Shawshank Wisdom

It can all start to feel like death by a thousand paper cuts.

Aging.

It happens to the best of us.

With every new trip around the sun, passing day, and next breath, we’re older than the ones before. The process does seem to accelerate though. Injuries that used to heal quickly now take longer to mend. Joints that didn’t hurt yesterday make themselves known today. Checking things out to see what this or that might mean, or not mean, becomes a more common occurrence. One can tire of having to think about, tend to, and tolerate a body that isn’t what it was not so long ago. At least this one does.

However.

Given that getting older is here to stay, there’s a choice to be made about what to do with what we’ve got.

Open our arms wide in acceptance, or shrug our shoulders in resignation.

One is active. The other passive.

To accept is to welcome, receive, and participate in. To resign is to give in, quit, and withdraw from.

Acceptance is about taking life on. Resignation is about letting it go.

Or in the words of Andy Dufresne, “get busy living or get busy dying”.

The Pushback

Well, just when you think you have it all figured out, you find out that you don’t.

If you read my last piece, Here’s My Card, you’ll know that I created a new business card. Not so much as a way to market myself, but to introduce myself. The me, myself, and I that is now 70 years old.

In that blog I make no bones about the fact that I’m not a fan of the camera. It’s the rare photo of myself that I like, which means that every time another photo op comes along, I’m already tense and pretty sure it’ll quickly become another deleted photo. Which it often does. It’s a vicious cycle that’s been hard to break.

In real life, not in front of the camera, I actually think I’m pretty cute. Beautiful, even. I walk through life, into a room, or up onto a stage with confidence. Confidence in who I am, what I bring, and, how I look. But bring in a camera, and all bets are off. It’s like, “Wait, that’s not how I look.”

The blog was waiting for subscribers to my newsletter when they woke up this morning. My eldest daughter texted me about what I had written. She wanted to push back against what she had read. Her text brought me to tears as she talked about how she sees me. In her eyes, I’m beautiful. Always have been, always will be. Even when my hair was permed. (That might be taking it a little too far. If I was meant to have curly hair I would have been born with it.)

After our text exchange, she followed up with a Marco Polo. I learned three things from her beautiful, honest, and insightful message:

Even though she no longer lives in my home, she’s still paying attention.

We are always modeling what it looks like to the generation behind us. More than anything I want them to see what it looks like to age with grace. To embrace the changing face in the mirror with love and respect, wrinkles and all. To fiercely tend to the needs of a body not meant to live forever. To laugh at ourselves because it’s good medicine for whatever ails us at any age. To look through the camera and connect to the people on the other side of the photo.

It’s time to make friends with the camera, because every photo captures an irreplaceable moment in a never-to-be-repeated life.

How we talk about ourself matters.

Our thoughts create our words. Our words create our stories. When we tell our stories, others are listening. What is the story I want others to hear? If, as I profess to believe, that we are all created in the image of God, then every single one of us is beautiful in our own unique way. And that includes me.

It’s time to talk to and about myself as one who reflects the beauty of the One who made her.

Deeply rooted stories require uprooting.

My daughter reminded me that my dad feared old age. He fought it. He denied it. He made some of us a little miserable in our efforts to love and support him well as his time on the planet grew shorter. I wonder if my apple doesn’t fall too far from his tree. There isn’t a ready answer to that question. Maybe yes, maybe no, probably a little bit of both. Regardless, there’s still plenty of time to do something about it.

It’s time to dig in, dig out, and cultivate a better story. A more accurate story. A story that I want my children to be able to tell their children about who I was, how I lived, and, how I left.

Like I said, just when you think you have it all figured out, you don’t. Which is why we need people in our lives who love us enough to push back.

Please Hold

It is snowing like crazy. Roads are closed down. Cars are in the ditch. Businesses are closed due to the weather. Grocery stores are short on eggs. Flights are being cancelled. Schools are on snow days. Plans are being put on hold. Earlier this morning our neighbor came to plow our road, and in the process got his rig stuck in the ditch. A few minutes later my husband and two other neighbors rallied together with snow shovels, tow straps, and pickup trucks to pull him out.

In short, it’s winter. The days are short, the nights long, and there is an otherworldly stillness that fills the air with the sound of silence.

Winter is a reminder that life is unpredictable. It can change in a heart murmur, a snowstorm, an icy patch of road, or a power outage. It’s a time to remember that we are meant to rely on one another. Check in with each other. Share a meal, lend a hand, and maybe a snow shovel.

Winter is a reminder of the importance of slowing down and allowing life to come to just short of a halt. We ignore these slower days at our own peril. Times of dormancy are necessary for life to spring forth in new ways. In nature, and, in our bodies, our work, and our souls.

