For all my readers who struggle with letting themselves have something they love
I can never settle for accepting something, just as it is. I’m compelled to find out the “history” of it. I can’t seem to embrace or comprehend the person, place or thing unless I do. I spend hours and days going down Rabbit Holes of research to come to this understanding. How did this come to be? Perhaps there is some DNA involved; my mother wanted to be a history teacher and never was. I did not know this until years later when she mentioned it as an afterthought. My grandmother had a library full of historical fiction and non-fiction. There was always a book on a table or tucked into a bag of knitting. If I hadn’t wanted to understand my history, I never would have become a social worker.
History was always my highest grade in school. My favorite professor in college was my history teacher, a brilliant woman who I ended up disappointing because I went to graduate school for criminal justice, while she saw me working in a museum or going on for an advanced degree in American Studies. She knew my mind and work so well she recognized the ghostwriting I had done for a friend to earn some cash for the cigarettes and booze that fueled my college career. Early in my second year, I chose history as my major, and at the end of it; I doubled majored and yoked it to sociology. I further disappointed her when I missed receiving the history award at graduation because my acting out behavior caused me to miss the first month of my last semester. I remember her saying, “if it wasn’t for… the award would have been yours. It should have been yours.” While I won the award for sociology, perhaps a more forgiving discipline, I felt nothing at the receipt of it.
While getting my MSW and my Ph.D., I gravitated towards a professor who did historical research and who gained a great deal of attention for her book, tracing the history of women and welfare, a story of regulation that had never been told the way she found it to be. She became a mentor and a dissertation chair. When getting my Ph.D. while wanting to do a historical research dissertation on the history of women in child welfare, after doing a year of research that stimulated and excited me, I canned it. Looking back, this happened after a meeting with my chair where she proclaimed, “Your dissertation will be the, ‘regulating the lives of women’ but for child welfare.” I ended up with a dissertation that was a program evaluation. I disappointed her too. As I look back on my ambivalent relationship with history, it was always tied to the relationships I had with women who also loved it. Relationships, I felt I had to resist in order to be myself. Women who I felt were regulating me. Alongside my ambivalent relationship to history and strong women, is my ambivalent relationship to writing. Perhaps it’s time to look back to find out why.
I’m 68 now. I’ve bought an old house, 1912 to be exact so I could spend my days researching it. What kind of house it is, how it came to be, the history of where I live now, and the history of what was happening then. My new/old house is a transitional Victorian, which means it references some features of the excesses that were part of the Victorian design but transitions into more of a humble and utilitarian Arts and Crafts style. There’s a tower with an octagonal room at the top where I sit and write. As I wait and watch this first year to see what’s already planted before I think about landscape and garden design, I research the history of gardens to imagine what mine may be. I am flooded with memories of the gardens, the fruit trees, and the frogs that were part of the landscape of my grandparents’ home when I was young.
Riding in our blue and white Ford, we would make a turn onto the narrow road where they lived and the lush green, damp darkness formed by the canopy of trees would surround us and cool us down; a refuge from the hot asphalt playground that adjoined our apartment building. There was a gate with a bell and a gravel driveway. We would hop out of the car and ring it to announce our arrival. In front was a stone wall built centuries ago. There were hostas lining a meandering bluestone walk along with bursts of orange tiger lilies. Could this be where my love of the color orange comes from? Perhaps my delight to find hostas already in place in my new/old house?
A farmhouse from the 1800s, my grandparents’ home was set back from the road, and everything about it, both inside and out, referenced history. My grandmother chose arts and crafts style furniture for every room. She covered the beds with quilts and everything in this house had a purpose. They set the kitchen table against a window and had a Peterson’s Guide to Birds sitting on the ledge for easy reference. My grandfather’s watercolors and pen and ink drawings from trips to Europe years ago hung on the wall and there was a room up the narrow stairs and to the left that contained his drafting table and a high stool. Outside in the side yard were chairs he constructed from tree branches. When we started school, we got a small patch of land somewhere on the property that became our very own garden. We could decide what to grow and we had to tend to it when we came up for the weekend. Our chores were garden relevant: we helped our grandmother pick from her cut flower garden to arrange in the vase on the long farmer’s table in the dining room and went with my grandfather to pick vegetables for the meal. I experienced my most happy and cherished childhood times here. It was all over when my grandfather died suddenly and shortly afterward my grandmother sold it all so she could run away and travel the world. The cooling balm of nature was gone, replaced with the relentless heat and sun radiating from the concrete where we lived.
