WE CAN ONLY

 

We can only write what we see, see what we write.

Today bountiful waking to trees out my windows early daylight,

Husband's arm about my side,

Rise for Kenya tea, strong and black.

Our hall lined with windows, courtyard telling season's story:

 

Lashings of rain?  Rainbow blooms or withered leaves?

Frost on the meadow or dustings of snow? 

 

Every day too much scrolling, 

Too much news; ideas not mine, no matter how creative.

In early September swimming ends the day. 

 

Sit by the pool . . . but oh, the mint needs a drink,

Oregano too, the pot plants, impatiens and begonia, salvia red and white. 

Not creeping rosemary lavender flowers fine with the heat; 

The yucca, lantana red and orange all happy.

My life has been long, why is that on my mind? 

Because, I see fullness, bounty, beauty.

Mint in my lemonade, oregano in my pasta, 

Rosemary on my potatoes, 

Root the begonia, gather wood for Fall

Savor, always savor as only age can do.

If you have age you know that too.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BLESSING OF A BIRTHDAY

October is my birthday month.  This year it is a very big birthday, and I planned a week of events.  A kind of self-care thing while my husband hits the last marks of his recovery from surgery.  

So we went out with another couple. Old friends traveled for a visit. A special group met for lunch instead of knitting.  Women friends from church gathered for brunch.  My oldest grandson came for the weekend.  My granddaughter too. We had breakfast with our niece and her boys who were in town from New Jersey.  And we hosted an evening party for the rest of the family and some close couples' friends. Wonderful friends and family gave me flowers, soaps and other fragrant things.  I blew out candles.  It felt marvelous.   

I have never shopped and organized and straightened and planned so much for myself. It is a super fun thing to do; I recommend it.  Plus, with this approach there's no way to be disappointed because someone forgets your birthday.  You've taken care of that.    

I also recommend the pleasure of growing older.  I know the choice isn't ours, but the welcome we give it is.  What could be luckier than being the age we remember our parents being and finding out that it's not so old after all? What could be better than discovering that growing older is not a misnomer--that we actually do keep growing?  That we grow into all the important aspects of life--resilience, bravery, caring, joy, perspective.  We never stop learning.  Not all of our lessons are wanted, but most are helpful.  I have learned from tragedy what mortality is. No lesson is harder.  I have learned why caring for self is prerequisite to almost any other good thing. 

We learn not to squander anything, not time, or love, or friendship.  We learn what needs protecting and what needs jettisoning. We learn how to accept graciously and how to give freely.   

We learn where our safe places are.  We help others find their safe places.  We learn how to be by ourselves and to value that.  We're not so picky.  We learn how easy it is to wound someone and try not to feel wounded ourselves.  We give and accept second chances. 

We were born to age.  Growing older should never bring sadness.  We mourn for those who don't.  Every birthday brings us closer to eternity.  I am curious about that.  But I am far from the only one. 

The Christian rock band MercyMe wrote and first performed this hit in 1999, and it has been the most played song on Christian radio. The lyrics could not be better.  You might want to listen to it.  Here are the words:

I can only imagine 

What it will be like

When I walk by Your side

I can only imagine

What my eyes would see

When Your face is before me

I can only imagine

Surrounded by Your glory

What will my heart feel?

Will I dance for You Jesus

Or in awe of You be still?

Will I stand in your presence  

Or to my knees will I fall?

Will I sing hallelujah?

Will I be able to speak at all?

I can only imagine

I can only imagine

When that day comes

And I find myself

Standing in the Son

I can only imagine

When all I will do

Is forever, forever worship You

I can only imagine

                          With thankfulness for a long life, Nina Naomi

 

HOW OLD ARE YOU? DOES IT MATTER?

 

Picasso, "The Mother," 1901

There's some conventional wisdom about age, about the difference between being young, middle-aged or old. The young do more, the old know more, so they say.  The middle-aged do a little less than the young and know a little less than the old. Still, it's considered by most to be the prime of life. 

Where being young ends depends on our age, doesn't it?  Our parents always seem old, even though my mother was 44 at my wedding and thought she was pregnant!  I didn't smoke because my parents did.  How could anything they did be cool?  Our children always seem young even though they may be middle-aged themselves.  My grandsons can't sign a contract, buy a car, support themselves, really do much besides homework.  But they think their mother is old and their father even older.  Their mother bristles at jokes about her age, but their father takes it in stride.

Within my family I'm old (and loved) because I'm the grandmother.  But as a wife I'm just me, no age at all.  When my husband and I go to bed at night we don't think, well here we are--two grandparents.  

As professionals, as each of us ages we become more experienced and high-priced.  As consumers we have more disposable income.  And of course with our friends we are all ageless.  Same with our interest groups--yoga, biking, book club, kayaking. . . age is not relevant.  

The question is, is it ever relevant?  

Every day we are both young and old--the oldest we have ever been and the youngest we will ever be.  So said Paul Simon (b. 1941) in "The Boxer." 

I am older than I once was

And younger than I'll be 

But that's not unusual.  

No, it isn't strange 

After changes upon changes

We are more or less the same

After changes we are

More or less the same

                         

There are so many quotes on aging--"Forty is the old age of youth; fifty the youth of old age."  Who said that? You would think a comedian, like Nora Ephron.  Instead it is Victor Hugo (1802-1885), the creator of the Hunchback of Notre Dame. 


Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014), Nobel Prize for Literature 1982, wrote: "Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega.  An end in itself."  

Edouard Vuillard, "A Seamstress," 1892

I had a great grand-mother who used to sit by the window in her bedroom.  The window was upstairs over a front-porch roof, so she couldn't see the people passing on the sidewalk.  But she could smell the trees and hear the leaves rustle and the rain fall.  She could hear the thunder and feel the air.  She was nearly blind.  Thin, frail, skin drawn over sharp bones, white hair pulled back from her face.  This is my memory.  A daughter lived with her, my great-Aunt Lillie.  I wish I knew if Aunt Lillie helped her dress, brushed her soft hair, creamed her hands and face for her. She must have. I picture this done lovingly.  My great grandma had none of the sights or smells that sometimes children associate unkindly with old age.  She was soft and sweet-smelling, her bony hands just slightly chilled, her eyes blue with cataracts, her house-dress clean and crisp.  We loved her. 

When my mother died and I wrote her obituary, my father said, "I never thought of her as 82."  Seeing it in writing surprised him. 

Robert Frost says, "The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected."  In my own mind now that my father has died too, I must be in the afternoon.  Still, younger than I'll be.  That's not unusual. It isn't strange.  After changes upon changes I am more or less the same.   Do you feel like that?  Are you happy with yourself no matter what your age?  I'd like to stay that way.  Our inner lives eternal. That could be a prayer.    With affection, Nina Naomi