beauty | Playing for Time

Pre-holiday procrastination…

22 Dec 2023 2 Comments

***

It’s a rain-ish day here after a steady overnight soaking, good for window-gazing, watching car and foot traffic, waiting for inspiration to overcome ennui. With a couple of things in progress in the lower right corner of my monitor, excellent coffee at hand, and nothing dragging on the guilt chain, this is feeling like a sweet little ordinary Friday. It helps that we’re Christmas heathens, indeed name a holiday and we’ll most likely have a ho-hum take on it. We’re careless like that, except that any excuse to make and eat amazing food suffices, secular or otherwise. Also, of course, any opportunity to be with loved ones. Both will happen on Monday, blessed be.

Because you’re so good about dropping in here, I’ll share a tiny Christmas gift with you. My inspiration comes from a multi-talented friend who knows many things, not least among them how to create the ultimate bowl of ice cream, highly addicting, of course. That isn’t the gift, though, because the recipe isn’t mine to share and the True Christmas Spirit has yet to visit me in the middle of the night, delivering guilt enough to last well into 2024. So… anyway, try not to think of this as a consolation prize, but Kim showed me a coffee trick this morning that will no doubt prove as habit-forming as the ice cream. It’s… Ta-DA!! … several heaping teaspoons of … wait for it… Chocolate Malt Ovaltine in a mug!! Fill with steaming coffee and enjoy the simplest possible nice addition to your day. Not too sweet, just enough to feel the love, which is what I wanted to say in the first place because I love the gift of your presence here. Merry Christmas, Happy Year to you, sincerely.

If you find yourself in a quandary this morning, wondering what you could possibly get for that one person on your list, a cool thing to give is something from the heart…

A simple wish: That 2024 will somehow be kinder, more benevolent, than the preceding decade has been. That we’ll be increasingly conscious of what it means to be human living on a rock hurtling through the universe with not one ounce of actual power to our name. Seems like it wouldn’t hurt to give kindness and benevolence a real shot, maybe for just a year, maybe the one directly ahead of us. Who’s in?

Image by Judy Smith

Full circle… (too late for Friday’s press)

09 Dec 2023 Leave a comment

***

Last time we chatted, which was a long and wide-ranging week ago, it was raining. This morning, fog slipped in on little toe-beans while Kim measured Mass Street stride by stride, top to bottom and back again. The mist multiplied, filled in the cracks and crevices, and kept us cozy for hours before clearing slightly… which was not long before the rain set in, and it couldn’t be more delicious. After a lot of window-gazing, I was inspired to come in here and write something and now I’m proud to tell you that the bedding I washed two days ago is nicely folded, my desk is mostly visible, and I’ve made two phone calls. Hi. Ran out of evasion tactics, and you’re my faithful crowd for the early warmup. Love ya’ mean it, boys and girls.

So yeah, just wanted to say hello, but before obeying the muse, here’s a thought that made my day better. It’s a freebie…

And simply as a leveler…

Image by Judy Smith

Post-feast check-in…

25 Nov 2023 Leave a comment

***

How was your Thanksgiving, or is it still ongoing? Was there pumpkin pie for breakfast this morning? It was a sweet time here, just Kim, me, and Rita, all the good food you could want, and a deep spirit of gratefulness.

Since slipping into the rarified air of a new age level this year, with 80 only four years down the road, I’ve been more acutely aware of some of the changes that accompany the process. One is that holidays, more than ever, show up as opportunities for reflection, whether we like it or not. From the Kids’ Table, to supreme kitchen duties, to the chair where the eldest in the family sits, everything… absolutely everything… changes. By this point everything that matters has made itself known, choices are clear and obvious, and life just IS.

My 76th year has been supremely challenging in ways I couldn’t have foreseen, causing me to rethink this “getting older” idea. The sudden realization that after you finally get all the stuff stowed and redistributed from your last move ten years ago, along with other pending projects, there’s really not that much to do… has been a shock to my system. It left me berating myself for not having planned better for my “Golden Years,” because NOW WHAT? Little challenges handled, life okay for my loved ones, who am I NOW?