I always admired my grandmother for being such a rebel; doing something most women of her time did not dare to do. I think though as her money ran out, and she miserably rotated between her resentful daughters’ homes (I remember them arguing about who should have her next), I suspect she asked herself if the short-term high of it; the hundreds spent on cosmetics and clothes as she sailed around the world was worth it in the end? I wonder if she had taken up her cello again (she stopped playing during the Great Depression; it had to be sold) after my grandfather died if that could have given her life the meaning she sought through her acquisition of novel things and experiences. Perhaps her music had meant so much to her she could not bear to have it abruptly taken away again. As I write these words, I realize that my new/old house is my way of returning to the place that gave me such joy and that was so abruptly taken from me. This regulation occurred at the hands of another woman and for the first time, I feel a tinge of anger towards my grandmother. I always thought my mother unjust to be so angry at her. Perhaps I can see better why.
It has now become clear that everything I’ve done so far and imagined in my new/old house is in the service of re-creating this magical place where I spent some of the happiest moments of my life. I think all the time about having my granddaughter have them, too. I’ve been getting arts and crafts furniture, a framed blueprint of a garden hanging on a wall. I’m planning for vegetables and cut flowers. I envision meandering walkways with hostas and tiger lilies. Like my grandfather, I have a small room to the left of the stairs where I can practice my craft. My engagement with history returns me to my past. Like my grandmother, an expert knitter, my second best thing is botanical dyes and sewing.
I had a dream last night that I had climbed to the top of a rock formation like those out west with holes to see through, so I could better see an expansive view. When I climbed back down, filled with joy, I find myself abandoned by all the people I was with and the bus that had brought us gone. These are the two choices my family history has left me with. Yesterday I had a huge writing victory (more to be revealed soon). My dream reveals that the things you love the most can be abruptly taken away. And so, not at the hands of another woman, I am the woman who has regulated my writing life; abandoning it through my own will. I have created an ambivalent relationship with writing because I see myself either having it all or losing it all. Being surrounded by family or being abandoned by them. It’s better to not embrace what I love and choose a substitute that would be less important to lose. Starting this blog was the first step to changing my relationship to writing. I lost my way when I let all the shiny newness; the travel, the clothes, the shorter-term gratification be the bigger part of it all; the writing kept disappearing, abandoned, yet always returning.
Buying, rather than renting a home, was a step towards where I live, not being at the mercy of others. Embracing my love of my craft and nature is not being afraid to let that joyful time become part of my life again. The people I have in my life now will not abandon me. I can write essays or I can write a history book if that brings me joy and allows me to practice my craft. The wisdom of age is knowing I am the only woman that can regulate my desire. I am getting to know her better every day and surely can better anticipate her tricks.
What revelation has the wisdom of age brought to you?
Beautifully written.
thanks so much.
Hi – would it be possible for you to divulge the designer of what you wear on your posts? This linen tunic is divine and would love to know who it is to look into purchasing it.
Thank you so much for your words of wisdom and your style!
Will do. The linen coat I am wearing in this post is from Acne Studios.
I wonder if you might be interested in reading Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Unsheltered?
Per wiki — Unsheltered is a 2018 novel by Barbara Kingsolver. It follows two families living in the same house at two separate time periods in Vineland, New Jersey. The novel alternates between the 21st- and 19th-century stories, using the last words of one chapter as the title of the next one. Wikipedia
That sounds wonderful. I’ve enjoyed other books the author has written . Thanks for the recommendation.
I just want to say I love you and I love your Style!!! Absolutely Loving this maxi-coat!!! Continue to be YOU Ms. Accidental Icon.
Such a beautiful, reflective post. I am learning much greater patience and a greater discernment between what is truly worth attending & what is not nor worth an emotional nickel.
Love that “emotional nickel”.
Thank you
That every.single.thing. in my life has been a result of my thoughts and emotions. Thoughts become things. I am, sometimes painfully, learning to choose the good ones.
Yes, our thoughts have a huge impact on everything including our physical health.
I love your blog. I’d love to read a memoir of your hard won wisdoms ..
