Free to Be

Keeping On Keeping On

“At the end of the day, all you can hope for is to go on. The older I get, the more I realize that just keeping on keeping on is what life's all about.”

Janis Ian

I had the opportunity on Friday night to see Janis Ian in concert. It is always surprising to lay eyes on someone I listened to forty years ago when we were all young and robust. She looks like the grandmother she is—and so do I, though I'm not yet a grandmother. Her voice, however, is still crystal clear and strong. And she's mellowed from the fierce girl who told the Grammy audience, “It's about time!” She spoke instead of what a gift it is to make and write music; about how she realizes, as all poets and artists do, that the gift comes through her and does not belong to her. She never takes that for granted. She was both poignant and self-effacing about the twists and turns her life has taken since writing 'Seventeen'. There was less ego, more appreciation.

Getting older has it's drawbacks. Body parts don't work as well as they once did; memory is not as sharp, sometimes words escape into the depths of nothingness only to pop up ten minutes later when they are no longer needed. But one of the finest things about aging is realizing that 'keeping on keeping on' is what it's all about. And part of the mellowing is watching that ferocious ego that once defined me, step back and allow some wisdom to step forward. The better part of that wisdom is the understanding that most things are not about me, and that I don't need to have an opinion. In other words, it has become easier to keep my mouth shut. It's a great gift, believe me, for someone who always had a strong opinion about everything. What about you? Have you ripened over the years?

At the end of the day, if you've done your personal work and sorted out your motives, come to understand what your actions say about you, and withdrawn your negative projections from others, life is pretty sweet. Humble and sweet. Then the 'going on' is truly a pleasure, and not a scary proposition at all.

In the spirit,

Jane