Thursday’s laid-back comfort and coziness brought a much-needed revelation sinking into my conscious mind: I did indeed plan wisely by cultivating the things I really love… reading, writing, solitude, my people. Those are the things that will never leave me, nor will I lose my need of them. The closest I ever came to being an athlete was six years as a cheerleader, but I do like to walk, and now I can, thanks to my beloved young neurologist. I live with a beautiful soul who loves me, feeds me, and tries to understand me. So it appears that life is good, I just need to ditch the guilt over no longer being very productive, and enjoy it. Steep hill for an anxiety-ridden eldest child with impossible personal standards, but here we go ’cause I’m not done yet.

My friend Barlow is a beast at dealing with what life throws at him. And he’s right.

As we open the door to the Christmas season and its various meanings around the world…

Image by Judy Smith

Nature… purest portal to peace.

24 Oct 2023 1 Comment

***

Three days ago our little corner of the world was on fire in varying shades of red, orange, yellow, gold, and green. By yesterday evening, most of the vibrant hues had morphed to dull and drab, and now this morning’s wind and rain are sending drifts of leaves to the streets, yards, and sidewalks. Soon the naked trees will reveal that the houses directly across the street are still in existence after spending several months hidden within the forest.

It’s a fall day in all its glory… the weather, the ever-changing flora, and the aromas from the kitchen, where Kim’s cookin’ up a batch of chili. This needs to be filmed as background for any feel-good movie you wanna make… all the beauty and none of the angst, isn’t that what we’re after? I felt sad the other day, knowing that all the blazing colors I was seeing from my balcony would be gone in a heartbeat and winter will follow, but sadness doesn’t quite fit the natural tumble of seasons, the roll of the tides. Those things simply ARE and are necessary to our existence, so it’s my outlook that has to change, and as it turns out change is what it’s ALL about. Everything. We don’t come here knowing how to live, and we aren’t allowed an excess of rodeos for finding out, so it’s a scramble to pull it all together within the allotted time frame. The role played by change can’t be overestimated. There ya’ go… musings from someone who’s observed a lot of autumns… just a freebie.

Unsolicited advice from here: Roll With It. Whatever comes in, put your head down and go. There’s so little in life we can influence in any measurable way, it seems wise to choose our real battles carefully. Fall taught me that. Those unbelievably-brilliant leaves were there for the seeing all weekend, but when they fade, that’s it… ’til next time.

There are two things I hope for you:

That your autumn won’t be overly-blessed with melancholy, and
that your heart will remember spring.

Image by Judy Smith

The power of memory…

09 Oct 2023 2 Comments

***

Random thoughts while absorbing the morning…

Fall and winter are big-deal sports seasons, mostly, I surmise, to save us from ourselves during The Time of Cold and Dark. My first go-to is always reading, but healthy competition runs a close second… entirely as a voyeur unless I’m playing Scrabble with Kim, or WordsWithFriends with my sisters. My justice-based mindset likes the fact that there are actual rules in sports, agreed upon by all parties and swiftly enforced when violated, with due penalties attached. Life out there in the rough isn’t like that, which troubles the anxious mind. Teamwork is a cool concept, and I play favorites, don’t you? My teams tend to be the good guys, rather than the bad boys of the sport. Competition shouldn’t equate to meanness. But I think that beyond the personalities and skills involved, the key aspect is the time frame. A contest is initiated, fought, won, and declared. Over. Next game, move on! In real life, nothing is ever really over. Highly frustrating to a neurotic, let me just say.

Which somehow brings to mind a social media trend that’s become increasingly obvious this year… memories, clips, photo montages, and tributes to my generation’s musicians. It goes without saying why this is happening, but we may as well acknowledge that they’re leaving us and the progression will continue. I’m loving the retrospectives on The Beatles, The Stones, Freddie Mercury, and the others who helped shape my youth, even knowing why I’m seeing them again on a daily basis. It’s both stunning and deeply comforting to understand that inside this 76-year-old shell beats the heart of the girl who first heard those voices, harmonies, impossible notes, unforgettable beats, and identifies with every part of it. Those memories don’t leave us, because they stay current. They grow with us. In some ways they define us. And so, when the last of the Fab Four have taken their leave, and Mick and the boys are no longer rocking (as far as we know), none of it will change for us. It’s all interwoven, part of our DNA. Thanks to technology, I’ll be over here with Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Leon Russell, David Crosby, Tina Turner, and a long list of other friends, grateful to still have access. I remember the girl-slash-young mom who “grew up” with most of them, and it’s painful to lose their presence in the world.

