that a painter captures my elegance for all time. If I'm a wildflower I hope that the breeze caresses me and that the mountain adores me. I don't know what happens next, who I will be.

But I'm not afraid.

Middle Aged

I find it amusing, confusing, and bemusing that I am middle aged.

At 48, I am clearly in the middle part of my life (if I am lucky). I imagine celebrating my 100th birthday some day, and not everyone gets that lucky: life expectancy for women is 81 years, so if I'm average, I might only have 32 years left. I'm clearly in the middle of my life, no matter how I look at it.

What's weird about it is that I find it somewhat shocking. I suppose that time has passed for me as it has passed for everyone else, one minute, one hour, one day, one year at a time, and that is how I find myself here, but there is a part of it that makes me want to say, "Hold on, surely there has been a mistake?!"

I don't know what middle age is supposed to feel like, so I don't know if I'm getting it right. I have no idea what "right" middle age looks like.

I grew up with jokes that middle aged men had "crises" where they purchased sports cars, preferably red, but this confused me then and it confused me now. Why is that a crisis? If, at middle age, men could finally afford a sports car, and wanted to go have some fun, why is that silly or stupid or sad? But I'm not going to talk about middle aged men here because, well, I don't pretend to understand middle aged men in the slightest, but I have a few insights about being a middle aged woman. (Perhaps my male readers would like to chime in with their perspectives?)

Middle aged women, though, were invisible to me. Not young enough to be considered beautiful, sexy, or interesting, they were not old enough to be sweet little old ladies.

There are so many problems with that last sentence that I don't even know where to begin.

I think, if I have the messages "right," that the societal message for me as a middle aged woman is that I ought to invest in hair dye and anti-aging creme (they do know that the opposite of aging is death, right? do they know that?!). As I face my empty nest (my daughter is 15 and will head to college in a few short years) I am to struggle and wonder who I am now that mothering does not take up 99% of my waking thoughts. I am to wonder at millennials, and technology, and how I am not heard in meetings, and I am to start taking a back seat in my career. I am to slow down, to fade, to be quiet. I am invisible in film, on television, and in print media. I am to mourn that my hair isn't as thick and silky as it once was, and that my body is no longer suitable for bikinis.

And - and this is very important - I am supposed to believe that my life's path is set, that my chance to remake myself, my life, my passions, my impact, is done. I am to believe that it is what it is, I am either wildly successful or my life has been wasted, but it is what it is.

To all of that, I say PHOOEY.

Let's go over a few details about my life to bring you up to speed.

I'm 48, and I'm a divorced (about six years) single mom of a fifteen year old daughter. I'm a cancer survivor (breast cancer twelve years ago) and my body bears the scars and markings of that treatment, as well as the misfortune of living without estrogen since my diagnosis (all part of the treatment). Before divorce, I was a stay at home mom who was out of the workforce for close to a decade. My bank balance floats precariously close to disaster with great regularity; it seems a miracle that I have been able to stay on the right side of disaster as long as I have. Since divorce, I have restarted my career, starting from scratch to enter the non-profit world and working my way to an Executive Director position in that world, before returning to my true love of teaching and - at the age of 47 - taking on a teaching job for the first time in fourteen years.

You wouldn't be crazy if you looked at my life and said, "oh, honey, that sounds tough!" or "Bless your heart!" (if you're from the South). It's not all peaches and sunshine, and I couldn't blame you for thinking, "What a disaster!"

But you'd be wrong.

I am happier, right here and right now, than I have ever been in my entire life. I have a gray streak, funny little crinkles at the corners of my eyes, and my belly is soft....but I am strong, and healthy, and I don't feel gray, I feel...alive. Fiery. Vibrant. Nobody told me that I could feel like that, and I'm actually told that I DON'T feel like that. Take this article from The Atlantic about middle age: the writer tells me, "Perhaps it makes sense that middle-aged people increasingly cling to youth when the alternative is the slow drift into irrelevance."

Well.

No.

I think that the writer (who, to his credit, is reflecting what most people tell me or insinuate about middle age), is comically off his rocker if he's talking about my life. He's NOT talking about my life.

In middle age, I'm finally the me I've been longing to be all along. Oh, make no mistake, I wasn't aiming at a soft belly or a gray streak, but those things are so tiny compared to the rest. At 48, I'm not struggling to find my way under my parents' well intentioned but misguided patriarchal world view ("Why on earth would you want a masters degree if you're just going to have babies anyway?"), nor the desire to be a career woman but to navigate office politics that indicated that mens' voices were allowed but women shouldn't be strident or loud, and I'm through the difficult mess of trying to raise a young child whose needs, by definition, needed to be placed above my own. I created a career after my divorce that was based upon my daughter's need to access me, to flexibility, as well as the need to put food on the table, but now that she's older, I get to pick my own hours, and to cheerfully call her and say "Can you season the chicken and pop it in the oven, because I'm going to be late tonight?" without worrying about childcare or leaving her alone, because she's quite capable of putting chicken in the oven and old enough to enjoy having the house to herself for a couple extra hours as well. While I haven't found a grand romance since my divorce, I've had flirtations and dates galore, and I don't feel undesirable.

