Keeping the Dream

…it’s because it’s time to step up.

Yesterday, I walked into a fast food restaurant with my youngest. A group of men looked in my direction. As you would have it, my little girl chose to sit close to their table. As I walked toward them, I noticed they were acting like school boys. I shook my head to myself, but as I turned to sit, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, there was a young woman behind me getting her order.

The men were gawking at her.

It was my turn to smile at myself. I smiled at myself to think I thought they were looking at me. I smiled to realize that that time was coming to a close for me. Oh, I’m all right, but even with my “young genes”, my increasingly graying hair is revealing more and more the truth of my age, and I can see that my face carries more and more the years that I’ve lived.

But what made me smile the most was how undisturbed I was. Somehow maturity and embracing what is of value has snuck up on me. There was a kind of wistfulness at realizing that one stage of my life is fading away, but there was, also, a very quiet but sure confidence and sense of peace. Because for once, I didn’t place my worth as a woman on the less than noble desires of strangers who for the fact they own penises, have no redeeming value for me.

And there’s power in that.

I don’t feel invisible. I know at this point in my life I still command respect with my presence and people still find value in what I have to say, and because of that I feel more seen than ever.

I have discovered in this stage of my life a greater confidence that had eluded me in my younger years. For the first time, I am growing in my sense of who I am. I will not let that go so easily.

As time goes by I will turn heads less and less. Let that time come. I will turn around thoughts previously stuck in bigotry. I will touch hearts once trapped behind fear. I will taste freedom that comes from being humbled by the very passing of time that blesses me.

That’s a pretty good trade off.

Hey, good morning…

Yesterday, I read a post by Ronni Bennett, “On Employment and Retirement Fears“. There were a number of comments, including mine, sharing where we were financially at the later stages of our lives. Most of us who commented that day did not expect to be where we are today, financially.

And I thought about not only the circumstances that led me here, but to the choices I’ve made regarding money over the years.

It’s hard for me to charge for my services. Most of my speaking and singing engagements have been free. I devote huge amounts of time doing things I get no financial compensation for. It would be fine if I were independently wealthy or was supported by someone, but the person I have to rely on that for is me.

In my last comment on Ronni’s post, I wrote:

You know, it’s bad enough when society discriminates against you. It’s worse when you do it to yourself.

Now, I know there will always be places and times I’m moved to share my music without charging a fee, because it will just be the right thing to do. BUT that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be a better business person, because THAT’S the right thing to do, as well.

Because if the volunteer doesn’t take care of herself, she may very well find that in the end, no one else will either.

So many of us older people, and especially women who find themselves divorced at this stage of their lives, find ourselves barely making ends meet. We don’t even want to think about what will happen if our health fails or some major event happens that we can’t cover. We just make it from current paycheck to current paycheck.

I find myself needing to step back and reassess my situation. I love what I do in this virtual world. I love connecting with people and offering help. I love writing articles that may inspire and receiving email. I’d love to get more interaction on this blog, but the occasional email I get from someone who says my writing and music has made a difference to them means the world to me.

But that doesn’t put food on my table or enable me to care for my child or myself in my old age.

So, how do I do this? How do I find balance between service and…well, service to me?

As a woman, I’m so geared to nurturing and being there for others. I don’t want to drop that. I just need to find a way to balance it. Last night I spent several hours, helping two people I love very much get their affairs in order so they could help one another in their living situation and be more financially stable.

As I was driving home in my car, realizing the heater had just stopped working and facing the upcoming winter now with the prospect of no heat in my car, I thought, “What about me?”

And I realize that’s a question I really need to answer.

Well, I hope this day will be a blessing to you…and that as you go about your way making the world a little better place, you will take the time to make your personal world a little cozier and secure for you.

Talk to you later.
Demian

I light this candle for the Elders, for warm hearts and healthy bodies and people to truly call family.

(To light your candle click on the icon)

No apologies, sensuality belongs to me
All the lies are fading, truth and power waiting
Here for me…

No apologies, all the roads I’ve traveled for so long
Make me realize I’m strong and proud of who I’ve
Come to be…

No apologies, time is really not the enemy
Gifts abound that only those who live the years
Can truly see…

No apologies for the love I feel inside of me
Hold the writer’s pen and play with grandchildren
I’m so happy!

….Seasons come and go
and I am growing old
Now, hear me sing…

No apologies, oh no apologies…no, no, apologies

Oh, no apologies, sensuality belongs to me
Life is full and rich and twilight promises
There’s more to see…
And more to be…
And more to know…
And more to grow…

[I will be going to work this weekend and probably won't be able to access the internet for any length of time until Monday, and since I really like this song, I'm not going to schedule any posts while I'm gone. I'm just going to let this one sit at the top for a while. For those of you who would like this song, I'm offering it as a free download at www.soundclick.com/dreamsinger for a limited period of time as my celebrating gift to you.]

Here’s a fabulous post that’s been making its way around various blogs and emails. The earliest publication I can find is November 22, 2005 by a poster under the anonymous name, Heatproof, with permission to share it.

Whether it originates with that author or was penned by someone else, I find it honest in its meaning and inspiring.

Old age, I decided, is a gift.

I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body … the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt.

And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my
mirror, but I don’t agonize over those things for long.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I’ve aged, I’ve become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend. I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to overeat, to be messy, to be extravagant. I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.

Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 a.m., and sleep until noon?

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60’s, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love… I will.

I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the bikini set.

They, too, will get old.

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten … and I eventually remember the important things.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken.

How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when a beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turn gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver. I can say “no”, and mean it. I can say “yes”, and mean it.

