everyday life

The afternoon of life

I am 37 years old.  I’m not going to pretend it is without angst, this early middle age of mine.  Two summer ago turning 35 made me very thoughtful and somewhat melancholy.  I got what felt like endless emails that summer protesting that 35 is not middle age.  But I disagree: I view middle age as a range: literally, the middle of life.  And there is no question in my mind that’s where I am.  The ferris wheel that I write about over and over nears its apex, and the view is breathtaking.  I can feel in my stomach, however, that we’re lurching close to the voyage down the other side.

I’m in good company, by the way: Carl Jung said that middle age begins at 35.  (he called it the beginning of the “afternoon of life,” something I read for the first time in Dani Shapiro’s gorgeous Devotion.) And life does have a different flavor these last few years.  The evidence that I am an adult continues to pile up: two children, a marriage, a graduate degree, a mortgage, a station wagon.  Oh, and the wrinkles.  I feel like a grown-up in the full sense of the word, which is both liberating and heavy.  Part of fully leaning into adulthood seems to be accepting all the things that will never be, and there is a deep sorrow in that though also a kind of sturdy settling, like an exhale.

But at the same time I feel a persistent disbelief that I’m actually an adult.  I still feel like I am 18.  I am still waiting for the real parents to come home and to take over with Grace and Whit.  It’s not a secret that one of the things I struggle most with is time’s passage; I wonder if my apparent willful ignoring of my own maturing is a way of refusing to acknowledge this reality.

I’m not sure.  It’s just one of the ways that life continues to surprise me, I guess, this oscillating between feeling very old and very young, sometimes in a single moment.   The constant letting go of what I thought, over and over again, that is never enough.  Releasing my hold on what might have been in order to embrace what is.  What is, in all of its new-wrinkled, dark-circled, surprisingly-achy middle-aged glory.  Maybe that will be primary joy of this afternoon of life: acknowledging and appreciating this life, this 37 (almost 38) years, right here.

Click over to Momalom to read many beautiful posts on today’s 5 for 5 topic, age.

Pictures

I am the official photographer.  It’s almost always me curating the memories of an event, corralling people into group shots, taking pictures of the flower arrangements, capturing candid images of laughter and conversation.  Sometimes, dancing as joy-filled as it is cringe-worthy.

I also take photographs of the non-events in my life, which is of course the majority of it, a large swath of ordinary days filled with images of the sky’s changing colors, the tree out my window, the faces of my children, the glasses on the table.  I take pictures of everything, and as I’ve noted it is often the most random images which, ultimately, carry the most salient memories.

Words are my lingua franca, there’s no question; words are my default way of capturing an experience and my instinctive way of trying to express an emotion.  But there are some things that are beyond the reach of words.  Often I grab at those things using my camera.  When I look back at pictures I’ve taken of the sky, or of Grace’s teddy bear packed in an overnight bag, or of Whit’s baby foot against my hand, I can see something that I haven’t yet been able to put into words.  This is when I feel most frustrated by my attempts at writing, when words seem clunky and imprecise, as though I use ten sentences to circle around a kernel of truth without really conveying it at all.

If I had to choose one way to record my life it would be words, certainly, but I am deeply grateful for the texture that pictures provide.  There are others who would choose another way, of that I’m sure.  People for whom the instinct pushes them to pictures, or perhaps to music; other ways to translate and share their human experience.  I think this Gilchrist quote gets at some of that:

I think colors made sense to him the way words to do to me. – Ellen Gilchrist, Winter

What’s your most basic language?  Words, pictures, music, or something else entirely?  What makes the most sense to you: color or words?

Please visit Momalom for a host of wonderful writing as part of 5 for 5.

 

11 Questions, 11 Answers

This blogging world has brought me so many gifts.  One of the richest has been The Tribe, a group of creative women who have (foolishly, and I’m still waiting for them to realize their error) included me in their number.  One of these years I will be able to join the annual retreat on the coast of Oregon.  Elizabeth Grant Thomas is one of the Tribe, and if you don’t know her luminous, thoughtful writing, you should.  She writes about many of the same themes that haunt my work (and my life): impermanence and what endures, relationships and family, the fallibility and brilliance of memory.