It’s all simply part of feeling anything at all. The tragedy would be if we couldn’t feel what matters, so it isn’t really a choice, it’s just life. I choose that.

Image by Judy Smith

Coming back to life…

24 Sep 2023 2 Comments

***

It’s Sunday, just halfway through the weekend, and I’d planned to postpone this process until Monday, but my brain is already starting to coax my spirit down out of the pristine hills and back into the ebb and flow of daily living. It simply happens… we stay immersed in the magic for as long as possible but the basic facts intrude in unavoidable ways, and those thoughts we were thinking, those feelings we felt, that peace all-encompassing, start to fade and slip into the ether long before we’re done with them.

I had all sorts of thoughts going last week, following various twists, turns, and alleyways, and it seemed like I might actually be getting somewhere. It’s likely I was, so I’ll be standing by, as quietly as I can, for those same ideas to intrude again.

TURN UP SOUND

Thank you, Jim Creek, for a sweet piece of the Black Hills to bring home with us.

Now it’s time to finish unpacking.

DISCLAIMER: Kim did all of his immediately upon arrival home, so he wins again. He’s a Navy man, besides which our friend Seth surmises he was potty-trained at gunpoint, so he can’t help it. I do better with a couple of days’ decompression before getting all hasty about things like laundry and “what bag did that end up in?” Besides, I did my part while Kim was being a good citizen… I WENT THROUGH THE MAIL. That was always the biggest pain, and let me tell you… we were gone for a week and had exactly five pieces of “mail” awaiting our return. This is what it’s finally come to, the flip side being that it’s all lurking in Gmail, of course, which I’m proud to say I’ve gone a considerable way toward unpacking because I, too, can be a quality citizen.

I have only positive things to say about the concept of getting away from it all, even if it’s simply by closing your door and putting everything on mute for an hour. (Or ten minutes, as life allows.) Progress happens when we get quiet enough to hear ourselves tick.

Welcome, autumn, friend of my heart. Your melancholy echoes my goofy perpetual angst and somehow helps tame the inherent loneliness as winter sets in. I’m hoping for a nice snowy one. Is that an oxymoron?

Image by Judy Smith

What does it all mean?

22 Sep 2023 4 Comments

***

Best definition of the word VACATION: “A period during which activity is stopped for a time.” So we did it right and it was the truest vacation I’ve taken since I was a kid, when family trips mostly meant camping (with parental units doing all the work) and sunbathing. This time, in response to an invitation, we loaded up our little red wagon, bizzling through parts of four states in search of ultimate relaxation, and our destination did not disappoint. Blazing across the great state of South Dakota at a legal 80mph+ was exhilarating and the interstate is straight as a pin except for one remarkable curve somewhere close to Rapid City, so Kim was happily in aircraft-pilot mode through every mile.

We arrived at the cabin in the meadow on Sunday. Kim turned on the TV for Sunday Night Football and that was the only time it was lit up for the duration. See that front porch up there? We could have romped off to Mount Rushmore… or Deadwood… or Sturgis… or stunning caverns… or any number of other worthy activities on offer. What we did for several days and evenings, as was our intention, was sit on that lovely porch, with its perfectly-aged screen door and softly-creaking floor, and look with our eyes, and feel with our molecules. The air and water and atmosphere are pristine beyond imagination… and it was more than gratifying to experience a spot humans haven’t drained of its essence.