Thank you, perhaps a book of essays after this one about how to be old.
I am being encouraged to write as well. The peeling of layers, and the revaluations of both my own history, and my present. Integration. I’ve been blessed to have had (and still having!) an astonishing and life, in which I’ve had the opportunity to experience an number of different identities. And, not to sell this short; I have always loved clothes! And still, at 68, living and traveling with my kitten in a small (camper van) RV, I still love clothes. And ideas, and discovery, and sitting silently, simply beholding what is around me. Grateful. For all of it.
A wonder!
This is so rich, and takes me to so many places. I can absolutely relate to the constrictiveness of self regulation as I did something similar, also abandoning my love of English and Literature – and awards that awaited me- and opting for Social Work. The messages of “not worthy enough,” and “you want too much” narrowed my perceived options and fed a self destructive self that co-existed with an achieving self. Over time, my love of language and fashion persisted in asserting themselves. I learned to resist less and to heed their call, welcoming them and integrating them in one way or another into a life already established and a journey well on its way. I am happy I did. I like and love myself now; I am at ease with others and with the world as never before; I make no excuses and feel no need to explain. I simply am, am, am.
So very wonderful to settle into I am.
Wow, most excellent post. Reminded of the quote: “There is nothing to writing. You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.” Has been attributed to Hemingway, as well as Red Smith. It is amazing how our childhood memories truly define us. I recall my grandmother’s small wooden house, her chickens, her stove brimming with freshly baked hot rolls. Your words brought me back to those days. At age 77, I was a wild child during the decade of the ’60s so totally understand rebellion. I still regret not making it to Woodstock. My first husband died suddenly at 55 years old and that brought me to my knees, with one son in high school and another in college. No life insurance, no will, a house in foreclosure, yet someone I survived. Even when Hurricane Ike destroyed our house in 2008, I was just thankful I had stuff in the attic that survived. I just returned from Chicago to see my older son and grandchildren; off to L.A. end of the month to see my younger son and his wife. We will drive up the California coast so I can get lost in the beauty of Big Sur and dig my toes in the purple sand of Pfeiffer Beach. Sadly, my 82-year-old brother holes up in his house in another state, scared of the pandemic and refuses to get on a plane to see family. What revelation has the wisdom of age brought to me? It is from a quote from the incredible Helen Keller: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
Sue,
Your post resonated with me. I am traveling next week across the country to visit my daughter. I also have two grown sons, one which lives near me with his wife and young son and the other out of state with his wife and young daughter. We will all gather at my daughters, something that happens ever so rarely since we all live so far apart. I am over the moon excited, but every once in awhile, fear arises because of Delta spreading and I wonder if we are doing the right thing. This was planned months ago. Your post helped me feel confident and assured about our trip. I feel sad for your 82 year old brother and do not choose to live like that. Your quote of Hellen Keller’s is also one of my favorites. Have fun on your upcoming trip.
Stay safe and enjoy the trip. I traveled to LA very recently and was extra careful, double masking, ate outdoors and and remained outside as much as I could.
I’ve always liked the Helen Keller quote too. Sucking the marrow out of life is another quote that resonates for me. I have no nostalgia for my childhood, I couldn’t wait to leave home, leave that part of the country. Thirty years later I had the opportunity to move back to the farmhouse I grew up in and live across the road from my sisters family, 30 metres from my Mums new cottage, 30mins from my brother and his family. I’ve never felt particularly connected with my family, more distantly fond of them. I felt I was choosing to explore something I didn’t know about. Also, it was an exciting opportunity to start a new business by opening a fishing lodge in the old farmhouse. I committed to being uncontroversial, reliable and mostly harmless for at least 12 months when I moved back. Nearly killed me to be honest. Covid lockdown hit just after I opened for business. I’ve started two new businesses since then, I’m finally making a living from them 12 months later. Two years after moving back my reliable and mostly harmless strategy has paid off, I gave up on being uncontroversial after 12 months, but fortunately apart from my mother occasionally pretending to be deaf there has been no fallout lol. Who knows what will happen next. I don’t know, Im content to stay here (it’s the perfect Climate Change refuge), I still feel disconnected to my family, but not in a bad way, just that in another universe there is a family that gets me.
What a wonderful story! I so get what you mean about family.
