Figuring Out Life While Aging
From The Winter of Listening in David Whyte’s Essentials
So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
I must call my own.
The grey mauve of twilight
clouds the approach
of darkness
as I watch and wait.
Change gestating within hope:
Advent’s promise
teases me with the solstice’s
diminishment of darkness.
I pray to be more
capable of creating
light
before the darkness.
Tomorrow I will be 80. This is the first time I find myself approaching a birthday, even a decade birthday, with a kind of trepidation: the odds are that I won’t reach my next decade birthday. I might, but I quite possibly won’t. It’s hard to take in, but I want to live with the awareness that I am mortal, that I will die.. I want to feel my time left. I want to contribute, I don’t know exactly what, what I can, even in a limited way. I want to receive and create; joy comes from that, and I’m greedy for love and joy in the time I have left.
I certainly didn’t think of 70 as the beginning of a final decade for my husband or for me, but it was for him. I’m so glad we had a party for his 70ᵗʰ, as he wanted. When he offered me one for my 70th, I refused it. I find, now, for this birthday, I’m happy for recognition on the excuse of having a “significant” birthday. I’m glad to be seen now. I’m grateful to have a daughter, friends, and many happy (or learning) memories as I go forward.
On this the final day of my Seventh Decade, It’s cloudy and cold. The geese are honking and only the evergreens show colour amongst the bare trees. Looking back I see I was born at an advantageous time in a peaceful land with much to enjoy and be grateful for. Even the wounds i endured were opportunities to learn. Now, blanketed by my choices, I ease towards the time I’ll no longer be.
I see the streams of car lights and the Christmas lights on the houses and in the park. I am finding my birthday eve not very happy despite emails from friends. My arm and shoulder ache. I’m missing my husband and sad.
When I turned 80, on my actual birthday, I ended up enjoying myself. The weather was bright, and I felt more positive. While I was getting my breakfast, my daughter danced out of her bedroom playing the Beatles and singing along to “Today it’s your birthday!” She gave me 2 cards, one a joke and the other sweet, plus a gift. I also got lots of greetings, some because she posted my birthday and age on Facebook. And a new friend gave me some champagne.
Once again, I learned that feelings shift, that life is constant change. I am 80, and still learning how to live.
In this busy rational world, how do we recognize our own feelings? When my life companion, my husband of 52 two years, the father of our daughter, was diagnosed with a fatal cancer I just kept on. Like Gladys Knight and the Pips sang, I just “kept on keeping on”. And when he died, I continued the same way – except I was upset that I felt so numb, that I wasn’t grieving, as I imagined grieving to happen. I found myself struggling at journalling but I kept pulsing out strange poems, poems that I came to realize were my grieving coming out in strange ways. Then someone I knew, who had seen my poems on my blog, recognized them as grieving and suggested she write prayers to speak to each poem, and that we put together a book.
Encountering Grief in poetry and prayer is published on Amazon
Excerpt 3 - Difficult Awakening
On the day I wake,
still on my side but
stretching into
the centre of our bed,
I notice I no longer
listen
for kitchen sounds
or the key
opening the door.
Knowing I am attuned
to being alone
is the loss
that feels like a betrayal -
as though I have accepted
your absence.
I am sharing excerpts from Gill’s and my just-published collection of poems and prayers dealing with grief, Encountering Grief – https://www.amazon.com/dp/1999164865 – also in other markets
When I Lost Myself
I am extinct.
No part of me goes forward.
I am ashes
underground.
My stories silenced.
My mutating memories
dismissed.
My sorrows and joys erased:
blankness bracketing grief.
Encountering Grief is available on Amazon.
We hope it provides comfort and understanding.
The grey of dusk slips
down over the lake and land:
a gentle embrace.
Waiting for my eyes to find
enough light
to move through darkness,
I discover
a need for humility.
In a twisting labyrinth
of fears and suspicions,
moving slowly, cautiously,
still stubs toes
and bruises knees,
but even dark dawns reveal
possible paths
that offer
chances to choose
towards light.
I dream of silence,
stillness,
like midnight after snowfall
underground in winter
after summer’s shiftings.
What is the story’s
meaning
after the return,
gripping the chalice
we all must drink from?
Choose the ending
hoped for,
and dance towards,
(with new steps)
the never ending music.
In a dream I cross
the path to my past.
The windows of our home
warm with welcoming golden light.
I enter the unlocked door
and open my mouth to call your name -
and remember -
I don’t live there
anymore.
Cross-posted – https://joanvinallcox.substack.com/p/golden-light
My left eye weeps while
my right stares stubbornly out
at the world’s beauties
and horrors.
What, in this time
and place,
can I do
but acknowledge both?
I watch birds over a lake,
and listen to traffic noise;
beyond thought,
I await what is to be.
Cross-posted – https://joanvinallcox.substack.com/p/my-left-eye-weeps
Learning Living 