when i was in junior high i wrote a piece for an english class titled “old age is not a disease.” i’m pretty sure if i searched high and low for it i could find it in a bin somewhere, but, suffice it to say, i have other things on my docket to get done and, heaven knows, i don’t want to even attempt to go near those bins.
when i was in junior high i’m quite convinced that i would have thought 60 was “old age”. as we know, it’s all relative. you know, “60 is the new 40” or (i’m hoping) some such faaabulous idiom.
when i was in junior high i’m betting i thought that life slowed down at 60, that people did less and rested more. little did i know.
when i was in junior high i would think i, errantly, believed that getting older also meant less engagement with unknown things, less learning, less involvement. perhaps i assumed that getting older was a time for fewer challenges, more relaxation, less thinking, less new. little did i know.
when i was in junior high maybe i thought that most people who were older thought inside the box; their lives and their activities were conservative and tight, protected and quiet. little did i know.
when i was in junior high it would be my guess that i thought most older people were secure, maybe retired, with essentially predictable lives and not much to really worry about. little did i know.
when i was in junior high i’m sure i, like most junior-highers, looked at people who were 60 and thought, “wow! that person looks old!” i probably never considered how their spirit played into their look, how life experience added to their wise eyes and kind smile. little did i know.
“…it overwhelms me what i feel…this heart outside of mine….is walking in another person, in another life…” (lyrics)
there is something mysterious and knock-you-to-your-knees-powerful about feeling like you have a heart walking in another person. i know – now – how my sweet momma felt. each time she asked me to let her know i arrived safely while driving cross-country, each time i shared good news, each time she checked in on me after any sort of gritty life-drama, each time she sent cards with messages of encouragement or congratulations, each time i saw her try not to weep upon my leaving. i get it. she could feel her heart – out there – moving around in the world, just outside her sight view.
motherhood is not for wimps. it is, by far, the most gratifyingly-toughest-most-important job i will ever know. i have had to grow two extra hearts and then let them go, wandering and exploring this good earth, finding themselves and their happiness. i can feel it, these hearts – out there. but, with the exception of the time i can actually put my arms around My Girl or My Boy, it’s all just outside my sight view. overwhelming. yes.
and, although i have told it before, here is the story – again:
we walked The Girl to kindergarten. it was spring and sunny and warm. dandelions were everywhere. on the way home, The Boy dropped my hand to toddler-zigzag around a yard where dandelions > grass by far (kind of like ours.) he bent down and picked yellow flower upon yellow flower. until he came running back to me. he held up his sweaty-dirty-little-boy fist, full of bright yellow and green dandelions and said, “woses for momma.”
my sweet momma was an optimist. growing up, she’d wake me up in the morning with a cheery, “good morning, merry sunshine” and she would happily start her day. she would jot everything on her desk calendar (the kind with the base, two metal rings and sheets for each day that were replenishable yearly.) for her, everything counted. she would write down all of it, in her personal shorthand. to read her calendars now is to see all parts of life – the magical parts and the painful aspects. but momma? she just had a way of listing to the magical side.
we drove down to florida nine to ten times in the last couple years of her life. we’d visit and laugh and listen to stories and catch her up on our life. she was in assisted living then so we would listen carefully if she mentioned something she clearly wanted from the home she and my dad had shared. her finnish wood carvings, a certain sweater, a jacket, a movie in the entertainment center…all things back home. we all worked to be sure she was surrounded by things that meant a lot to her.
one day momma started to recollect another of the rich stories she and my dad had experienced on their trip to europe decades earlier. she spoke of the brand new vw bug they ordered ahead and picked up in germany. she spoke of roadtripping for six weeks around the countryside. and she spoke of a red notebook in which she wrote down all her impressions, all their doings, all the adventures during their trip. she wrote of tender moments and of the simplest of pleasures. she wrote of what made that trip magical and painful challenges they had. she didn’t write of the grandiose or the impactful tourist spots. she wrote of what made that trip theirs and theirs alone, a deeply personal account. and as she spoke of it, you could feel the presence of my dad by her side. these were cherished stories and precious time she spent with her beloved husband. clearly, she pined for this notebook – written memories of that magic.
we went back home that evening to my parent’s house with a mission – find the red notebook. we started in the office, scouring the desk and the closet, going through bins and boxes, our eyes searching for a red spiral. defeated in the office, we moved on. every nook. every cranny. we opened every bin and box in the house, rifling through, trying to find it.
we moved on to the garage. tall filing cabinets stood against the wall (for basements are somewhat inconceivable in florida). i started pulling out drawers. david headed for the stacks of plastic bins, piled in another part of the garage.
we kept at it. determined, but losing some hope.
david opened the last plastic bin, the one on the very bottom of the piles. he shuffled through the papers in the top; his eyes fell on a brochure. a travel brochure. from europe. his pulse racing, he continued to dig through the bin.
and then he saw it. a BLUE spiral notebook. on the front was penned the word EUROPE.
the last time i saw my momma – ever – was the very next morning. when we left her, she was clutching the blue notebook to her chest, tears in her eyes.