Such an inspiring life story and the Helen Keller quote is sublime.
Thank you. This is inspiring for all of us old women to do what we love and to look at our dreams to reveal some hidden past messages meant for good and to heal.
For about the past 8 years I have returned to my earlier fascination with making art. I have focused on combining objects to make pieces with mixed media, assemblages.
I get inspiration from my garden and enjoy puttering about. It has influenced my art work and I hope to continue to enter my art pieces in shows. My career was working as an Art Therapist after teaching art at the high school level. Art work is healing and so is being in nature, as well as all the creative arts.
I am so happy for you.
So many shifts nudged by the wisdom of age 🙂 Things, situations, people that I used to have a ludicrous expanse of patience for, I have none. As if it all got used up. Yet things that would have annoyed, or at the very least have elicited a “tsk”, now affect me not at all. It’s not just about picking my battles but really the shifts in what riles me up. I will be 67 in November and have set new goals much like you. I am re-learning Esperanto. I had acquired it almost 40 years ago but drifted away from it so now it’s like starting all over again. Like you, I love language and writing. My undergrad is in English and my grad degree is in Religion & Culture. I hated History. I do however, love movies set in earlier times. Not movies made in earlier times, those SET in earlier times 🙂 I love their fashion especially like the Queen Gambit and Company X. I find myself gravitating to people I never would have and distancing from those I used to be close to. So many more changes that I ever would have imagined marching into my late ’60’s!
and what a wonderful ride.
Wow! What a well written thought out piece. Very thought provoking about us as humans and our history.
Loved it!
Thanks so much.
My age (67) has finally taught me that I can say No much, much more often. I can say no if invited somewhere I don’t wish to go; I can say no if there’s a task I’m really not interested in performing. I can say No to so many things I used to do by rote.
I have also learned to say Yes more frequently. I say Yes to an occasional piece of pie, when I always used to castigate myself for having a rich dessert. I can say Yes, I’d love to, when I wish to attend. I can say Yes, I’m happy, finally. Finally I do exactly what I want whenever humanly possible.
and what freedom in this!
At 70 I have a similar Freedom to that of my treasured childhood. I have work I can do for the rest of my life: standup comedy and writing poetry. I’m single and there is Match.com. Work. Romance. A funny little Grandson to hang out with. The World is open and exciting. Possibilities beckon…
What a delightful life
Such a wonderful writer. I can totally relate to all you penned.
Many thanks.
“It’s better to not embrace what I love and choose a substitute that would be less important to lose.”
Wow.
Lyn, have you any idea how your decision to share your life with us elevates and deepens our own with meaning and love?
I have no idea either. But it sure does mine.
My love of Matter, of Place, of Past (after a lifetime of no-interest, Pluto enters my Fourth House of ancestors; inevitable).
We redeem the world of matter for the world which has raped and discarded it, us. We are the Phoenix .
Endless gratitude for you and your return to the word.
Thank you for your beautiful words.
thank you
you are welcome
As I’ve gotten older (I’m 65) I’ve taken a very different approach to creating. I’ve taken up knitting again after many years and discovered watercolours. Setting aside my perfectionist I’ve given myself permission to be “good enough” and start over as many times as it takes. Enjoying the process. It’s been a joyful and enlightening 18 months. Maybe it was the pandemic and setting aside previous expectations or maybe it was just getting older. ??♀️
You’re a continuing inspiration for change and questioning. Thank you for your honesty and curiosity.
It seems we have a lot of reformed “perfectionists” here! A silver lining of our enforced time of slowing down.
A beautifully constructed piece of writing exemplifying and expanding that old chestnut “Home is where the heart is .” To feel comfortable, to feel loved, to feel a sense of belonging, to feel a familiar sense of place – all lead to a wisdom engendered through gratitude and knowledge passed down through the ages .
Thank you for your thoughts
Thanks for your lovely comment and distilling so clearly the heart of it.
You are so gifted..I so much enjoy your writing..I too am 68…not certain of where to head..but sure knowing that it’s to the best of times…
Yes, here we can sit in uncertainty with joyful anticipation.
At 57 I have descended into a knowing of my authentic self. Today I am considering that darkness is my illumination. And that pleasure, desire, will guide my ascent.
Beautiful words.
