Weird isn't it? How foggy, beach-y haze makes everything appear in startling relief. Like Greek and Roman bas-relief statues. White marble images half released from stone. Sharp and soft. Near and far. Both/And. Or a Moonscape...Message In A Bottle novel...Impressionist painting beached of color.
Mixed metaphors churning in my head...spilling onto wave washed sands...sky...sea...the wings of gulls...the lonely amusement pier shuttered...halfway visible...there in the mist. Holographic personifications. A mood. This misty breath when everything vibrates, shimmers. Meaning glistening. Suddenly I'm everything. Connected. And everything is a part of me. Effortlessly we breathe the same moist breath...in-breath...out-breath...metered...swept into the rhythm of the tide. Profound reflection grabs at my ankles, catches me in a mystical moment.
I didn't see this coming when we loaded up for the Outer Banks, NC. Easter Break....rowdily...joyfully caught up in three generations. My daughters...their four children...two littles...two almost grown. This time is about them. Their ages and stages clear...the tide of a human life evocative. Memories. My own lifetime....my own ages and stages mirrored in theirs: Early Childhood. Adolescence. Middlescence....and then? Reality. I'm the matriarch. No longer in the middle years even though I live my life as if I am. My girls have caught up. And I'm only just figuring this out..right now.
My stage? What do you even call this age...my age and stage? Old age? Holy crap. Are you kidding me? This is not a labeling option about which I am fond. Never. We become what we believe. Dr. Christiane Northrup, lady doctor and believer in the dance - one of my heroines - would shudder. She disallows even a whiff of a hint of a number. Laterescence? We have here an unnamed life stage as long as we're ambulatory. Don't need anything replaced. Have big dreams. Ridiculous goals. Outrageous ideas. Forgot how we're supposed to act. More of that. Yes. Getting lost in the now. Being. Creating. Loving. In other words...living.
Gawd. How can you live when you're conscious that the Grim Reaper is waiting to call...and you're actively standing there...ready to open the door? Doesn't work for me. My darling friends threw a party to plan their funeral and pay for cremation...now. I have insurance for that! For our children...it seems...it's what reasonable, sensible people DO. Gives me hives. I've never been able to accept doing what I'm supposed to do. If you were raised in the uber conservative Pineywoods of East Texas, that's a good thing. No. No. No. Deliver me from self-fulfilling prophesy.
Folding into an actuarial age niche doesn't tally the integrity of soul. Who we are. What we're here to be. The timeline our soul contract - set before we became human - chose for this lifetime. The cost of reading an internal compass is worth the sacrifice of comfort that comes from fitting in with a crowd. For me...in this lifetime...identification with my peer group is not my path.
Lateressence. Later Essence. Change the spelling. A little awkward. Maybe a tad pretentious. May need some tweaking. But still...for now it will do. I like it. There's a ring of integrity to it.
Frankly, I recommend to everyone - no matter the age and stage - that they not give a damn what anyone might say about who they are. What we're supposed to be. And how we should be acting given our designated stage in life. As long as we're not needlessly hurting anyone by being who we are. As long as we have a fairly decent sense of other. As long as we're part of some planetary solution and aren't part of the problem. As long as we have a deep-down sense of soul. Of being connected to something bigger than us. Of answering to an internal moral code that is tied to love and compassion. Then we're good. We be doin' it. Every day. Some days, diamonds. Some days, stones. (Thank you John Denver)
Stones. Bedrock. I am that. Choose to be firm footing on which the next generation stands. They deserve nothing less. And I'm blessed...we're blessed aren't we?...to hold steady so they can fly? Even as we morph into new form? Change over time? Continue to grow and audaciously become an oak...as well as a willow? Without fighting, but accepting the natural forces of wind, water, fire and air. And on our best days, graciously surrendering to the natural process of being human. Yes. Yes. And more will be revealed. One day at a time....
