the front of the garnet hill catalog features a collection of stones and says, “there’s beauty in simplicity.” yes. i recognize those rocks – they are scattered through our house…pebbles of mica-laced igneous, slices of red rock, chunks of granite, smooth water-worn river rock. small cairns stacked on the windowsill or the sunroom table, a vase with rocks that are special but can no longer be traced back specifically to why. simple beauty, they remind us that we are all a part of it. no less, no more.
as i get older i realize that i am leaning into simplicity. i am less inclined to be moved by fancy stuff, more given to the unembellished. we hike on trails and are reminded of nature’s brilliant eye for decorating the world. no tchotchkes or trinkets, just no-frills and unadorned life.
i’m guessing this propensity – this leaning – has something to do with my love of arvo pärt’s tintinnabuli minimalist exquisiteness. spiegel im spiegel on repeat. not fussy. not ornamented. straight up gut-wrenchingly beautiful, much like the pine needles in the snow. two monodic lines – melody and triad – woven into the simplest tapestry and “expressing the composer’s special relationship to silence”. nothing bombastic. no blustering. purity.
“there’s beauty in simplicity.” stark, unpretentious, natural.
back a while ago – in 2018 – we were designing up a storm. we offered prints, throw pillows, tote bags, phone covers, shower curtains, coasters, leggings. i spent hours designing hundreds of products. it was a blast! one of our designs back then was “go with the flow” and you can still see (and purchase) items on society6.com.
because “go with the flow” still fits – and, i suspect, forever fits – when we passed these napkins at festival grocery store, it was on a day when they were the perfect companion to our happy hour. a reminder. a keep-perspective nudge.
i have learned that going with the flow is really an umbrella mantra. everything else can get neatly tucked in underneath the flowbrella. for what choice do we really have? pushing back causes undue stress and anxiety. hiding in a cave is just downright depressing. moving on – in the flow (picture yourself on an inner tube in a lazy river under a soft sun in 75 degrees with a gentle breeze) – is likely the best option.
having been raised in new york, i must say that goingwiththeflow doesn’t really come natural. there’s a little pushback in each o’ us and the older i get, the more i realize the uselessness of trying to dig in. my heels are not strong enough to withstand the force of the big river and it’s hard to curl my toes in the cold water to grip the riverbed (without getting a foot cramp, which is a whole ‘nother post).
in these days of getting older – and perhaps a tiny bit more sage but not too much but maybe a little – i have learned that the future comes – at least the next day – whether i agree with the present day or not, whether it’s my best day or not, whether i am wrong or right, whether i am blissfully happy or gutwrenchingly sad.
we are all kintsugi vessels. we keep our eyes peeled above the water, through the challenges of being human, and focus on whatever is our “go” lighthouse.
it’s like an ongoing game-mix of charades and taboo or catch-phrase over here.
we can’t think of a word…we act it out…we “sounds-like” it…we describe the word without using the word…we gesture wildly and stare blankly at each other. we don’t start panicking right away, but there comes a moment when the void is a little too voidish and we wonder if we will ever come up with the word at all.
since we are writers, this is a tad bit relevant. one of us invariably needs a word – we know the word – we are intimately familiar with the word – the word is like second skin – but it has gone missing.
we try to come up with the letter it starts with – say, r, for example. one-of-us insists it starts with an r and that-same-one-of-us launches a verbose description about TheWord, attempting to get the other to ThinkOfTheWord.
“r!” i repeat, “it starts with an r!!”
“and it’s pasta? something we’d have with sauce?? rigatoni?? rotini?? ravioli??”
“no! no! no!” “think!!” “we have it all the time! r!!! come ON!!” beginning to act out what it looks like, hands drawing in the air…
“ribbon??”
“ribbon?? have we EVER had ribbon pasta?? dang!! come ON!!”
“are you sure it’s not a t? like tortellini? or trofie?? or maybe a c? like cavatappi? or cavatelli??”
“geeez. no! it’s an r!!”
“well, i can’t think of another r-pasta. is it penne?”