“from a visual place…adrift on long island sound late-night. from an emotional place…living in the gray.” (liner notes – blueprint for my soul, 1996)
the gray. it sounds dismal. but gray is not devoid of color. if you mix the three primary colors together – red, yellow and blue – and then add white, you will hone the gray of your choosing. if you have ever stood in front of color samples at home depot or menards you know that gray, itself, spans a full spectrum. so many choices. all gray. the only thing really pertinent about gray is that it isn’t just black and white. it swirls together every color of experience, every emotion, every laugh and every tear. it is not defined by distinct edges, but blurs one moment into the next.
the word ‘adrift’ sounds inactive. but, in this vast world, aren’t we pretty much adrift? we believe we are proactive; we act on things we believe in. and yet. we bounce off turbulent waves threatening to destroy us; we ride others into the beach. we sit in calm waters and we try to navigate the waters that toss us wildly. we make decisions in moments of incomplete information; we have successes, we have regrets. we are adrift in the gray.
in moments of sunshine on trails in the woods i feel less adrift and more centered, more clear. it’s the rest of the moments when i try my best to ‘go with the flow’. we are surrounded by unknowns, caught in many an eddy. we are uncertain, but we are all capable. we are held in glimmering gossamer silks of grace by a universe that is benevolent. adrift.
the two of you: two reasons why i breathe ~ my children (cd liner notes)
this will never change. most of the things i gather around me are things that make me think of them, feel them near. it’s as simple as framed photographs or collages or a peace keychain or lanyards that say ‘colorado’ and ‘boston’. it’s a screenshot of a text message i want to remember. it’s a note jotted on my calendar about something My Girl or My Boy said to me or a date that is important to them i want to remember. it’s notes they wrote as children held by magnets to the refrigerator or in small frames bedside. it’s laughter saved in a video. it’s moments of tears driving away from their homes. it’s a rock saved on a hike in the high desert canyonlands with The Girl; it’s The Boy’s childhood favorite ny taxi pencil on my piano. nothing is huge. everything is huge.
most of my also-mom-friends will agree that, outside of spending time together, the one thing certain to lift them up on any given day is a reaching-out-to-them by a grown-up child. it’s the moment ANYthing else stops. it’s the silently-agreed-upon, strictly-held-to and always-welcome interruption in the middle of visiting others, working, hiking, cooking, sleeping. both The Girl and The Boy knew – and know – that they can call or text at any time of day or night and i will be there; i will answer. ‘always there’ is a fierce inner motherhood promise designed to both ground and frustrate children, whatever their ages. it’s a guiding principle, a mom-creed. it’s absolute. it’s truth.
from the moment they were born everything changed. and, from that moment on, one thing didn’t. the two of you ~ two reasons why i breathe ~ my children. ❤️
there are those places – where you sit and your breathing slows down. the blue of sky calms you, the warm sand molds to your shape and the water beyond where you sit lulls you and quells the inner mixmaster of your thoughts.
for me, many many years ago now, that place was crab meadow beach. i felt some kind of kinship with the seagulls and the lure that shoreline had on them. off-season still found me sitting on the pebbles along the waterline, in the sand gathered in small wind-dunes, on the cement dolphin or walking, walking, walking, ankle-deep in a surf that changed daily. a place where i could sort out growing up, it soothed me, challenged me, spoke to me.
it’s not always a beach. or the top of a mountain. or a quiet lakeside cove. or an inviting stump on a thick woodsy trail. most of the time we don’t all have access to these things on a daily basis.
but there is a place. where you can find the silence you need. for david, this is often in front of his easel, a fresh canvas waiting or an unfinished painting beckoning. this painting – ALKI BEACH – reminds me of that place. the places nearby, the places within. the rocking chair in the room upstairs, the adirondack chair in the backyard, the piano bench. the place you draw the seagulls close, whisper your thoughts to them and send them on their way back into the world.
my sweet momma would often call me just as the time i was born would pass on my birthday. at the end of her life she didn’t do this anymore but i always remembered anyway. mid-morning i would know that this was the moment i arrived at this place, this was the beginning of my passing through, the time of my visiting.
today, this very morning, it was 60 years ago that i joined the rest of this good earth on its journey around the sun. spinning, spinning. every day.
it wasn’t long till i realized – as an adult – that we spin our wheels constantly to get to some unknown place we can’t necessarily define or find. we search and spin faster, out of mission, out of passion, out of frustration, loss, a feeling of no value or a sense of lostness. we spin. we seek. we try to accomplish. we try to make our mark. we try to finish. we try to start. we leave scarred rubber skids of emotions on the road behind us; we burn out with abrupt, unexpected turns, we break, wearing out. spinning. spinning. from one thing to another, our schedules full of busy things to do. often, days a repetition of the previous day. every day full. full of spinning. but we are still seeking. life is sometimes what we expected. life is sometimes not what we expected. and that makes us spin faster, our core dizzying with exhaustion.
