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Staying at home makes the porch times more important than ever as a change of scene. It is always beautiful looking to the trees, the field, the sky or the hummingbird feeder. The mind feeds on natural beauty, requires it even.

Today is a day of contemplation for me. For no special reason. it has just turned out that way. Today I am seeking ways to explore spiritual experiences and tune in to losses and joys, people known and loved who are gone, experiences that exist now in imperfect memory, and places visited or that I wished to have visited.

All is well with me and my family. The world outside the Full Circle Farms cocoon cycles on in madness. It may be compared to living in the eye of a storm. We can see the swirling winds around us, but here it is “normal”, we go ahead with chores, walks, animal care, and gardening. We talk about what is around us, but it is really as observers more than as participants. At least that is how it seems to me.

Maybe it is age that gives me this equanimity. At dinner last night the subject of what it was like to be fifteen came up as the elders related their experiences to the fifteen-year-old in the room. We acknowledged the experience of strong passions and the sadness that expressed itself in listening to sad music or writing sad poetry or long diary entries. It seems to me that the wallowing in sad feelings that characterized my own teen years left a long time ago, and good riddance.

Although I have shed tears today, I am not so much sad as wistful recalling events, people, places and the person I was at those times and in those places. But now, I am here, in this time, in this place and glad to have the life that I have. I appreciate all the moments. I appreciate new experiences and being able to act a bit crazy at times because there is no one to judge me. I feel a spark coming to my eye as I write that, so I know it is what fuels me today. Savoring every moment of the day is my new mantra. This is how I get to be awesome every day.

Thanksgiving is one of the national holidays when there are norms about what is expected. These may differ in regions of the country and somewhat among families, but still the expectations of food and family gatherings are held in common. However, I cannot recall ever really welcoming this holiday for myself.

I have various stories about why this might be the case. What I observe, as I have become more self-reflective with age is that I want this holiday to be celebrated differently. Over the years, I have kept trying to come up with alternatives to the feasting and large family gatherings. “What is the most important thing about Thanksgiving? Let’s just do or have that.” “What about inviting strangers for Thanksgiving this year?” This year, I am avoiding both by declaring this a day for private and solitary contemplation.

I am experiencing grief as this anniversary of the birthdays of three people I loved who have died. I am letting myself feel that sadness. I also have a story of Thanksgiving as a sad day in my childhood with only my nuclear family present as we lived a thousand miles from extended family. The best of the recollected celebrations were the ones when my parents invited others to join us, student couples for example. But that didn’t happen every year. With just the 5 of us, it didn’t seem very festive. We didn’t decorate or dress up so it was just another meal on a day when friends would not be available to play.

As an obese woman, a holiday that supports gluttony is also not so positive. It makes me even more self-conscious if I enjoy foods I might often deny myself. So over the years I have tried to cut back on the offerings, make them less fat, sugar and carb filled, and yet satisfy the favorite flavors. And what a lot of work it is, on a prescribed day when I might not be in the mood for cooking.

So this year, I am staying home. Eating exactly what I would like to eat and when I want to eat it. I’m not filling the house with leftovers, although I do agree with many that the leftovers are more enjoyable than the hot meal on the table. Maybe because they come together into a small meal or sandwich with so much less work. I might even enjoy making the traditional meal sometime, but just not at the time the calendar tells me I must.

I am thinking about stories, the one we tell and retell about our lives. The stories that seem to justify feeling a certain way, or acting in the ways we do. I remind myself that they are just stories. I shared my thoughts about one of these with my brother as we talked after the wedding of his son recently. The family story has always been that this brother was a miserable baby who cried all the time. But I told him that as I have put together events in the family it seems much more likely that he was born as our mother was still in the midst of grief over the loss of her mother less than a year before. In fact, she told us that her mother had just died in the weeks before he was born and she moved away from the family home to New York City. In fact her mother had died 11 months prior, but she brought her son home from the hospital to the house where she grew up and her mother was not there to nurse her. Three weeks later, the family moved to a tiny apartment in NYC and she was alone most of the time with a newborn and me, 4 years old. Years later, she confided that she had been so depressed she contemplated jumping out of window in our high rise building. She said she didn’t because of the two children dependent on us. This was a combination of high stress situations that likely led to my brother reacting to the stress rather than causing it. A small change, but a meaningful one.