Kim walked most of the ranch’s 30-acre property line and followed several of the trails that cross the terrain. He let that sweet Taylor guitar ring out across the meadow… and even wrote a song in his free time. He also cooked all our meals in the cabin’s perfect little kitchen. I read a little… wrote a little… napped a little… and far too soon it was time to pack up and point the car east. Fortunately, home is never the wrong place to be, and we were welcomed back this morning with a sky-blackening, crashing, booming thunderstorm, accompanied by pouring rain. Our place of choice still loves us, and likewise.

Memories for a lifetime:

Dasher cat keeping an eye on things.

Manna and Midnight

Until we meet again…

So home we drove, past hundreds of miles of corn, soy beans, sunflowers, sorghum, and other crops, some ready for the harvesters, much that looks like it will do well to beat the first snow, all of it keeping us conscious of the basics: We’re a nation of highly-independent souls with a general yen to do right by each other. The extremes are out there but they comprise less of the sum total than we might think without benefit of direct exposure. On a cross-country road trip you’ll see it all, and we did. At a mega truck-stop somewhere along the way we were treated to a large white van blocking traffic and plastered from stem to stern with explicit advice for Joe Biden along with abject worship of the former guy. On the flip side, that was the only in-your-face evidence of division in over 1500 miles of travel, and I like those odds.

Our hosts for this much-needed idyll were Mark & Mary (Wipf) Zimmerman, who have been South Dakota Arts Council artists in residence for 25 years and whose art graces every part of their beautiful homestead ranch.

https://artscouncil.sd.gov/aisc/visual10.aspx

If you’d like to book a stay at the ranch:

The Cabin at Green Mountain

https://grmountain.com/

Endorsements above are unsolicited and 100% sincere. Thank you, Mark & Mary, for everything. And the Vern J. Specials were the pièce de résistance.

Image by Judy Smith

Oh thou melancholy well-meaning fall…

02 Sep 2023 2 Comments

***

On a pristine September morn like this, anything begins to seem possible. It’s a sweet 66°, the sky is blue and cloudless, and Farmers Market is in full swing down the block. Our parking lot is full of #lfk peeps of every age and description, and the sourdough donut kiosk is doin’ tha biz again. They’re excellent, but our loyalties are with the local Muncher’s cheesecake vanilla-frosted rolls. I’ve added one to my birthday wish-list.

Our predicted high temp is 98° with over 70% humidity, so the benign morning will slide us into a grand funk of sweat and steam, but that’s latah today and all week… high 90s. Not a problem, just a challenge, and on we go.

First headline to cross my feed this morning was the news that Jimmy Buffett has left us for that spot where “If there’s a heaven for me, I’m sure it has a beach attached.” He was my precise age and isn’t the first of our boomer rockers to go… I think immediately of Tom Petty, a true “baby” and real heartbreak… as the inevitable future absence of each icon fully registers. They changed an entire era, those people: Queen, The Who, The Stones, The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Carlos Santana, Simon and Garfunkel, Carly Simon, Stevie Nicks, a long illustrious list of influencers and sheer joy-bringers too massive to comprehend, including and especially every Black musician who birthed the genre. In a world where we can’t be sure it won’t all crumble to dust tomorrow, the goodbyes are hard. How do we let go of the people who defined our formative years when we don’t know what’s really left to us at this point? We just do. It’s how each generation survives and moves on. We do it as the ground grows spongy under our feet and the markers fade like old newsprint, we do it brokenhearted and afraid, reluctant, dragging our feet, knowing full well that this is OUR generation hanging it up and taking its leave. In a time when life in general has been nearly a bridge too far, the losses extract a toll. However, they also gird us for the road ahead, so buck up lil’ buckaroos and buckarettes, we’re not in this alone and there are miles to go before we sleep.

My somewhat saccharine but genuine ask for all of us…

Image by Judy Smith

Out On a Limb

15 Aug 2023 4 Comments

***

When I am very old I shall live in a tiny house

nestled in the arms of a generous tree.

I’ll sleep late some mornings, past ten even,

and wake to birdsong, filtered sunlight,

and coffee made by tree fairies.

My address will be known mostly to squirrels, birds,

and the occasional drone, with a path just witchy enough

to make a poser think twice before approaching.

The views will be so spectacular I’ll seldom be tempted

to reorient to ground level, and anyway there will be stairs.