Winter is a reminder to be present to the here and nowness of our lives. It invites us to set aside our to-do lists and settle in for a spell. Lord willing and the creek don’t freeze, there will be ample time to get back into the groove of doing. This short season offers the possibility of establishing a pace and a rhythm for the year before the year establishes one for us.

I’m writing this as I am on what might be a five-hour hold time to book reservations for a much anticipated trip to Scotland later this year. The snow continues to fall outside my window. There are good leftovers in the fridge for dinner, firewood is stacked on the porch, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are in the playoffs, and I’m at my desk writing.

Winter is life’s way of putting us on hold. Minus the elevator music.

Dancing In The Dark

We take a nightly walk down our road before crawling into bed, and the sky never disappoints.

Pitch black and heavy with clouds, it is a reminder that we rarely, if ever, see the whole picture. That our view is always obscured by our own experience.

A sky filled with stars lulls us into believing that we do see the whole picture. So captivated by their light, we forget that the stars we are looking at may no longer exist.

And occasionally we are treated to the biggest news of all. That it all belongs. The darkness and the light. Dance partners, both are necessary, and only made visible because of the other.

These are difficult times. Perhaps they have always been, but right now, these are our hard times. Darkness and fear loom over the future. In the world. In the news. In our hearts. And most of us have no idea what to do with all of that fear and all of that darkness.

A walk in the night might be a good start.

Photo: Tom Pierson-the light of my life

A Lifelong Mentor

What is the emotion you are most familiar with? The one that has been your traveling companion since almost before you can remember. Perhaps the one that you’ve spent your life trying to avoid.

Mine is loneliness. Hands down. No question.

Wikipedia defines it as “an unpleasant emotional response to perceived isolation”. How fun does that sound?

However.

Loneliness has helped me become who I am today. She has served as a wise and kind mentor, helping me learn early on to cultivate a friendship with myself. To feel comfortable in my own company. To this day, time alone is a balm, which means I am never without a friend.

She led me to books from my earliest years, introducing me to the multitude of friends that are found in those pages. My favorite Christmas present was, and is, a new book. Books offer their friendship without hesitation. Pick me up. Read me. I’m always here for you.

My love of reading led me to a love of writing. Words on the page are my way of finding meaning in lived experience. Mine. Yours. Ours. Words on the page connect writer to reader and back again, creating friendships with people we may never meet, but come to know intimately.

Writing led me to speaking. Who knew a shy, introverted, sometimes-lonely girl would love standing on a stage, but she does. Speaking is simply a way to embody the words on the page and bring them to life in the presence of others.

I’ve always been one to forge fewer but deeper friendships. While I still wonder if it might have been better to cultivate more, I wouldn’t trade the depth and connection of those on my friend dance card for one with more names on it.

In conversation with my wise spiritual director, Dane, I was reminded again that the gift of loneliness is intimacy. It invites us to forge deeper connections. With ourselves, others, and the natural world. Often when we’re lonely, we aren’t longing for other people as much as we are for our true self. The one we were created to be, and sometimes leave behind, in an attempt to please others. Loneliness isn’t due to a lack of friends, but a lack of connection to oneself.

Loneliness is an invitation to come back home to myself. And you are always welcome to join me there.

Comings and Goings

Almost before my feet hit the floor I could feel the lump forming in my throat. Standing in the kitchen a few minutes later, the tears started to flow. Sad. Lonely. Discouraged. Those were the companions that greeted me yesterday morning. Feeling the urge to grab ahold of them, I took a slow, deep breath instead. Rather than attach myself to them, I quietly named them out loud. This created a tiny space between me and them. Instead of ramping them up a notch with an old story about what they might have to say about me and my life, I poured a cup of fresh French Press Coffee and took a sip. Tom showed up, poured some coffee, and sat next to me.

Climbing into the red pickup a few minutes later, we headed out to meet a friend at the bottom of the logging road we hike a couple of times each week. I invited my feelings to come along if they wanted, which apparently they did. Twenty minutes later we all headed up the 1.7 mile stretch of hallowed ground found on that ordinary dirt logging road. Three humans and two dogs, my emotions bringing up the rear.

Somewhere along the way my emotional companions must have taken another trail, because when we climbed back into the truck an hour later, they were nowhere to be found.

There was nothing to fix or mend or do with those feelings. They weren’t there to derail my day unless I let them. They simply needed to keep me company for a spell. The tears helped. The deep breaths helped. Naming them helped. Tom simply being there helped. A hike with a friend helped. And coffee helped (duh).