Last week Elizabeth shared 11 questions and her answers.  I loved reading her stories, about the adorable way her husband proposed, her favorite historical period, and what day in her life she’d go back and re-live.  Then she tagged me in the meme, and I so enjoyed reading her answers that I was excited about answering with my own.

This is how it works:

  • Post the rules
  • Answer 11 questions the tagger posted for you
  • Create 11 new questions to ask the people you tag
  • Tag 11 people
  • Let them know you’ve tagged them

So herewith, my answers to Elizabeth’s wonderful questions, my own set of new questions, and the 11 people I would love to hear answer them!

1. What book has moved you the most in recent history?

I was tremendously moved by Stephanie Saldana’s The Bread of Angels.

2. What’s your favorite way to spend idle time?

Sitting in my bed, with my daughter next to me, reading (separately).

3. Share a silly photo of yourself.  What’s the story?

This was in high school, when my dear friend C and I were in the Dance Concert together.  We also ran cross-country together, and part of why I love this photograph so is that we are teaming up to run a 10K Mud Run in May together.  20 years and 5 children later, we’re back to running in the woods side by side.  I can’t wait.

4. What astrological sign are you?  Do you believe in astrology, or think it’s a bunch of hooey?

I’m a Leo.  I oscillate between believing and thinking it’s hooey.  Fun fact: my father and my husband are both twins and Geminis.  When I was growing up, I thought being a twin was a requirement of being a Gemini, since my father was both.

5.  What is the most memorable meal you’ve ever had?

Several dinners, cooked over a campfire, out in the African bush when Matt and I were on safari in the summer of 1998.  Somehow they conjured the most extraordinary meals out of nothing, and the setting sure helped.

6. Do you believe in fate, or that we’re masters of our own destinies?

This is a tough one for me.  I’m really not sure.  I lean towards the former, because I often sense the hand of something large and ineffable at work, but I also believe adamantly in the power of hard work and good decisions to shape our lives.

7. What is one of your favorite memories from childhood?

Singing Circle Game with my sister and our “four family” siblings, the extended family we grew up with.  We wore white, we stood in line by height, and all eight of our parents watched us with tears in their eyes.  There are also many special memories from my summers at sleep-away camp.

8. If you know it, what is your Myers-Briggs type?  If you don’t know it, would you characterize yourself as an extrovert or an introvert?

I am an INFJ.  100% F, 100% J, closer to the middle on the other two.  I am a big believer in the Myers-Briggs as a framework for understanding ourselves and others in our lives.

9. What is your favorite flower?

Peonies, hands down.  Ranunculus after that.

10. No one can ever believe that I’ve never seen The Princess Bride.  What movie have you never seen that everyone else seemingly has?

Silence of the Lambs.  I’m too scared.

11. What quote or motto best describes how you endeavor to live your life?

There is no such thing as a complete lack of order, only a design so vast it appears unrepetitive up close.  (Erdrich)

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work. And when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.  The mind that is not baffled is not employed.  The impeded stream is the one that sings. (Berry)

To miss the joy is to miss all.  (Stevenson)

Did you really think I could pick one?

And so, here are those I “tag”:

Aidan of Ivy League Insecurities
Christa of Carry It Forward
Denise of Universal Grit
Pamela of Walking On My Hands
Lisa Bonchek Adams
Kathryn of Good Life Road
Hilary from A Year On
MK Countryman from My Suburban Life
Katie Gibson from cakes, teas, and dreams
Rebecca from June Carol Claire
Erin from Elements of Style

And these are my questions:

1. What is your favorite book?  Why?

2. What song brings you back most viscerally to a moment in your history?  Where does it take you?

3. Who is your favorite character in fiction?

4. What is your favorite food?  What about foods you abhor?

5. Are you a morning or a night person?

6. What is your default font when you write on your computer?

7. How many siblings do you have?  How many children do you have (as of now)?

8. What season do you like best?

9. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

10. If you practice yoga (even sporadically) what is your favorite pose?

11. When was the last time you cried?

Perfect

This past weekend was difficult.  Tensions ran high, nerves were frayed, voices were raised.  I was reminded, for the umpteenth time, that Matt and I are Grace and Whit’s weather, and though they exhibit it differently they are both keenly aware of our moods.  It’s a big responsibility, being someone else’s sky: when I’m stormy, that has a huge impact on them.  Still, still, I had my camera out, and I was able to unearth a few gems from a weekend otherwise filled with a slurry of sorrow and frustration.