Or maybe I’ll install a giant slide, because although I’ll be very old

I’ll never not be a kid.

My books will live with me, and there will be two kittens

who will snuggle me as my bones grow tenuous.

They’ll absorb the words I cannot speak

and absolve me of every shortcoming

because they will have no stake in any of it.

I will at last be thin again unless the birds have mercy on me with sustenance,

but it won’t be as I imagined so I shall henceforth, from today, honor my squishiness while it lasts.

Those who want to gaze upon my astounding wrinklyness,

under cover of having “coffee, or tea, or drinkies,”

will be turned away in lieu of those who know me.

The ones – you know who you are – used to my stubborn opinions mixed with naiveté,

the never-ending search for validation, explanation, justification, restitution,

the neediness that dares not name itself.

When I am very very old, I shall be wise.

I will comprehend mysteries.

I will know The Meaning of Life.

Or not. Time, as “they” say, will tell.

But won’t you be lonely? you ask.

Of course, isn’t everyone?

JSmith 08/15/2023

Image by Judy Smith

Go home, weather, you’re drunk…

18 Jul 2023 Leave a comment

***

Odd summer so far, blowing hot and cold, perpetually cloudy with storm threats, or blazing blue skies hanging in without relief. Which is to say that it’s Kansas in July when all bets are off. It can get very warm here in the summertime, but…

Or Texas, or the Sahara…

Not much shaking here. Still opening a box once in a while and doing the “keep, toss, give” routine. Down to maybe four boxes, so I’m pacing myself now, because you should always keep a little something back for when you feel a need to procrastinate. Things I’ve learned about STUFF:

We’ve already passed the middle of July, so yet another Kansas wheat harvest took place without my notice, which means this farm girl is slipping. Slipping the traces and living the life in front of her. I love how we get to live more than one life as we move from birth to death, each one a complete or unfinished package with lessons attached. The pic below was taken in the late 1990s, maybe twenty-five years ago, when a pair of Roper boots, some faded denim, and a tank top would take me through a fifteen-hour day on “my” combine, day after day until everything was in the bin. There are things about it I miss: the productive solitude, the wildlife in the fields and tree lines, the scent of fresh-turned earth, just-harvested grain, rain in the air, being at the center of something vital and needed. There are things I do NOT miss, and some of those would be fifteen-to- eighteen-hour days that started before dawn, never enough sleep, being cook, field hand, parts runner, laundress, bookkeeper, therapist, and a pile of other seed caps that fit from one hour to the next. A lot of the details would slide from conscious memory without a photo now and then…

While I was revisiting my farming days, another memory came to mind:

I backed out of the garage one morning to go to work, noticed something large to my immediate left, and found myself making eye contact with a good-sized cougar sitting on his haunches next to the driveway. We looked at each other in wide-eyed wonder for a beat or two before he casually turned and sauntered toward the cattle pens north of the house. I called the farmer on the radio, he slipped out the side door and into the car, and we cruised along the road while Mr. Mountain Lion slowly padded next to the fence line, rarely breaking eye contact, before ducking into high weeds and disappearing. He was likely a bold young turk, looking for a mate far from his Colorado stomping grounds, and was the only one of his kind spotted in my 35 years on that farm. There were herds of deer, coyotes, wild turkeys, abundant rattlesnakes, and a mama bobcat who spent two consecutive winters in our old washhouse raising her kits, but that silky cougar was a one-off and I’ll never forget him.

NOTE: With a less than 15% chance of rain in the forecast for this morning, it’s coming down in buckets, with soft hail mixed in, and the temp is 75°. Enjoy your Tuesday, whatever the weather gods have in store!

Image by Judy Smith

Mid-week checkup…

12 Jul 2023 Leave a comment

***

How’s your Wednesday going, boys and girls? I’m guessing it’s more productive than mine as I’ve been in neutral since last Friday. It happens. Our minds and bodies let us know when it’s time for a break from the world, and we do well to listen to them.