As you get older, it is easier to be positive.
You care less about what other people think.
I don’t question myself anymore.
I’ve even earned the right to be wrong.

So, to answer your question, I like being old.
It has set me free.

I like the person I have become.
I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here,
I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day.

————————-

I never knew the elders of my family tree. I consider that a great poverty into which I was born. My mother was sold at the age of two by her Chinese mother. She left China to be raised under abusive conditions by an alcoholic stepfather and a first stepmother, who tried but could not protect her from the abuse, and a second stepmother who did whatever she could to instigate it.

My father’s very white Boston area family were appalled that he would come back from his tour of Japan with an Asian wife who had a son, not his. They did not exactly welcome her or her children with open arms.

I remember my grandfather only slightly, one or two visits over 14 years, before he was kicked out into the streets by his oldest son on charges of child molestation - which I find ironic, since there’s no doubt that’s what was happening between my uncle and his stepchildren, as it happened with my sister and I when he came to visit us.

As for my paternal grandmother, I grew up hearing what a bad woman she was by my dad and how much he hated her. That eventually changed after I had already grown up and left the house. Suddenly, he found it within himself to forgive her, because after he left my mom, he now “understood” why she left his father. Except there’s no comparison between a woman leaving an abusive situation and a man leaving a situation after he abused the life out of a woman.

So as far as my roots go, they don’t run very deep in terms of history or relationship.

But I have them. That I don’t know their names, that I will never be able to sit at their feet and ask them questions about how they lived, and what their dreams were, I cherish knowing that they were there. I don’t stand here alone. As messed up as my family tree may be, there’s also a strong current of perseverance and fortitude flowing through those branches.

I come from a line of survivors. Some who fell and became lost to themselves, a couple or maybe more, who would do humanity a favor if they were locked up behind bars forever, but enough who despite all their pain, all their suffering, all the twisted and hurtful dynamics that wove their way through their lives, also found a way to love, no matter how imperfectly, and at least with my mom, gave this child the gift of the memory of her laughter when she was in that good space.

That’s just as much my heritage as anything else, and I cherish it with all my heart.

September, my youngest child hit the 2 digits, and she was incredibly excited. She was sensitive enough to feel a twinge of sadness to be leaving one stage of her life, but filled mostly with a sense of adventure to enter into the next.

I hope that she will learn from my example that no birthday should be met apologetically or with embarrassment - ever.

Isn’t that weird, to feel bad for being alive yet another year? This insane insistence that time should stand still and we should all live or appear to live forever as twenty year olds?

You know, I was starting to write about how I look better now in my 50’s than I ever did in my 20’s, blah, blah, blah…and it all started to feel very tedious.

So I hit the backspace and just deleted the entire paragraph.

Who the HELL CARES?

I mean why is that so important and what am I trying to prove? Like the third decade of one’s life is the standard by which all things are measured. “I’m still just as good…pretty…smart, as when I was…”

When did that become the standard for humanity?

You know, if I ever have black balloons for my birthday it will be because I am decorating them with full moons and sparkling stars to honor the creative power of the night and the womb from which life springs…in this case, mine.

And some people might be sorry for that, but not me!

On my birthday week, I want to talk about death. Somehow it seems fitting. Not because I’m depressed, but because I am encouraged and feel stronger within myself than in my youth.

My growing fine lines, the appearance of more white hair and whiter white hair, the change of the texture of my skin and the slowing of my metabolism do not trigger a panicked desire to run in the opposite direction. That happened over a decade ago for a couple of years. I’ve moved to a place where I feel the desire to stand with my feet planted firm in the ground and look at what awaits me straight in the eye.

Ronni Bennett, one of my all time favorite bloggers, made an awesome post not too long ago entitled “On the Advent of Our Death“. My approaching birthday at the beginning of the 2nd “half a century” of my life makes me contemplate this reality, that seems to move closer to me with each passing year.

She writes,

Ageism. However wrong it is, however much individual pain and debilitating consequences result from it and how many people are harmed is, to a degree, about fear of death.

She includes a number of quotes about death down through the ages from the book, “Light on Aging and Dying” by Helen Nearing.

I was not only thrilled to find out about this book, but the author’s life was simply inspirational. She was a fascinating woman who left an incredible legacy along with her husband, Scott. Perhaps, when you live a life as rich as this, you are less afraid…perhaps not. I don’t know.

I do know we do associate death with aging, but really, death doesn’t discriminate like people. It has no preference for old age, like we have no respect for it. Far too many children become well acquainted with Death, embraced in it’s arms through the courtesy of starvation and indifference.

And Death is a gracious guest. Whenever invited by human cruelty, Death will enter and take a life, take a dream, take someone’s last hope. There’s the death of esteem or self worth. There’s the death a child experiences when abuse descends upon her innocence just as sure as any Grim Reaper.

But Death isn’t a solitary, for wherever Death goes, Life goes too. Like the inhale to the exhale, Life emerges from Death like the Phoenix from the Ashes or the Pegasus from the Medusa. Just because the living can’t follow the dead, doesn’t mean there’s no place to go, and just because the spirit lays crushed under snow, doesn’t mean the ice won’t crack in the spring.

I like the Zen philosophy about death, as a continuum and as a teacher. Being mindful of it is a great humbler of pride and the foolishness that follows.

How many bad choices have I made in my life because I thought I had all the time in the world? Perhaps wisdom is the beginning of realizing we don’t. But for now, I will not fear the closer proximity to Death as I grow in years, because measuring time is an illusion, anyway. This could be my last post or one of thousands more. I don’t know. And neither do you.

What I do know is that for whatever reason, I don’t feel alone, and I don’t mind if among the angels, Death is one of them.

~ ~ ~
Book referenced in this post: