ok. it took me forever to find where the computer keeps this pic hidden. but here we are. i had posted this when i had the old Blogger blog. am always tempted to blur out the cigarette, but that would not be full disclosure. yes. and i roll my own. only Manya appreciates this.
this is 4 years ago now. and yes, that is me in the middle. daughter Jenny on the right and her daughter, my granddaughter Alyssia on the left. it's the best and really, the only pic of the three of us or i would use another. in this pic i remind self of two things: first, i think i look like George Burns, and second, looking at this me, i remember a hermit crab my daughter had as a little girl. now and then it would give up its shell and for days wander shelless and so vulnerable and just so thinskinned looking ...it scared us in its exposed state. anyway...i don't really look like this. it was a day that for the first time all my kids were together here. these two and my son and his woman and my grandson. it was a little startling, all these large people, all milling about. and we were doing some intense remodeling thing of the kitchen/ROOM. and i'd put on my ONLY dress, because it was a special day.
anyway.
they have dibs on me. their other parent/grandparent was given to my son. he "gets" his dad.
so, Michelle, as you can imagine, i sometimes think it might be easier to be singular. they are magnificant, but they are also two Women. we will learn to compromise some things i think over the years. and when i realized i was facing a choice of remaining here or putting in with my daughter's north california goat dream, i thought a lot about the concept of deferring to the Next. and it was the advent of some very good thinking that i feel is just a normal developmental stage in the life of an adult female (or male, i guess). there isn't just this long expanse of "adulthood", where we just stay the same, we continue changing, growing, evolving. if we choose to. and to me, the active participation in moving toward a "state of being irrelevant" is just Real and pragmatic.
i think i feel differently about looking at things than a lot of people. i don't see thinking about my old age as dark or sad. and i think it's a lot because of buddhist study which simply sees this as a given and part of the beauty of the "work" of being human. "Every thing [is] a promise of some future something", until that future undeniably becomes a limited present. and to me, this is not in the slightest sad. i think about it a lot. my daughter and i talk about it a lot. and i watch people i know, my own age (just entering Old) and people who are in their 80s and 90s that choose different forms of denial which end up being very hard on them and those who love them. we last a long time nowdays and very likely we won't be "beamed up", but will become irrelevant, actually, as far as being able to maintain our role as the heroine of the play. we will need to defer. so to think about it is a really good thing and i think the Best thing along with actually living each day with great purpose and intention NOW. no regrets down the line.
and Michelle, i know you know all this. so these words are just so you know where i stand with it all and that i am open and oh so willing to explore the thinking. the thing that bothers me most is when all this is treated like some forbidden pessimistic train of thought that descends if we let it. but should be kept at bay forever.
anyway....this isn't at all what i'd hoped i'd write but it's what came out and i will add more as the days go along as comments to mySelf. and THANK YOU for being who you are and your oh so glowing relevance to my world in this present.