I think I am still looking for the wisdom. I will be 65 next year. Because of Covid I retired 2 years early. I am healthy and I am searching. My husband and I moved from a large City to a small house on a Lakeside property with 3 acres. What will I do here? I too like to travel. I too have been molded by women. I too am willing to change and explore what is here with me today.
I can tell your writing is becoming stronger and more clear.
Thank you for your blog.
Patricia
Thank you so much for this beautiful piece. It conjured so much for me in remembering August summers at my great grandmother’s house.
I am grateful to have those moments.
Wow!!! So much personal revelation!!! Very enlightening as you allow us to look through a window to your soul. You are so brave and I so admire you.
Thank you.
Hi Lyn
Your writing journey has many twists and turns. It is an interesting web of stop and go moments throughout your life. You write of times you disappointed your mentors, but were you really disappointing yourself? If we please ourselves, that is most important. Looking back at our choices in life, it may be clearer to see a path we might have chosen. Sometimes when I pamper myself or buy myself something expensive that is not a necessity, I experience guilt or remorse. I feel that I am being selfish. But, if it makes me feel good about myself, that is important. I need to be pleased and satisfied with myself for my own self esteem. I cannot live to please other people, but I need to love and value myself. I look forward to your book. Keep writing, Lyn. Your memories of time spent at your grandparents’ acreage reminds me of special moments I spent with my own grandparents. Golden memories that continue to shape my life and values.
Thank you for being a woman of substance and education. I love your blog and the thoughtful comments it elicits. I am 72 and have three degrees in a very sensible occupation that has left my private artist self starving for five decades. I have treated my art the way you have your writing. Please keep writing. You are an inspiration to me to get on with my painting because time is running out for creating my masterpiece. I am in the process of trying to find a serious online art group similar to your writing society. I wish you could share blogs you follow.
Thank you for such a thoughtful post. You may want to take a look at Felt. It’s a creative community for older adults that has painters as well as other artists.
Felthttps://www.meetfelt.com/#:~:text=Felt%20was%20created%20by%20Alive,others%20who%20want%20the%20same.
Thanks for your encouragement, I really appreciate it.
I am 62. I have found that if I try to recreate, some things feel so good while others just aren’t the same. So I’ve gotten to the point where if a thought or an object, or a smell sends me back. I linger on that feeling for a while and see if it’s one I want to go back to. Maybe explore again. Or just let it be the memory that I have.
That’s a wonderful process thanks for sharing it.
I have been following your blog for a while and I think this is the first time I have commented. At the age of 80 I now realize that I have spent my life, my time, looking for someone to love me and not enough time loving myself.
Hurrah, hope you start that journey today. today!
Great article, which shows that you have finally now accepted that making your own path in life is not the result of the influence of others but by your own choices. The path that your choices bring will bring you joy because they are your choices. Count your blessings
I do each and every day.
I discovered one day that although I am the only one who can decide whether to buy my favorite chocolate pudding — and eat as much as I choose — but also the only one who must realize that sometimes much is too much for one’s health. I am the only one who can limit me now, in my rebellion against “healthy eating” as a child. Re-learning the way to gain acceptance of the need to moderate, and relearning it is okay to buy myself pearls if I want them, has been a real focus in this, my sixty-sixth year. Learning the advantages of balance in my life has taken up much time this year, as my body reminds me that it will not accept abuses of the past.
Our bodies have lots to tell us if we listen and it sounds like you are.
Oh my. This is such a great piece of historical memoir.
Thank you
Thanks, my confidence is growing with each and every comment.
Mainly, that the plans we make and the things we cherish mean a little less than the family we value!
When a tragic event occurs in your life and you lose your life savings. Having to start all over at 74 yo. You can either lie down or get up and face the day with a smile and value the life you have, your brother’s gracious generosity of giving you a place to live temporarily and having support from your friends and family. Plus I have a beautiful granddaughter that makes me smile every minute!
Just be thankful for each day you’re on this beautiful earth!
And appreciate and value the gifts you possess!
So thankful you have the support to survive such a blow, you are an inspiration.
Hi Lyn, such beautiful writing- heartfelt and poignant, but thankfully lacking in sugary sentimentality.
Ah thank you.
Wonderful! I certainly relate!
Great.
unable to read comments
Are you reading on a phone or computer?
