Living Long in this World
“…To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your whole life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”
Mary Oliver
From “In Backwater Woods”
“In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change lie our happiness and freedom.”
The Buddha
I was looking at my face in the mirror yesterday while putting on make-up and I was thinking, “Who the heck are you?” So many years of seeing the same face day after day and then, suddenly, it’s utterly changed. Everything has gone soft, drooped; there are folds of skin where only yesterday there weren’t. Not only that, but it looks more like my mother and me. When exactly did that happen?
A friend told me about a program down at the University that she attends. Very interesting and timely topics are presented three days a week to help keep the synapses firing in ‘geriatric’ people---would I like to come? Say, what? Geriatric! Me?
I could get very discourage about this aging business if I didn’t know Ethel. She’s in her late eighties and still swims laps everyday. I called her last week to help me with some work at our church and she said, “I can’t do it Wednesday because my hiking group is going up to Mentone.” Hiking? She still goes bird-watching in the Sipsey Wilderness---and camps out while she’s there. I said to her son, John, I want to be like Ethel when I grow up; he raised his eyebrows and said, “Well, you better get you some good track shoes, then.”
I am here to testify that change is inevitable. I am living proof that time moves only in one direction, at least for now. We can buck and rail against it or we can get with the program. Bucking and railing takes a lot of energy. It’s not all bad, really. Pretty soon my eyes will dim to the point that I won't be able to see all those drooping wrinkles.
In all things give thanks,
Jane
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