Grace let me braid her hair.  This reminded me of my own childhood, spent often in two uneven braids.  This was the result of several tries; I’m not a good hair-doer.  Still, the braids were perfect.

Matt got home late on Friday night so I took Grace and Whit to our local pizzeria for slices for dinner.  As we waited I turned to shush them and saw that they were (loudly) dancing around the empty room.  My voice, raised to tell them to be quiet (oh, irony, I know) stilled in my throat and tears sprang to my eyes.  It was perfect.

Saturday night Whit would not go to sleep.  He was wired and tired, bouncing off the walls with a frantic energy.  Everything was a chore: trying to get him to brush his teeth, clean up his room, put on his pajamas.  My defenses were (and remain) paper-thin: the mere sight of his big top teeth coming in, where so recently there was a gaping gap, made me cry.  And still, amid all of that, I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw this in the mirror.  It was perfect.

Late on Sunday afternoon Whit and I dropped Grace off at a friend’s house and, needing an escape from the house, drove to the cemetery nearby.  We arrived at our tower to discover that they had just closed it.  Crestfallen, we got in the car, and then Whit asked me to pull over so we could climb down to a pond at the bottom of a ravine.  I did, and followed him as he skipped ahead of me down the narrow path.  The end of the day grew dusky, and I waved away mosquitoes as I watched Whit watching a pair of ducks and a small, silent turtle at the edge of the pond.  Moments of calm descended on me, but I also felt aggravated, and impatient, and aware of an internal thunder whose rumbling I could not quiet.

Finally we turned to head back to the car and made our way back up the path.  Whit trailed me, carrying his “walking stick.”  “Mummy?” I heard him say behind me.  I turned.  “Yes?”  “I really like when we spend time just you and me.”  It was perfect.

One year and one day ago I wrote these words:

I need to trust that as surely as my frustrations and irritations, my guilt and paralyzing panic about missing it rise up, they will ebb away.   These emotions are clouds sliding across the sky of my life, that is all.  This is what I am realizing: it is up to me whether I let these feelings, these moments when I am not the mother I want to be, mar the perfection of this life.  And I won’t let them.  I can’t change, I don’t think, the spikes of agitation and restlessness that sometimes overtake me so fast my head spins.  But I can change how I let them impact my overall sense of my days, of my life.

This life, this moment: it’s all so perfect it breaks my heart.  Every day.

And my emotional sky remains full of clouds, and it’s all still perfect.

The Brita-filler

Not long ago I wrote about a Gail Godwin quote I love:

“The more you respect and focus on the singular and the strange, the more you become aware of the universal and infinite.”

There’s so much in this that makes sense to me.  Sometimes I’m struck by a tiny detail about someone that seems to speak volumes about who they are.  For example: more times than I can count, I fill up other peoples’ Britas.  I see them almost-empty in their fridges, and I fill them up.  Why?  I don’t know.  But it says a lot about who I am, I think.

Also: I inevitably, always have the coffee for the next morning all set and pre-programmed by 6pm the night before.  In a related, kitchen-centric detail, I’m an avid clean-up-as-I-go cook.  When I served Thanksgiving dinner to my family last year, every single dish was washed and put away before we sat down.  I cannot comprehend why others don’t do this.

Also: I still make old-fashioned photo albums, every few months printing out a bunch of pictures and pasting them into the pages with the peel-back clear covers.

What does this combination of small things say about me?  I’m neurotic, thoughtful, and sentimental?  Those would all true.

What are some of the tiny but wildly telling details about you?