I am fortunate to be have sufficient to live on so I have control of my life. I have learned that age is not the reason to stop searching for joy by exploring new skills, making new friendships and taking time to meditate and write about it all. Not all women have that freedom but many do not seize it because they fear the criticism of others. Your words inspire me to go where knowledge leads me, but it also reminds me that sometimes I need to give others that little push to seize their freedoms in whatever form they take.
Yes so true!
where are the comments
You should be able to see them.
Beautiful and insightful writing! Thank you for putting your pen to paper or fingers to key board. ?
Thanks for taking the time to read it!
That there are three ways of living: Through reality, through the imagination, and through the material. A balance of all three may bring and insure peace and happiness. That there are treasures and selfs waiting to be discovered in the unseen, the unknowable, ……consciousness and the universe. Thank you for sharing this part of your lovely self in this blog and thanks for Accidental Icon. Delightful.
Thank you for that thoughtful reflection. I love the three ways of living, you’ve given me something to think about.
Hi Lyn, thank you for this piece of writing. I so enjoy reading your words. I too keep myself from what I love. I have nine year old twins and am 53. Simultaneously, I keep myself from what I love, while out of necessity (running a small business and caring for my kids), my life keeps me from what I love. I sometimes don’t know the difference. I will try to pay better attention and grab those few moments to write, sit in the sun, or look at a flower. I look forward to hearing more from you again soon. X
A moment for yourself will make you do everything you do for others even better, glad you’ll try and find it.
wow. lyn. thank you. i, too, have been recently exploring the wisdom that lies in me. it seems that i have taken a circuitous route back to the place that originally sparked my joy. years, experience, wisdom now allow me to pursue the acting career i gave up almost 50 years ago. and there is still fun in it, but far less anxiety.
Isn’t that a wonderful thing!
Because of Covid, and all the stores, galleries, and museums that carried my work closed; I bought a brand new camping van, and changed from being a “maximalist” into a minimalist. I still love my clothes, and other special and beautiful things, but my closet is now measured in inches rather than (many!) feet. I am so happy with it. I live mostly outdoors. I sit quietly. And I wonder who I will be once I emerge from these months of quiet sitting in extraordinary beauty.
What a wonderful transition, can’t wait to find out with you.
I am not climbing anymore. I can watch others climb and feel less guilty. I am not just sitting either. I am walking steadily side by side with others. My goal is to get somewhere and grow somehow while affirming those around me.
A wonderful goal.
What Revelation has the wisdom of age brought to you?
This is a great question I’m asking myself right now , maybe I can come answer it soon , I’m pondering it myself.
A good one to ponder.
I’ve only recently discovered your blog. I could read it forever. I was able to envisage your grandparents home, in colour. looking forward to reading more about from and about your journey.
Welcome and thank you. As you can see it is not only me writings the comments are gems in and of themselves.
What a beautiful piece of writing, so thoughtful yet surprisingly relaxing. A break from the craziness happening all around us. Thank you Accidental Icon, thank you.
I’m happy you enjoyed it.
I turn 70 at the end of this year. I have devoted the year to being the best I can possibly be. I have finally lost the 30+ pounds that have plagued me for years and were added to by the pandemic! I am back running and ready to run a half marathon in October. I’m healthy and happier than I think I have ever been. I’m am finally comfortable with myself, confident and relaxed. I no longer care what others think. Turning 70 feels like real freedom to be me! I can’t wait for my party!
PS I love reading your blog and also can’t wait to see what you are working on.
Congratulations, I see you running towards life and not running away as many feel they have to from age. Bravo for showing us the way.
When I retired 5 years ago, I moved from the Midwest to New England. History was calling. I wanted to live in the place my family had been visiting my whole life—to better relax with and understand that complicated history.
My great (+8 more greats) grandparents lived in a tiny house here. Years ago, the University of Massachusetts did an archaeological assessment of the earth under the foundation stones of that house. They found shards of European pottery mixed with Indian pottery. This discovery makes me think about possible friendships between the first and second people.
My 9th great grandmother maybe learned to walk barefoot outside, in the summer, by following the example of her Wampanoag neighbors. Did they share recipes for making food like I do with my friends around the world?