What other stories do I carry that are also open to reinterpretation? Probably all of them. The grad. student who taught the seminar in German Lit. when I was at the University in Freiburg may have just been an unfeeling clod when he told me about my term paper: “Your German is very good. It is a shame you had no ideas.” Those words haunted me for years. “I am someone who has no ideas”. The subject of the paper was a story by Adelbert Stifter, a 19th century Austrian writer. I wish I still had that paper and could read it now. Of course I might agree with the assessment, but it would not be likely to sting the way it did then. ( I just looked up this writer and learned some things about him i wish I had known at the time. I realize I did not have any of the historical background when i was reading him.)

So today, I am contemplating the power of stories in my life and for others. We can rewrite the stories to reflect what we now know or what we can imagine. They needn’t be carved in stone in the family history.

Having spent time in a retirement community with my parents, the content of obituaries occasionally came up for discussion. The idea of writing one’s own obituary came up more than once. I suggested to my father that he try writing his own. Once done, he was not happy with it and after reading some that he liked, he revised it in a different style. A list of accomplishments was not what he had in mind, even though those were numerous. So we talked about what to say that would convey how he would like to be remembered.

This week, I tried my hand at writing an obituary for myself with the same goal in mind. This was a way to focus on what was and is still important to me as I continue to live my life. I included the facts of birth and family, but the majority of space was devoted to gratitude for the people and experiences that have made my life rich and interesting.  As I included specific events, I learned how much these things meant to me.

For example, I mentioned completing a session at Hurricane Island Outward Bound School in 1980. Lots of people do that every year. But for me it was something I was not sure I would be physically capable of doing. I trained for a year to be able to cover a mile in 12 min. and never quite made it. I knew what kind of physical challenges would be ahead and I wanted to test myself in a way that I had never done before. I knew less about the psychological challenges, and these were, of course, greater than I could have imagined. It was only 11 days of my life, but it gave me lessons to work on for the rest of my life.  Having jumped into the cold Maine ocean in May every morning of the course, I did not have to think twice about jumping into Alaskan waters while on a retirement cruise in 2013. I knew it would be cold, and I knew I could do it, so I did. Humpback Whale Club meet your new member!

Trying new things, taking a risk, not being fearful to engage with life are the characteristics for which I wish to be remembered. I will likely rewrite my obituary again and again to keep on reminding myself what is important. I’ll keep the most current version saved on my desktop, just in case.

 

 

Whatever you believe about Karma, Fate, God or the power of thoughts to attract, I experienced the power of such forces recently.  I couldn’t write about it at the time because I broke my writing arm. This is what happened.

I was talking to my granddaughter, and, as usual, citing a story from my youth. I’m convinced that such cautionary tales are a gift from grandparent to grandchild, although they might elicit rolling eyes behind my back. I told her about noticing other children my age, about 12, experiencing broken arms and the need for casts. And I told her that I longed to have a cast, too. Well that winter, I fell ice skating and hurt my arm. However, it was deemed a “green-stick fracture” and therefore only deserved a splint and Ace bandage for a few weeks.  I was disappointed.  No white plaster for friends to write on, and no great notice taken at school. That was the end of the story.

The very next day, back in the present time now, I returned home from exercise class to find 50 sheep and the donkey happily eating the grass in my front yard.  I texted a neighbor to help and went to find the break in the fence. There I found a 100 lb lamb completely tangled up in a portion of the portable fence netting, lying helpless on the ground. The day was hot. I was hot and tired. I tried for 20-30 minutes to untangle the lamb and pull her out of the fence, but it was tightly wound around her body and legs. She was docile and cooperative, but I was having no luck getting her out.

I gave up the effort and went and got sharp scissors to cut the fence off of her. As I approached her again, in the field, my foot caught in the downed fence loops and I fell. I thought about not landing on the scissors and dropped them. I caught myself with my right hand and broke my fall and also my arm. So there I was lying next to the lamb. I said a few words and then decided that I nevertheless needed to get her cut out. Despite some hand pain, I cut a number to loops of fencing off of her and she got up and joined the flock.

About that time help arrived and we worked together, me with one hand, to restore the fence and herd the sheep back in. Since the fenced area was all in the sun by this time, the sheep refused to return to it, instead seeking the shade of the woods nearby. After an hour of futile efforts, we gave up and left them, to take me to the local Emergency Department. Yes, radius was broken, but not in need of any special intervention. Splint and sling provided plus referral to Orthopedic Dr. for casting.

Two days later I chose a Carolina blue cast and later had my grandchildren decorate it with vines and flowers. I guess I can check that wish off my bucket list now, finally.

I am thinking about the change in relationship with my children as they, and I age. Living at a distance from them makes the changes not so crucial. But as I live next door to one daughter and her family, I notice the changing relationship that has happened more acutely.

