I feel like the gestalt drawing: looked at one way it's a beautiful young girl, looked at another way it's a wizened old crone.
Increasingly, I'm noticing where change is sneaking up on me.
In a week I turn 65, which brings in its wake a life review and a preview of the life I'm likely to have in the time I have left. I have to accept that the life I have is the life I have and that "I'll live single all the days of my life." The dream that someday I would be someone's beloved has been hard to let go of. Now mostly it's a dull mute ache, and I truly do value the genuine affection of the people I know and who cherish me. As I realize, somewhat to my surprise, that I have even deeper yearnings--to speak forth what I see and know and am shown--"It's not the same" is a whispered truth I have no will to deny.
I've become vegetarian. The decision not to eat beef, pork, or poultry was almost effortless once I learned something about the factory farming of aminals; I'm having more difficulty fine-tuning what's right for me in terms of fish, dairy, and eggs. My instinct is to give up fish and eggs because how they are made available to us in this society still depends on creature suffering. We'll see.
I'm watching two special friends deal with the effects of aging on their health and mobility. My favorite (and only living) aunt is in very poor health, and I realize how much I'll miss her when she goes. I realize how much I'll miss my friends as their mobility becomes more circumscribed--and know that it's also myself I'll miss as the yet-unknown effects of aging take their toll on my already difficult (not necessarily "bad," mind you, but difficult) circumstances.
"Knock-knock." "Who's there?" "Change." "Change who?" "That's up to you."
Whether it is or it isn't up to me, I'm home and I'm going to answer the door.
3 comments:
I read this blog and felt you were speaking directly to me. The paragraph about accepting the life we've had stopped me cold. I have reread it several times and find you were speaking my own thoughts.
Thank you for sharing - know that you have given me pause to consider where my 75 years are taking me. Blessing - Meri
Hi Lynn -
I am so amazed and uplifted by your words, and now your photographs too. Especially the one of the sidewalk & blue curb. Your sense of composition is stunning, and the colors so subtle and perfectly balanced. You must have studied FIne Art for many years, right? Or is it something already inside, just waiting to express? I don't know, but that one picture made me say to myself "I wish I had shot that."
I have some of those same feelings too. At 69 I find myself "up against the wall" with no more time for stalling. If I'm ever going to do something more, something meaningful, to express what I've been given, I tell myself -"Girl you better get going and do it."
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