We humans tell stories. New stories come up and the old ones get buried under our feet. Just like those layers of shards dug up from the Duxbury earth.
What a lovely textured story, thank you for sharing it.
An enjoyable read as always. Age certainly leads you to the person who you were meant to be ( I think David Bowie said something similar)
He did!
Ahhhh…these are heartfelt and beautiful words from an wise soul. I am turning 62 in a couple weeks, and I feel that pull of what you write. Be. You. Without regret, and yet knowing your history. I want to build a home with a greenhouse INSIDE in the middle, and your story reminded me that the trees have always been by refuge. Of COURSE I want them in the middle of my home! That now makes perfect sense. Thank you. For writing. For sharing. For guiding us with your insight into a more luscious, intentional life.
Hi there – a friend decades ago designed his house with a garden and tree inside – in the middle!
It can be done!
I have hope!
Thank you for adding your lovely reflections. This blog is a real collaboration.
In your wisdom you connect the past with your future, but we are human beings with eyes pointing in one direction but the ability to turn in all directions and so that’s the only way we can live. Looking into the past, forgiving ourselves, as we forgive others, is sometimes and often necessary. In the present and future your “…shiny newness, the travel, the clothes…” were in that forward direction. None of us wants to be left behind, something your grandmother demonstrated to you as a young girl. In living our lives we cannot please everyone, and sometimes not even ourselves. Your current writings are exciting as you try to bring your past lives into your present life and create meaning in it, and it’s only THIS moment where and when we are living and hoping. Thank you for diving deep in your writing for all of us.
Thank you for this lovely reflection and thanks for taking the time to comment and add your wisdom to the mix.
I am so glad a read this today. It is painfully beautiful. Thank you.
The tricks we play and losses we create. Age wisdom is to trust myself more my higher self, which is more difficult than I realized, and the stories we keep and tell can stand in the way of what we really want.
So very true.
Thank you for sharing your journey. It means so much for all of us to read your insightful essays. You so eloquently put into words
what we all feel and experience as we face and embrace these next years of our lives.
Thank you, I feel the community that is growing here and the sharing we all do is an incredible gift.
Lyn, I just read this post while having a late breakfast. I’ve been struggling with who am I and what’s next at 57. While reading your blog it was as if I had been hit with a bolt of lightning straight into the depths of my being, I am a healer and I come from a line of female healers who each had their unique way of healing others. Your writing was an instrument of revelation for me today and I thank you. Keep writing, you never know who you are helping. Grateful for you, Janie
Thank you for sharing. As a social worker and a professor I was a professional healer in the Western medicine sense but soon found myself drawn to the arts as a means of helping people express the traumas they held in their body. There are so many ways to be a healer from herbal medicine to coaching and countless other ways. I wish you good luck in your journey of discovery it will be a wonderful one as I have had much healing through the work of healing others.
As I approach 50, I find myself pursuing something which has interested me since I was a teenager, but it always seemed a combination of the difficult to learn and highly impractical for well-educated and career-minded me. But the pandemic, along with the uncertainty and questions it brought with it, sent me diving into it deeply. (This thing called the internet has helped a lot too!) My new-found old love is astrology, and it will be a lifelong pursuit with infinite learning potential, and I see it bearing the potential to heal as well.
I love the way you write about the sublime cycles you have been uncovering in your own life history, and I would love the opportunity to explore your chart sometime as a learning opportunity for me, and hopefully yourself as well.
All of the flowers,
Heather
I would love that Heather.
Yay, I am so excited to hear that! I know my email is part of the form submission here, so if you can see it, feel free to email me whenever is good for you. And, if you need my contact information in any other form, I’ll find that out from here sooner or later as well. (As in, I’ll check back just in case.)
Perhaps it’s a reflection of the times we grew up in (I’m 65, just a bit younger than you) that we put aside the things we loved in order to please or make someone else happy.
For me it was writing, which I wanted to do since I was 10 and decided that I should write a book about a girl who travels to different cities around the world. This from a little girl whose world was defined by the 7 blocks that made up her inner city neighbourhood! But, being the eldest of five and being thrust into caretaker mode at 9 when my brother was born and then again at 13 when my youngest sister came along, I was kept too busy to do more than focus on my beloved school work and to take over the mothering role that my own mother, exhausted by the demands of my father and her children, didn’t have the energy for.