“The world.” The place where everything that goes on is outside our control; therefore, regular intermissions from the drama and shenanigans are advised. It’s hard for an “I want to know things” citizen to stick her head in the sand, but it finally becomes the only course of action in defending against despair. Look away for a bit, let the experts continue to screw it up without your help, and latch onto something, anything, that’s yours. It’s inside you, not out there with whatever credentials you’ve earned going through life. Maybe you don’t even know it’s there, but you have a core no one else can reach, which means they can’t rob you of it without your permission, so never, ever yield that sacred territory.

Even if we genuinely sleep well, it’s hard to rest in an unsettled environment, with fools on the world stage running the show… it does not lend itself to trust and confidence, and the exhausting process takes a toll as it filters down to where we really live.

Among life’s most wearing exercises is this…

Don’t we all long for those compadres who will take us as we are? Tolerate our ridiculous humanity, laugh with us instead of at us, protect us from our own naiveté rather than exploit it, and gently save us from ourselves? Don’t we all want someone to love us that much, and have our backs whether we deserve it or not? We do or we wouldn’t be human. But we also know this: It’s a bigger assignment to BE that person. First things first.

For now, on this steamy summer morning when I could step out and fry breakfast eggs on the balcony railing, I’m choosing peace. It’s always proven to be a good starting place… first do no harm.

I wish you true simplicity. The world is a hostile environment in key ways, but it’s the only home we’ll ever remember, so living with it in simplicity of heart is all I know to do. If you’ve discovered another way, please, for the love of whatsoever gods there may be, sit down and talk with me right here, right now. 💙

Image by Judy Smith

Waking… rising…

30 Jun 2023 2 Comments

***

Every day the clock resets, offering a fresh chance to get it right. We sleep the “little death” and wake to sunlight that says it’s time to live again, everything new, all for the taking. Each day brings something good/interesting/enlightening if we’re awake for it and can work through yesterday’s detritus in short order.

Speaking of change, sometime in the past hour our renters seem to have flown the coop. Both offspring were in the nest when I got up, stretching their wings and testing them in the wind under the ferns. Went out a bit ago and nobody home. So the Dove family, David and Darleen and their two sets of twins, are likely off somewhere in the East Lawrence forest, doing whatever birds do with their summers. We barely got to know this latest set of chicks, Durwood and Donna, before they ditched the down and ducked out. Derek and Diane, the first set, provided our learning curve, and the whole family sweetened springtime for us so we hope they’ll check us out again next year.

Now summer is here and July arrives tomorrow. I scheduled my next five-week haircut the other day and it puts me into August, a fact which made me catch my breath. Life is a headlong rush from cradle to grave… unless it drags endlessly, each day and its dark night seeming both terminal and a life-sentence… pick your poison, although we rarely get to choose.

So yeah, summertime in Kansas. Totally unpredictable. Tie everything down for which you have a big enough bungie cord and enjoy.

A postscript: I went out just now and there were Durwood and Donna, snug in the nest, smug about knowing how to fly, and contemplating their next foray. So that cozy little bower is still home, or at least a way station, for a bit yet and we aren’t sad about that.

Image by Judy Smith

Life aboard the Big Blue Marble…

29 Jun 2023 1 Comment

***

In a hyper-conscious moment here and there as we trek through our days, we might happen to remember that we’re on a large intricate rock hurtling through space. But it’s mostly an incomprehensible thing that we take for granted nearly every second of our lives, so I love what astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, planetary science guy Carl Sagan said…

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” -Carl Sagan

One of the last known images captured by Japan’s Hakuto-R lander before crashing into the moon shows a stunning ‘Earthrise,’ with the shadow of the moon creeping over Australia during a total solar eclipse. (Image credit: ispace)

In light of the facts…

Simply an observation agreed with.

We live in a world where unimaginable things happen, are quickly dispensed with, and are rarely spoken of again. A significant for-instance:

The daily shootings, immigrants drowning by the boatload, concerted efforts globally to stamp out any and all differences — racially, sexually, politically, philosophically, artistically, or in terms of values and relationships, ALL difference, as it presents itself. The whack-a-mole approach to control.