By inviting them along, they were free to take their leave.

Choose Your Own Adventure

As I approach my 70th birthday it can be hard to know how to think about aging. I live in culture that doesn’t appear to value the passing of the years that show up on my face, around my waist, and oh-so-many-other places. In fact, I live in a culture that is decidedly anti-aging. To be anti-anything is to be against it. To oppose it. Let that sink in for a moment. Anti…aging.

Well, this gray-haired girl is here to tell you that is bullshit.

Aging is the natural order of things.

Aging is the lifelong process of growing progressively older.

Aging is the accumulation of experiences that leads to the wisdom that can only be acquired through the passage of time.

Aging is the gradual letting go what doesn’t matter and holding closely that which does.

Aging is the discovery that old dogs can still learn new tricks.

Aging is the chance to get it right in the places we’ve gotten it wrong.

Aging is the invitation to show up and say yes to life.

Aging is the ticking clock that reminds us that there is still time to give ourselves away to love, help, and heal the world within our reach.

Aging is the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure story.

We are not meant to live forever, nor stay forever young. We are here for a time, the time we have here matters, and don’t let anyone try to tell you differently.

Endorphins

It was really hard work this morning as we made our way up the logging road. It’s a steep1.7 mile uphill climb all the way from where park to the top. Hiking it twice a week, it’s our way of training to get stronger. It’s always hard at the beginning as our bodies adjust to the effort. Some days it gets easier as we make our way to the top, other days not so much. This morning was one of those not-so-fucking-much times. With the end in view, we pushed hard for the last 50 yards or so. I sounded a lot like Roy Kent from Ted Lasso as I growled his favorite word with every step.

Head on the stump at the top, I caught my breath, and then gulped down some water. Looking at my watch, we’d shaved another minute off of our time. No wonder it was hard.

And then it happened.

The flood of those magic endorphins that follow vigorous exercise showed up. These miraculous chemicals trigger a positive feeling in the body and brain. It’s like Ellen Degeneres is doing her happy dance on my inner stage.

The thing about endorphins, from my experience, is that they only show up when I’ve exerted myself to the point of it being hard. To get stronger I have to push myself beyond what is comfortable. But those damn endorphins feel so damn good that it’s worth working that damn hard to have them flood me with their silly goodness.

What is true on the logging road is true in life.

Stretching past my comfort zone is where the magic happens. In every aspect of life, the only way I know to grow and get stronger is to stretch a little more, reach a little higher, dive a litter deeper, and risk a little more.

It may be hard at the time, but it’s totally worth it.

For Such A Time As This

Sometimes, deep in my dark recesses, I secretly hope that I will shuffle off this mortal coil before things become even more unbearable. That I will be gone before the world goes to hell in an even bigger handbasket, which Wikipedia defines as describing a situation headed for disaster inescapably or precipitately. That about nails it these days. Makes it hard for a girl to get out of bed and greet the day with a smile on her face, much less a spring in her step and hope in her heart. It’s a view of the world that is grounded in scarcity, fear, and when it boils right down to it, entitlement. As if I deserve an easier go of things. Which I don’t.

The only way to think about the world and my place in it at this time in history is that I must have been born for these times. And so were you.

Life isn’t harder for us now than it has been for others in the past. It’s a different kind of hard. That was their hard. This is ours. This is my time. It’s yours too.

We were born for such a time as this. Yep. This broken, beautiful, messed up, and magical world is the one we’ve been given and the one we have to work with. I’ll work mightily to love, help, and heal the world within my reach, and you work to do the same within yours.

Together, we can leave the world better than we found it.

One At A Time

Every time I’m out on the trail I am reminded that the life we have is directly under our feet. Not a mile down the road. Not a mile behind us. Not behind that tree or over that hill or under that rock or around that bend. It’s right here. There is nowhere else for it to be, because life only happens one step at a time.

Real life is a messy mixture of the good, the bad, and the seriously ugly. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy wishing that I could have those served up one at a time. Just a heaping helping of goodness without having to make room on my plate for the bad, the ugly, the painful, the frightening, and even the awful that will inevitably land on my plate too. So rather than digging into the delicious, yummy good right when it happens, I’m already stabbing my fork into whatever else might get dished up, but hasn’t yet. It’s like those times when I’ve eaten a delicious meal that was prepared with love and care, and before I knew it my plate was empty and I had no idea what the food even tasted like. I’d missed the meal set before me that would have given me the joy, resilience, and strength meant to sustain me when the going got tough.

Just like hiking on the trail, life only happens one bite at a time.