Of course, I will always be their mother. But at various times in the past the who-cares-for-whom relationship has varied.  I remember noticing this the first time when I traveled to Europe with Heidi when she was 13 and I was 50 something. As we walked down from a Swiss mountain pasture on a narrow and muddy path, she was putting out her hand to help keep me from falling.  I was surprised and honored to find she was concerned about my safety. Later I joked that she was worried about being stranded in a foreign country with her mother in the hospital or worse. But, it was real concern.

I continued to feel needed by both daughters well into their adulthood, as I was a fount of useful information and knowledge. I credit the liberal arts education that I received for knowing a whole lot about many things. As long as I was working, I was confident in my ability to be independent of others although able to seek help when needed.

Since retirement, however, I feel that many things have changed. I no longer have as much disposable income to help out financially. I was unsure about my role at first, especially as Heather became a parent.  Of course being a grandmother is great. I planned that role when I was a teen and had no living grandparents. A grandmother keeps her cookie jar full I decided way back then. But when it came to be for real, giving them cookies all the time was frowned upon. And it was prudent for me not to have cookies around all the time either. So the cookie jar holds a variety of teabags.

The relationship with grandchildren worked itself out pretty well. I can be whimsical and silly, teach baking and sewing skills, examine bugs and fly kites with them any time. I hope they never know what to expect when they are with me, so that I remain interesting to them.

With my daughters I am beginning to see more concern for my safety. I consider whether to drive a distance on a bad weather day, something I would not have considered before. I think about how they would react if I were to climb a ladder to paint the top of the porch. Of course I want to be safe too and so I am mostly prudent. But sometimes I want to wear purple and act a bit crazy too. I love them. I love that we have a good relationship. I love the fact that my brothers care about me and stay in touch. But sometimes, I don’t want to think of myself as the oldest in the family and therefore the most vulnerable.

That feeling of vulnerability may be the worst part of getting old. So it is important that I maintain my own lifestyle, friends and activities. I don’t want my daughters to think they have to include me in all of their plans. I continue to have things to do and places to be that have no connection to them. And I do not hesitate to call for a battery jump if I have left the keys in the car overnight and drained the battery. Living close is good. Living in my own house is important, too. Taking care of myself is my gift to them.

The first week of September is upon me this year without the usual prior recognition that this is a week of death remembrances. I forgot to enumerate the dates and years since the passing of my mother, father and ex-husband, of my grandmother and grandfather and a favorite dog.

All these deaths took place in September, the first three in the first week in 2009, 2011 and 2012. So the most recent, my father, died five years ago. I think of him every day, but didn’t put special emphasis on the day he died until I read my daughter’s remembrance of that day on her Facebook post yesterday. I am grateful to her for remembering and remarking.

It is human not to like change. Loss of someone important, someone who has been present our entire life to that point is a huge change. An end of a relationship which may have been good or bad or complicated. But it is also a beginning of life beyond that relationship. The shadow remains of what was for a while and for me at least, has gradually receded, much like the recent solar eclipse. So thoughts of those who have moved from this life to something else remain, even bringing tears at times while thinking of them, but healing of the hole in the heart has occurred and I can open my heart and stream light and love out into the world again. that is a good feeling.

September has always been a beginning of sorts for me as well. Growing up in academic settings and many years spent in school myself meant that the school year was the biggest organizer of my life. Moving happened in the summer months in order to be in place at the start of school. And there were so many moves! Come April each year I still begin to get itchy feet wondering where the next move will take me. Compiling a page-a-year autobiography of sorts, I decorated each page with a pencil sketch of the floor plan of the place I lived, as I remembered it. From the house in Elizabeth City where I was born, through the Victory Village apartment in Chapel Hill in 1946, to the New York City two room apartments, and so on, I visualized each one in detail. I guess my mind sees shapes, outlines and spatial connections most easily, so these are strong memories. Now, from the porch, I recognize patterns in my environment: spider webs, tree shapes, the lines in the yard made by the lawn mower. Making sense of the world by seeing the patterns, the repeats, the recognizable shapes is just one way of making sense of it. This is a most human task, trying to make sense of life, of death, of endings and of beginnings.

From 2006 through 2015 the Full Circle Farms intentional community where I live was pretty quiet. With three households living on the 100 acres, we saw each other pretty regularly, but not necessarily daily. As more women have decided to buy, build and live here, we have more neighbors and a lot more fun.

I say intentional community because that was the original idea and continues to be our intention. But we have not gone the route of so much community that we have weekly meetings or a communal kitchen.  Each household owns 5-10 acres and may do their own gardening. We share tools and tractor and help each other with tasks that are too big for one person. We care for each others pets when someone is out of town and call when we go shopping to see if there is an urgent need from another.