“penne!! that’s it!!! yes!! penne!! a p!!”
the void is a moat, equipped with word magnets, it seems.
every day another word is butterfly-netted and held at bay, even if only for a few minutes, just to torture us.
we cannot help ourselves. we see stuff. i usually don’t suppose that’s unusual, until someone stares at us – with that blank look on their faces that betrays the “oh-sheesh-they-are-SOOO-weird” thought they are having. and then i realize we might be a little unusual. i shrug it off. “we-are-all-worthy-we-are-all-worthy” i repeat.
the shark was on the side of the trail. lurking. all crusty and gnarly, his face. he was obvious. he was cause for conversation, tales of scuba-diving in cold long island waters and off the coast of tropical islands. we can’t help but see and we laugh and gasp out, “look! it’s a ……..!”
seeing. it’s a burden every artist carries. it’s in the backpack with the parmesan cheese and the twizzlers and the tiny box wine and the kind bars. it’s probably good that we are mostly alone during these moments; our imaginations fly wild and free and we crack ourselves up.
and isn’t that the point? the laughter? i can’t think of anything better than laughing together, even at our own expense. we tell stories to friends, emphasizing the goofy, the silly, the utterly-profoundly dumb, self-deprecating and reveling in it. getting my hair cut and claiming the highest forehead in the guiness book of world records of foreheads. having a pedicure and claiming the biggest big toe in modern history. even, recently, at the doctor’s office, asking, please, for a sticker or a gold star for passing my bloodwork. just silliness. we can’t help it.
but to walk with him and find the sharks on trail and the ducks stuck in trunks (see below) and the tree mooning us (see below) and the desert hills from space (also see below) is to walk inside laughter. it’s to have maybe learned – at long last – not to take everything quite so seriously.
it’s to learn how to get older and crusty and gnarly ourselves and to hold it all lightly.
it somehow seems apropos on the cusp of the closing of the 2022 olympics that we have a little chat about falling-and-getting-up. well, maybe not so much the falling. but, yes-indeedy, the getting-up.
for unknown, er, rather, undisclosed, reasons, getting-up is not what it used to be. falling down hurts more than it used to, so it seems to go hand-in-hand that getting-up would too…in a tit-for-tat, measure-for-measure kind of way. but, no. it’s exponential, this getting-up thing.
the heroics of getting yourself up should not be downplayed. nor should it be underestimated. it’s surprising when it suddenly takes a little longer, with a few more groans and creaks.
i’ll be the first to tell you that d is always there, offering a hand to me. he is a gentleman even when we hike. he will reach out to me as i step over rocks or streams or hike down inclines. he’ll crook his arm to me up steep grades. he even walks on the side closest to traffic if we are walking on a road; he learned this from my poppo who never let my momma walk on the side with cars coming. so he will always run and hitch me up off the ground, if needed.
but, for both of us, there’s sometimes that you just wanna do it yourself. just so you can say you did. just so you can make sure you can. just to flaunt it like a hero.
they all told me. they tell all of us. in those moments, when you think time is standing still, they tell you: time flies by. it is in retrospect – days, weeks, months, years down the road – you realize they are right.
i have awakened in this room for over thirty years.
the light has streamed in through the windows in that way i recognize and that gives me great comfort.
the radiator in the sitting room just outside the frosted-glass french door to the bedroom has clunked each cold morning as the boiler kicks on.
through the years multiple sweet dog-faces and one beloved cat-face have greeted me with breakfast and outdoor anticipation.
the smell of coffee manages to drift around the corner and waft its way toward my pillows.
i have had the good fortune of turning my head on the pillows and looking into the face of two very different men, husbands who have shared different times of life with me, one who drank nary a sip of coffee in the way-back-when and one who brings first coffee to the bedside table.
and my beloved children. i counted the months of pregnancy, reading “what to expect when you’re expecting” cover to cover perched in bed in this room. then suddenly, they lay in onesies in the crook of my arms, newborns nestled under the comforter with me. and suddenly, they wore footie pajamas and curled up after a dream. and suddenly, they were peeking their heads in the door to announce they were home so i could relax and sleep. and suddenly, they were home on college breaks and random weekends. and then, just as suddenly, they were no longer living here and the empty nest was a real thing.
and i awake every morning and they are the first thing i think of in the middle of familiar light rising and coffee brewing and dogdog’s gleeful greeting and d’s face on the other pillow.