At 48, I feel like I'm finally, at long last, just getting started.

Irrelevant? I'm supposed to drift into irrelevance?

Not even close.

At 48, I've returned to work that sets my soul on fire, and, because my soul is on fire with caring about it, I excel at it. I am at ease with my students in a way that I wasn't when I taught in my early 30s, and when they test me with their teenage antics, I can raise an eyebrow at them and say, "You're kidding, right?" in a way that lets them know that they can't get away with it, but that I love them anyway.

At 48, I no longer go out on dates with men who don't interest me. I know who I am, I know what I like, and I know what I'm worth, and I can't be bothered with dating for the sake of dating any more; I have nothing to prove in that category. I hope for Le Grande Passion, but I'm not worried about it. It'll happen when it happens.

At 48, I've gotten political. I register people to vote. I hold meetings to discuss the issues in my home. I participate in local activities such as Citizen University or lectures. I'm not woke, but I'm waking, and I'm on fire with the desire to create equality within society, and to fight inequality when I see it. I'm not afraid to speak up (I'm not a little girl, and I've got experience, and education, so why wouldn't I speak up?) but I'm not as brash as needing to talk all the time, either, and I find the listening fascinating.

At 48, I'm reveling in these last years of heavy duty parenting. My 15 year old daughter startles me with the strength of her voice - I was not so sophisticated at her age, did not know my own mind so well, nor how to articulate my view of things - and when she reveals her strengths to me I'm overwhelmed by love and the desire to see her fly past me in life. I hope and pray that the things that held me back will not hold her back, and that she will surpass me, and that instead of this being a burden to me, it is a joy. I'm still ahead of her on the road, and I know that her life (as well as my own) will be easier if I can cut the path for her, so I'm inspired to be a model for her about what it means to really live, and in this way she keeps me young. One day she will teach me, and I can't wait to learn from her and to grow because of that, but for the next minute or two, I'm still guiding her, and having fun finding new ways to do that.

I am not as fit as I once was, but I see this, too, as temporary. Just a few years ago I was in the best shape of my life, but as I focused more on politics I focused less on exercise. At 48, I do not see this as proof of my mistakes, but rather, as an acknowledgment that one can't do it all all at the same time. This year is about re-entering education. I can run a marathon another year. I might.

At 48, my house is filled with real, true, deep friendships. I can call the people in my life that I call friends and they will come drink wine with me, or help me lift something heavy, or let me cry, or share my celebration. They hold my hand as I go for cancer testing, and then they're just as happy as I am when the results are good. These friendships are without jealousy, competition, or sly side-talk. I am included in their lives, as they are in mine, and we can go a month without talking or we can talk every day but they are constants none-the-less.

At 48, I shared my #metoo story and was released from it.

I march in the streets to proclaim my view of what the world could be. I know what matters to me, and I speak up for it. At 48, it seems, others want to listen to me. They say that I have a way of viewing the world that helps them, and they want to join me in my quest to improve things.

At 48, when I'm asked to join the committee/the board/the event, I know that I can be flattered but still say no. I know that when I say yes, I will commit with joy.

At 48, I am just getting started. I am finally, at last, free of some notions that didn't serve me. I am filled with wonder at it, that I can be so wholly myself, without a young woman's confusing lack of experience to guide her, but not yet elderly or infirm. Instead, I'm informed, excited, interested, and capable. Whether it is in the kitchen, where I whip up delicious new ideas without fear and then share them with friends and family, or in the workplace when I try new ideas and hope for the best (and course correct when they don't work), or in community activism where I take on leadership, or in parenting (where I find that I absolutely love mothering a fifteen year old because she's funny and smart and, though occasionally exasperating, she's fascinating and wonderful and I don't want to change her).

And best of all? I don't need to tell you all of this and then apologize for appearing too brash. I am not apologetic about my strengths, though I was taught to do so.

It's not perfect. Cancer + divorce = scary finances (or, as my friend B. once said, "scary-fine - I'm okay, but it's still scary, so I call it scary-fine"). I'd like to believe that there is a man out there who would make me a great partner, but I haven't met him yet, and so that makes me a little sad.

I don't have models for what middle age looks like, so I'm making it up as I go. Luckily for me, I have friends doing this work alongside me. I look at them, at us, and think that you couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back in time, even if that meant that my belly would be toned and that the world would see me instead of looking slightly past me. My friends and I - as well as new voices that pop up in newspapers and, on lucky rare occasion, film - are finding our way, in a new way, in uncharted territory.

Middle age is awesome. It's better than it has ever been in my life, and nobody told me this was coming. I was told to be afraid, to fear my irrelevance, to shrivel, to shrink.

Middle age is for growing, and I'm growing. The sky is the limit, and I'm just getting started, and I am making my own rules.

I have a great deal more to say on this topic, but I'd like to hear from you. What is your experience of middle age? How do you feel about being middle aged? What middle aged stereotypes do you encounter? What startles you about middle age? And - most of all - what are your suggestions for navigating middle age with some zest?

I can't wait to hear from you. Thanks for reading!