Pare down

In preparing to move to a small, 16x20 cabin in the great northwoods for the next six months (at least), I have begun the tedious task of paring down on all of my material possessions for the last three months. I started in July with clothes - bags and bags of clothes from both my and my kids' closets donated.

Then I started going through drawers and cabinets. I found things I'd held onto for years - silly things I simply held onto under the guise of not being "wasteful": oodles of paper clips, old grade books from my teaching days, incense sticks from my college days, old compilation CDs people made for me, endless drawers of scrapbooking and office supplies, coupons I'll never use and old receipts, all dusty and yellowed from time.

Here's the thing about things: they pass through us, coming and going, and ultimately there are very few things in this life that matter.  Even things I thought would never lose their meaning have. 

At this moment in my life, it feels good to live bare bones, to strip myself of all unnecessary possessions.

When my grandmother died, she didn't leave much to this world by way of material possessions. My family has always lived modestly. But one thing I inherited is a ring that belonged to her. It has a blue topaz centerpiece that is flanked on either side with mother of pearl.

It is a simple ring, probably not worth more than $50, but means so much to me.

It feels cathartic to pare down. Henry David Thoreau said, "Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, not a hundred or a thousand."

In the age of smart phones and Google calendars, alarms and bells reminding us of a million things we must do and places we must be, I am abandoning most of it. And couldn't be happier to do so.

In the words of one of my favorite artists, The Be Good Tanyas, keep it light enough to travel!

Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go. e. e. cummings

The dreaded birthday is behind me. I am officially 40.

To mark this period, which has been a strange and sometimes painful journey through transition and growth, I decided to get a tattoo. Most people I know who have tattoos - including myself - have some story or meaning behind them.

I woke up without a thought about getting a tattoo, to be honest. But, somehow, the thought crept into my head to get this one word: Listen. 

When I look back on my life, whenever I felt I made a mistake at a major crossroad it was when I didn't listen to my heart or my instinct about something. It made sense to me to remind myself to listen: to my heart, my instinct, my muse, and to also be quiet during this time of transition and healing. 

Grieve unabashedly

Grief comes in waves.

I feel fine. I’m feeling productive, getting things accomplished, and then I stumble upon photos from 10 years ago. In one cherished photo, Sophie is two, maybe nearly three. She is sitting on my lap along with the baby of a friend. Her blonde hair is thin and wispy, and her face is stained with what looks like pop tart frosting smeared over a jovial, innocent smile. Or maybe that’s a kool-aid stain. Whatever it is, it is the unmistakable evidence of childhood. 

We are sitting on the sofa in my tiny apartment I rented when I was a single mom making twelve bucks an hour. We struggled. My days started early and ended late. Sometimes I bounced checks to buy groceries or pay for child care.

As now, Sophie fought sleep, even then. I found the best and sometimes only way to get her to reliably succumb to sleep was to follow a strict bedtime routine. It involved a warm bath followed by lounging together on the sofa watching an HBO production of Goodnight Moon on VHS. I didn’t have cable, the T.V. I had was tiny, and the VCR old. We sometimes had to bang on the side of the T.V. to prevent lines from rolling up from the bottom of the screen.

We’d lie there together on the sofa in the dark quiet of my tiny apartment, Sophie in her fleece nightgown and Elmo slippers cradled in the cuff of my arm. In that tender nook, she would drift off to sleep finally, sippy cup still in hand.

We had very little by way of material possessions then, but in so many ways, my life seemed more fulfilling – richer in all the ways that matter the most.

Last March, just before her thirteenth birthday, Sophie moved out of my home and in with her father in Cleveland.What followed, for me, was a string of grief-filled days, unrelenting and tenacious.

Tonight, when those pictures surfaced, I found myself bursting with tears and grief, wandering my dark empty halls howling from heartache for my firstborn.

 

Maybe I howl for a simpler time. I wish I could take back those happy days, preserve them. Maybe that’s what I love about photography: moments sealed on film, preserved smiles of innocence.

I wonder how long it will take before my kids know how much I love them. I love them even when they scream at me, red-faced and brazen with raging hormones of a 12 year old. I love them, even when they pick all of the berries out of the “Special K Red Berries” cereal and keep them for themselves. I loved them even while breastfeeding them through teething. I love them for all of their splendor and their not-so-graceful moments, through all of the hurt and joy, pain and triumph.

I love my girls so, so much. 

For today, #1 on my bucket list, I allow myself to grieve unabashedly. Instead of ruminating about a past I cannot change, however, I vow to take steps toward making tomorrow a day I won't have to look back on with regret. 

Forty Shades of Gray

This could be the title for my bestselling novel about my hair color. 

It's true. I started going gray at the early age of 20. Since that time, I've become skilled at the art of mixing ammonia-based solutions with pigment-based solutions to create the perfect concoction that preserves my reddish-brown locks. 

Beauty products tell us to refuse to grow old gracefully, because "we're worth it." Hundreds of thousands of dollars in products touting age-defying results are sold in the U.S. every year: products to help us shed pounds, fight wrinkles, cover grays, tighten skin and maintain erections. 

But growing old is part of life. 

Still, I bristled with 40. 

Having two adolescent girls didn't help. I started the "Couch to 5 K" program with gusto this summer. But gravity isn't kind, and despite my sports bra, I cupped my breasts to prevent them from bouncing while jogging alongside my eight year old one afternoon, who was riding her bike. She looked at me in horror, the look of astonishment showing clearly in her wide eyes. 

"What are you doing?" she gasped. 

We resist growing old, and in a society that frowns upon wrinkles, saggy skin and gray hairs, can you blame us? We are led to believe that growing old somehow means an end to careless days, spontaneity and, well, let's face it, life. "Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death."

I had to admit after some deep introspection one day that what I feared about growing older and turning 40 was that I wasn't nearly where I thought I'd be at this ripe-old age. What was what 40  supposed to look like?

Like so many others, I saw my career flushed down the toilet in 2008 with a lay off after climbing a proverbial corporate ladder for eight years at a major healthcare system. This left me depressed, defeated, and grasping to put my life back together - to understand the meaning of it all. 

One day, after griping about my upcoming birthday on Facebook, my friend wrote the following note to me:

     "Oh, my Libra friend. Here is my little secret to making turning 40 a fun experience, rather than      'the end of the world'. I made a list of 40 things I wanted to do for my 40th year. Some big (spend a winter in Alaska), some little (finally organize my photos into albums). Some were just for me (take a creative writing class), and some were to conquer fears (get a tattoo). I spent my 40th year crossing these things off my list and learned a LOT about the person I am and the person I want to be. Since you are in a place of change right now, it might be a good thing to do. And I think you should put "run dogs with TC in Alaska" on your list."

Alas, this blog was born.  Thanks, T.C. 

Over the next few days, I'm going to begin the daunting task of compiling my "bucket list." I'm struggling with this too. How does a girl whose been to almost all of our 50 states, who has (among other wild things) on her resume "Camel Handler", "Dog Musher", "College Professor" and "Zookeeper" begin to compile such a list? It's a daunting task. Perhaps number one on my bucket list will be "Create a bucket list." 

Regardless, I will document the journey here.