the simplest gifts – the air, clear cool water to drink, the mountaintop exhilaration of parenthood, hand-holding love, the ephemeral seconds of self-actualizing accomplishment, the sun on our faces…we have images stored in our mind’s eye like photographs in an old-fashioned slide show, at any time ready for us to ponder. but often-times we fail to linger in these exquisite simplicities. the next thing calls.
this morning, as i stare at 60 – which, as i have mentioned, is kind of a significant number for me – i realize that everything i write about or compose about or talk about or hold close in my heart is about these simplest things, the pared-down stuff, the old boots on the trail – not fancy but steadfast, not brand new but muddied up with real. in our day-to-day-ness i/we don’t always see IT. the one thing. there is something -truly- that stands out each day in those sedimentary layers of our lives. it is the thing that makes the rest of the day pale in comparison. in all its simple glory, the one true moment that makes us realize that we are living, breathing, ever-full in our spinning world. the thing that connects us to the world. the shiny thing. the mica. that tiny irregular piece of glittering mica in the layers and veneers of life. the thing to hold onto with all our might.
that tiny glitter of mica. mica nestles itself within a bigger rock, a somewhat plain rock – igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary ordinariness. not pinnacle, it is found within the bigger context. sometimes harder to find, harder to notice, but there. and it makes the day our day, different than any other. it is the reason we have learned or grown that day. it is the reason we have laughed that day. it is the reason we have picked ourselves up off the floor that day. it is the reason we have breathed that day.
and now, at 60, i resolve to see, to collect those pieces of glitter. not in an old wooden box or a beat-up vintage suitcase, but, simply, since they are moments in time, in a tiny notebook or on my calendar. join me in #TheMicaList if you wish. as we wander and wonder through it is our job, in our very best interest, to notice the finest shimmering dust, the mica in the rock, the glitter in our world.
with all the reminders around us to remember-remember-remember that every day counts, we get lost in our own spinning stories, narratives of many strata. i know that in the midnight of the days i look back on the hours of light and darkness in which i moved about and remember one moment – one moment – be it a fleetingly brief, elusive, often evanescent moment of purity, the tiniest snippet of conversation, belly-laugh humor, raw learning, naked truth, intense love – those are the days i know – i remember – i am alive.
my visit to this physical place is not limitless. but each glitter of mica is a star in a limitless sky of glitter, a milky way of the times that make me uniquely me and you uniquely you, a stockpile of priceless relics. my time stretches back and stretches ahead, a floating silken thread of shiny. it’s all a mysterious journey.
i remember thinking that this would be easy to write about when i jotted it down. in your right mind. ptom and i had discussion about being in your right mind; michael gerson had written part of a column about being in right mind….surely i would have something of depth to say.
now that this is sitting right in front of me, i find that it’s not so easy to articulate. or maybe it’s territory that feels too revealing, too human.
the moments when calm finally comes after the storm of anger and you are -again- in your right mind. the moments of blind dire panic of imagined-worst-case-scenario when your right mind eludes you and something else takes over until the adrenalin rush eases up and you can see again. the moments when absolute white-knuckled-fear precedes the back-to-your-right-mindedness. the moments of really bad choices and the post-choice-angst you feel, the remorse for a period of time you weren’t in your right mind.
and then there are the times when you know…you can feel everything align and you, in your right mind, are able to make a decision, to be rational, to be measured in good intention. your right mind is calm, cool, collected, more at peace with the reality around you. your right mind is accepting, forgiving, altruistic in empathy and goodness, benevolent and generous. your right mind is reasonable.
i have known, at least after-the-fact, the times i wasn’t in my right mind. they are times for which i, impossibly, wish a do-over, a chance to make all well. times that range the spectrum from angry words spoken to life decisions made without, well, my right mind.
i suppose ptom is right. you recognize the moments you leave your right mind. you ask for forgiveness. from others, from yourself. and you move on, a little wiser and maybe more capable of steeling yourself against being somehow out of your right mind. and michael gerson is also right. he said, “…in our right minds, we know that life is not a farce but a pilgimage…” “..in our right minds, we know that hope can grow within us…” “…in our right minds, we know that love is at the heart of all things….”
we are in our right mind; we are not in our right mind. we live life on the roller coaster of right-mindedness, for we are human and we sometimes are, in the complexities of the moments we live, incapable of mindedness. so we make mistakes. we learn. we grow. and we try again.
for “…we learn that we are neither devils nor divines.” (maya angelou)
“sometimes it takes longer to understand and appreciate what is around you.” (liner notes)
it’s the ah-ha! you feel when you realize that it’s ALL about perspective and even this moment will soon disappear into vapid space. yet this very moment is the one that counts. we simply can’t waste it. there’s no time to not appreciate it, no time to throw it away while yearning for the next.
i have come to realize this over and over and over, through loss, through mistakes, through absolute joy, through reminders spoken, seen, felt on an excruciating gut level. we are all repeated students of this lesson, for we are all human. we are all human, for we are all students of this lesson.
on an everest documentary we watched the other day there was this quote: “it’s not that life is so short. it’s that death is so long.” if that doesn’t make you spring into action – noticing life – i’m not sure what will.
this. this is what this song is about.
reverse threading 