Over the past 18 months we have grown to 7 households and added one house plus many animals and taken on the pasturing of a flock of sheep belonging to a neighbor down the road. Activity and noise have increased. Pigs and chickens add to the general clamor and gratefully receive many leftover foods. Rabbits nibble the grass from their “tractor”. Bees have swarmed several times from their hives eliciting a general text call for help.

The sheep numbers have swelled with the birth of about 30 new lambs in May. They travel behind movable fences to graze all the pasture land we see from our windows.  Sometimes, they escape the fence and may turn up by the steps to my porch with Zoe, the donkey and protector of the sheep, braying gleefully to me as I open the front door. Fortunately, the grass is greener usually keeps them close by so finding them is seldom a chore. The herd instinct and maternal/lamb attachment make it easy to direct them back into a secure area with the sound of feed in a bucket for incentive.

We join in various permutations for informal meals with our various food preferences finding acceptance by all.  We share garden largess and communal blueberry bushes. We look out for the entire pack of dogs as they do their doggy things, bringing home bits of deer carcass or long dead squirrels. Currently, all 5 dogs get along and 7 cats stay close to their respective homes.

What makes this fun is that we use our varied personalities to advantage, as we provide tangible and indirect service to each other. We all get along without much drama. My daughter and her wife have the only children living here. Some work in outside occupations, some work here at home and several of us, are retired.  Living as I do in the center of the property, I can monitor the comings and goings of most of the neighbors, as well as the dog that escapes over the fence for a trip to the pond. We challenge each other to get up early and run or to go to the gym. We remind each other to follow through on plans voiced. And they respect my daily nap-time.  Having a variety of ages and abilities living in such close proximity makes the idea of aging in place possible.

I know we have something very special here and I think we all appreciate the love and respect we share for each other. While the world worries us with it’s various horrors, we strive to preserve something worthwhile for those within our reach.

 

Taking a blanket to sit on the porch in the morning does not speak August in North Carolina to me.  But that is the case today. Bleating sheep and a calling rooster punctuated the night as I slept, and frequently woke, with my windows open for the first time in several months.

This morning one hummingbird hovered a few feet from my face and let me know the feeders were running dry.  So filling those and feeding the cats became necessary before I could sit and survey the view. What a privilege of age and retirement, to be able to contemplate the world I see and wonder about things I might not have thought about before.

And instead of just wondering, I can instantly look up the questions that come to mind. Having access to answers nearly instantly keeps my curiosity active. I wondered why people laugh during conversations when nothing funny is being said. I found articles about the social value of inserting laughter into conversations. And it isn’t only nervous laughter, but more a type of punctuation inserted into a sentence. I don’t do it myself, so I wondered why others do. I decided that I can live with it if it serves some function and is not really intended to be self-deprecating.

Why do people see the negative more quickly than anything positive? I looked it up. Social scientists have studied that too. It seems to have evolved with some survival value for picking up on negative facial expressions or “vibes” to warn of danger. But, by becoming aware of the tendency, we can teach ourselves to refocus on something positive. I noticed this tendency as a long-time choir member, sitting facing the congregation. If I wasn’t fully engaged by the preaching, I might peruse the people I saw and notice peculiarities of noses or head shapes or ears. One day it would be one thing and another it might be some other feature. In the summer, I notice differences in toe shapes and sizes because they are on display. And egocentric as I am, as we all are, if these features differ from my own, then I judge them to be strange or abnormal.

Before I researched such thoughts, I was prepared to judge myself for having them. Now, I accept that they are nothing more than mainstream, usual, average. What a disappointment to find myself so in the norm! Mostly I would prefer to be special in some way, even if that way is aberrant. But then I find out even that is normal. Everyone wants to stand out, to be noticed, to be singular in some fashion. Probably even shrinking violets want to become invisible and not noticed in a special way.

When I talked with my father in the months before his death of the belief that after death we become part of the universal energy, part of all matter and in that way live on, he said that he didn’t like that idea, because he wanted to maintain his individuality, his uniqueness.

Children seek attention openly, often loudly and actively. Adults may do so more subtly. But most want to be seen and acknowledged. I have been learning not to begrudge them this and to go ahead and give the acknowledgement. For years in the past, I resisted that, told myself that it was weakness and neediness that I disliked. And all that time, I was only trying to deny my own desire to be seen, to be noticed, to be special. At one time in my life, denying that need and trying to not want attention served to protect me when the attention was not available to me.

So today I rejoice in being normal, having weird toes, wanting attention and also being special and unique.