our son cautioned us that we shouldn’t ask how he described us when he arrived at the restaurant and looked for our table, but of course, that was an open invitation and i couldn’t resist asking. “i asked where the older couple was sitting,” he said, watching me for my reaction. i poked him on the shoulder and rolled my eyes saying, “geez! we’re not THAT old!”. there was so much to talk about so the subject of us aging into ‘the older couple’ dropped, but i thought about it later.
when i was shy of 30 my parents were in their late 60s, a few years older than we are. i suppose it’s possible that i might have described them the same way. fair is fair, after all. and time probably flew for them too. even without them realizing it. as i think about it now, i bet they didn’t feel old either.
sometimes in the quiet moments of morning, as i sit with coffee perched against the pillows, i imagine the sounds of the house waking up thirty years ago, twenty-five years ago, twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, ten years ago.
and, although i would love to have those moments back – to live again, to embrace again – time has moved on and there is no time machine.
instead, i cherish the times that were – each and every slow-motion and flying-by-time – and look at my children, all grown-up and living life out on their own and celebrate them.
i look to each and every time i can see them with joy and excitement.
and at the end of the day as i lay my head on my pillow in this very-familiar-room, i thank my lucky stars to have had all of it, to have all of it.
middle age is called that because it is the middle of aging. with that comes a bundle of surprises that seem to arrive overnight. suddenly, new wrinkles. suddenly, crepey skin. suddenly, age spots and creeping-on lovehandles. suddenly, menopausal insomnia, achier joints, keeping track of rest areas on the way to everywhere. suddenly, jowls. it’s like a piñata that is slowly letting out candy, treats to relish with this person you are aging with.
we have decided that we simply cannot pine for what our bodies were like or could do back before we knew each other. now is now and we are lucky to have that. and so, we will celebrate the laughlines and the readers and changing bodies and funny long errant eyebrows. we’ll roll with the surprises as they arrive, with gratitude, laughing as much as we can, and we’ll stay right here in the middle of this aging thing – together.
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“achieve visibly younger skin.” “who wants to look their age?” “visible results in minutes of use.” “recommended for discerning patients.” “join me in the battle against ageing.”
i am wayyy wayyy behind the curve. the pink oil of olay hydrating lotion in my small cosmetic drawer in the bathroom has been around for sixty years. hmm, i should have written that sentence in a structurally different way. the little plastic bottle has not physically been in my drawer for sixty years; the product has been produced for sixty years. sheesh. other than a few pass-me-down gifted clinique products from my sister, this has been my moisturizer of choice. simple. done. i have not researched this nor have i had long conversations with girlfriends about moisturizer. joann has absolutely lovely skin. her face glows. one day i asked her what she used and, delightedly, she told me oil of olay. yippee! samesies. so, that means if i keep using oil of olay my face will glow? hardly.
the jowls i woke up with one day that my sweet dad and gravity so generously passed on, the wrinkles around my eyes, the sweet-momma crease in my forehead – these are genetics. webmd.com says that the intrinsic aging of skin cannot be avoided. and the time: time spent outside as a child, spud and kickball in the neighborhood, swimming in our round above-ground pool, teenage time spent on bike hikes and on crab meadow beach laying on a bazooka gum beach towel playing my radio, trips to florida beaches with woven bags holding tanning oil and iced tea and potato chips, motherhood time on backyard swings, at lakefront beaches, on soccer fields, at baseball diamonds, earlier-middle-age un-thinking time on adirondack chairs basking in the sun – though perhaps innocently skin-irresponsible, cannot be erased.
aging. ageing.
my dad received national geographic magazine for as long as i can remember. paging through were articles and photographs through which i was introduced to cultures i was likely to never actually visit but from which i could gain small bits of wisdom.
though i mostly understand the medical importance of taking good care of our skin and using spf products and staying out of torrid sun and hydrating and eating proper nutrients, i could see that the women and men of these other cultures – outside of our society – did not concern themselves with aging-ageing. indeed, they were not in a battle or a race against it. instead, they upheld it, celebrated it, honored it. and while i would probably prefer less jowls and less wrinkles and less crepe and less of the other stuff with horrendous names that advertisers have come up with for natural aging processes -god-forbid- i will choose to stand in it and feel fortunate to be here.
fortunate to be aging-ageing. winning the race either way.
reverse threading 