I have mourned being thrust into quasi-adulthood at such a young age and being the caring big sister, then wife and mother and even employee and colleague. Until this year when I turned 65 and I decided I AM DONE. All the things that I thought were selfish to focus on, like reading, writing, learning about art history, learning about our family history or just sitting quietly on the patio with a morning cup of coffee or an evening glass of wine to watch the birds and chipmunks in the garden are exactly what I’m going to do. No more mourning or regrets. Just taking this time of life as mine to do all the things I’ve put off for 50+ years!
As the eldest of 6, I so relate to your story. School was my beloved refuge away from caregiving too, probably why I eventurally became a professor and have so many degrees, I never wanted to leave it.
Such al lovely, inspiring essay. The thoughts on history and writing, the stories on rebellious women, I enjoyed them very much.
Thanks for letting me know.
Lots to think about here, and memories invoked. After a hard night of partying in the younger time, sitting on a river bank at dawn in my college town, I was approached by a stray cat–a purr machine that soothed every jagged edge. I loved the feel of her in my lap, but eventually pushed her away; I remember thinking at the time–oh! so clearly!–that it would be easier to leave her first rather than to be left. We’re not born this way…we’re influenced, or maybe made. I’m 68 now and my novel, unfinished, is almost 15. I expect to finish it. Not sure when. For now I garden and I knit, and I show my kids and grandkids at every opportunity how and why not to throw away the cat. Age has allowed me to look backward and forward at the same time and to share that, but the loss of the love still obviously hovers. So I profited from reading this. Onward!
I love that…don’t throw away the cat! Thanks so much for sharing your wise reflections.
What an insightful and inspiring read – sharing your experience with your grandparents at their home and all the joy it offered you to the loss of it and the shaping of those reactions through your career choices. Now arriving back to the recreation of those joys and the fulfillment of your writing
As the love of orange takes you back to the orange tiger lilies in that garden so does the love of bluebells take me back to the first time I saw “bluebell woods” in England. Living within city limits I had never seen anything as beautiful. It was on a school nature trip at the age of 11 and this experience took my breath away and the feeling of absolute joy has stayed with me.
Through life’s hard times this image has softened the hurt and pain. The realisation to have experienced complete joy gives me a knowing that it is there for us if we allow our senses to see ,feel, hear, touch and taste naturally.
I have reawakened my ability to draw and paint, which was pushed aside as I never felt “good enough” but now its how I “feel” not what others think, is what is important. Learning a beautiful poem by Emily Bronte “No Coward Soul is Mine” is something I can now draw on.
Thankyou Lyn for your absolute honesty in your writing. You are a breath of fresh air as is seen by all the comments you receive from other older women
Thank you for sharing your story. That is what makes this blog special, it’s a collaboration.
What a fascinating read……..
Thank you for revealing your extraordinary life & how your Grandparents had such an impact on you……Beautiful!!!!
Thank you.
Love this unravelling of the structure of your life to reveal the wisdom of being your own woman. In different ways this is what I am learning – that however I perceive things to be is just my perception. It is only real if I make it so and what serves me so much better is to ask what would I love. Really love.
I love, love this.
Hi Lyn,
In reading your recent posts I thought you might be interested in reading a book I checked out of the library years ago: And I Shall Have Some Peace There: Trading in the Fast Lane for My Own Dirt Road. Margaret Roach published this book after moving from New York City to the country to live in her Upstate house full-time and tend to her garden. Her second book I did not read is The Backyard Parables: Lessons on Gardening and Life. What struck me about the Peace memoir was how Roach’s clothes that she dressed in changed when she started living in the country year-round. It might be great for you to touch on the cycles of fashion in your life and how how you dressed changed as your life changed. It has always intrigued me about my own style evolution from when I was in my twenties to where I am at 56 today. Your blog is always a source of joy and motivation for me. I’m excited to read your book How to Be Old and more blog entries on the topic. Thank you.
I love that suggestion about cycles of fashion, it’s a great topic to write about and for discussion.
I found your TeDtalk accidentally I loved your style immediately. You couldn’t inspire me more.
Thank you
Welcome!
While reading this post, I felt like we’re in the garden on a vintage glider. Telling our stories to one another. I adore your writing and always find it inspiring. Gracias
thanks so much