"Age Defying Gravity"

 

     With less than a week and half to go, I will be facing another decade.  I will be 60 years of age.  Some may not think that is a huge deal but I am looking it at as a huge milestone.  To be truthful I like the word...60.  It has a much better ring to it than other numbers have had.  20, 30, 40 all had their moments but 60 sounds comforting.  The other decades were about "people pleasing" and proving myself on a much to regular basis.  Earlier decades caused me to take life too seriously and although that has been a difficult thing to manage admittingly...60 means bringing an end to fear.  I hope.

     This past year has been fearful for all of us.  But the year I was born, 1961, I became a "baby boomer" and the following happened:

•  American civil rights movement: Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus.
• Apollo program: President Kennedy announces before a special joint session of Congress his goal to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.
• Alan Shepard makes the first U.S. Space Flight.
• Niagra Falls starts producing hydroelectric power
• Construction of the Berlin Wall begins.
• The Peace Corps is established by President John Kennedy.
• The first electric tooth brush was introduced by General Electric.
• I was born...March 2, 1961 at 12:29 a.m.  The youngest of three daughters to Edward and Malvina Taschler, born at Vassar Brothers Hospital, Poughkeepsie, New York.  I was born a week early, which I might add set the tone for the rest of life...good, old-fashioned impatience.  
  

        Approaching 60 years of age, makes all that more determined to do more if I only knew what that "more" was.  Planning only gets you so far and then life has a way of taking you in another direction.  What I hope for is to be much like my grandmother was.  Strong, chopping wood in her 90's.  Not that chopping wood is on my agenda, but she never stopped until...unti she stopped.  She was 98.  If only I will be that lucky.  Actually, luck probably had nothing to do with Gramma's longevity. She kept busy, ate everything that was home grown.  She was a farmer.  Everything she cooked was home made and never processed.  She loved her home and the land she lived on and she loved her family.  When Ma brought me home, I was five pounds literally,  I spent the first days of my life in an incubator.  (No wonder I feel uncomfortable in small spaces.)  Ma, as she tells the story, brought me into Gramma and said, "Maria, she's so little! What will be do?"  Gramma looked at my mother and said , "We'll keep her Mickey.  We'll keep her."

     60 years seems like an awful long time but now I understand just how quickly it all happens.  One minute you are 14 wanting to be all grown and independent and free and the next minute, you are approaching 60 with your husband curled up watching television and thinking that this is really all you ever wanted.  Of course, the very thing that keeps me going, is I do in fact need and want to do more.  Life is busy.  Home is busy.  Teaching is definitely busy and sadly, I am doubtful few believe me when I say that but it is true.  I am grateful that I still have the same energy I had 14 years ago and to find the strength to handle what my teacher friends and I handle each and every day.  Even more significantly, I realized that it is acceptable to be tired.  When you are tired, you need to just stop and heal.  Stop and heal.

     I try to find comfort in aging by walking and writing and loving those who are in my life.  60 has made me grateful for my health, my well-being and my stubbornness to continue.  I am stubborn.  I think that is why I was born a week early.  I couldn't wait to get started on my journey, complicated and beautiful as it is.  At 60, I know that I have handled the heartbreaks, the joys and the disappointments and I am sure there will be more...hopefully.  Like the day I was born, a week early, I do not want to miss one damn thing.  I will not leave this life without joy, music and gratitude.  I promise everyone that.  I promise myself that!

     I will be counting down the days until March 2, 2021.  I am each day, one day, closer to another decade of change and adaptation.  Know that those who are in my life, even at 60, are loved and cherished.  No one is promised a single thing.  The grace of aging, means that we find joy and we find gratitude in what is right in front of us.  Maybe...just maybe, this will be the year I stop coloring my hair...or not.