Thus, for all the reasons…

And we think it’s our fault somehow, which only tends to illuminate the fact that we’ve been trained to see ourselves as a super-race, immune to death and failure. What I know after the dust has settled is this:

If calm hasn’t traditionally been your first response to life, it feels magical when it comes to you.

We could all likely benefit from supporting Teri in her pursuit of self-fulfillment…

Your beverage of choice, but fight.

Image by Judy Smith

Good thing wrinkles don’t hurt…

20 Jun 2023 1 Comment

***

Good morning. Remember my childlike boasts about how much I love getting older? Of course you do. You said at the time, “Who does she think she’s kidding?” There are days when I do sort of hate it, but not as much as I despise the idea of being dead, so when I meet a compadre on the road from here to there, it means everything. I’m letting that fellow pilgrim speak for me this morning:

The other day, a young person asked me: – “What does it feel like to be old?”

I was very surprised by the question, since I did not consider myself old. When he saw my reaction, he was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question. And after reflection, I concluded that getting old is a gift.

Sometimes I am surprised at the person who lives in my mirror. But I don’t worry about those things for long. I wouldn’t trade everything I have for a few less gray hairs and a flat stomach. I don’t scold myself for not making the bed, or for eating a few extra “little things.” I am within my rights to be a little messy, to be extravagant, and to spend hours staring at my flowers.

I have seen some dear friends leave this world before they had enjoyed the freedom that comes with growing old.

Who cares if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 in the morning and then sleep until who knows what time?

I will dance with me to the rhythm of the 50’s and 60’s. And if later I want to cry for some lost love… I will!

I’ll walk down the beach in a swimsuit that stretches over my plump body and dive into the waves, letting myself go, despite the pitying looks of the bikini-wearers. They’ll get old too, if they’re lucky…

It is true that through the years my heart has ached for the loss of a loved one, for the pain of a child, or for seeing a pet die. But it is suffering that gives us strength and makes us grow. An unbroken heart is sterile and will never know the happiness of being imperfect.

I am proud to have lived long enough for my hair to turn gray and to retain the smile of my youth before the deep furrows appeared on my face.

Now, to answer the question honestly, I can say: -I like being old, because old age makes me wiser, freer!

I know I’m not going to live forever, but while I’m here I’m going to live by my own laws, those of my heart.

I’m not going to regret what wasn’t, nor worry about what will be.

In the time that remains, I will simply love life as I did until today, the rest I leave to God.

Dame Judy Dench

***

Image by Judy Smith

Summertime, and the livin’ is…

05 Jun 2023 Leave a comment

***

Summer is still officially fifteen days away, but evidence shows that it’s already in town for early rehearsals, with days in the 80s and 90s and a possible rain break in the mix. The good news for solitary me is that my calendar between now and July holds not a single appointment thus far. Visually that looks like a gift, a solid block of peace. What will I do with all that time… clean, organize, write, walk, go hug my sister, read, all of the above? Yes, and beyond that we’ll see, won’t we.

Last week was a slow one in some ways, but life is never not happening. I kicked a couple of things to the curb, thus improving my general outlook, and got through the days with a minimum of drama, always a good thing. In the course of all that, I saved a few graphics for you, beginning with the theatre aspect.

If you’re pretending to be happy, let’s talk.

I know I’ve lately bemoaned facts of life, such as truth v fiction, life v death, family v loneliness, but the following is factual as well:

Time and health are of the essence.

One’s energy can be better utilized on things that matter.

A bit of happy news saved for last: We won the lottery — the Doves opted to remain in our balcony complex, but in a nicer, larger, safer condo. Despite all odds, they’ve chosen to raise their second brood adjacent to the daily Smith goings-on, and their quiet trust couldn’t feel sweeter. Having closely observed the advent of brood #1, noting every nuance, we’re old hands as grandparents now. Dave and Dar have proven themselves to be stellar parents. They’ve got this and we simply feel privileged to have seats in the orchestra pit while the play unfolds. It all leads precisely to this thought:

Sounds simple, possibly even innate, but it takes a lifetime.

Image by Judy Smith

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Playing for Time

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