     

"Ya Can't Draw Love From A Stone"

 

King and I celebrated our first Valentine's Day in February of 2004.  17 years ago.  There were chocolates, wine, flowers, dinner and lots of emotion. Until 2004, I had not celebrated a single Valentine's Day with anyone other than my family.  Truth.   The comforting thing about your 40's however, is you begin to realize that if you are standing on your own two feet, Valentine's Day will come and it will go and you will survive.  But I I wanted to fall in love.  I wanted that connection.  I just did not understand how to see it, feel it, know it.

When I met my husband, John King, I was not prepared for what I was feeling. What I did know is that I could no longer run away from what I denied myself for most of my life.  I realized that very first night that we met, that I deserved to be loved.  More importantly, I deserved to be loved in the most honest of ways.  In the time we have been together, love has evolved.  Love is far from perfect.  It will never be perfect.  There are times when we will absolutely, never be at our best and then again, we will be.  When that happens, the world becomes a much different place.

Sometimes, we have to accept the absurdity of love.  Love requires patience.  Love requires kindness and yes, one has to listen.  Relationships fall apart when the listening stops.  This is the painful process relationships go through and sadly, not everyone will stay in the game.  

At 59 years old, almost 60 years old, this is what love means now:

• Love means acceptance of imperfection.
• Love means having a sense of humor...always.
• Love means risk...a huge monumental risk.
• Love means mutual politics...and religion.  You have to see eye to eye.
• Love is messy.  Love is dealing with anger and frustration and again, acceptance. 
• Love is an almost visual connection of two souls.  It really is that simple.  
  

If I had to live anything in my life over again, I believe that the one thing I would have done differently would have been to open up sooner to the idea of love.  But, and this is a HUGE BUT...Nothing would replace the bravery and the risk King and I both took getting together and making a committment to each other.  Love equals committment.  Love is risk.  

On Valentine's Day, what I think about is the sacrifice and the longing of those I know who look across and have no one.  But let me tell those who are alone, find joy.  Love comes in its own sweet time, not before that time.  Love will hit you like a ton of bricks and leave you speechless and remember, love...helps you get your speech back.  Your voice will change but it will become stronger if it is right for you.

Spread your love for those you love.  Do not waste another moment pushing it aside because of fear.  The years go by very quickly and if you have the opportunity, love without hesitation.  If the hurt surfaces, move past it and know that you are capable of loving again.

Happy Valentine's Day.!!!

"Snow Blindness"

 

     I am presently looking out my bedroom window and the snow is falling so intensively,  you can hardly see our pine trees or our pond.  Everything comes to stop when there is snow storm.  I like that.  I love it when I am forced to become still, and focus on on the quiet and the peace the snow generates.  There was a time when I had to drive in all kinds of snow storms to get to work.  The record I believe for one commute, was four hours from Westchester. I am extremely grateful that the snow has been kind to me through the years.

     Each of my winters becomes more and more reflective.  The snow forces us into action.  Eventually, we have to get outside with our extra layers and move the remains of Mother Nature's cleansing.  Snow cleanses.  The purity and the stark white haze remind us how vulnerable we can really be.  We are not omnisicent.  We have to slow down our speed and let nature perform as it should.  Nature has more control than we care to admit.  It demands our respect or we proceed at our peril. Snow teaches us to be humble.  Snow teaches us patience and to be mindful.  

     As with most things, snow does not last.  It remains until the sun decides it is time to  nurture the earth for another spring.  When there is a heavy snow storm, I stop everything.  I like that.  There is that feeling of safety and warmth watching the snow cover up all the barren trees.  When it snows, I feel that sense of purity and gentility the snow creates.  My husband fills the bird feeders the appreciation of our "bird friends" is beyond satisfying.  Snow makes us take care of others.  It brings us a focus we forget we have at any other time of year because we are forced to be still for a time...at least until we have to shovel or plow.

When I am out in the cold, I wake up. The cold makes me sensible. Everything slows down and the cold reminds me to be warm or "warmer" to others and to myself.  The snow used to make me fearful.  Now I embrace it and understand that although I am watching winter, spring is not that far away and it is the winter and the snow that makes everything else possible.