Put Your Shoulders Back.
Lift your chin.
LOOK AT ME.
All my life. The reminder to have good posture. I still think about it, looking at recent photographs of an old woman with back bent, walking with determination sometimes, but now needing to consciously adjust my spine so as to even approximate something straight.
The years did it.
The flower is worn for sure, but the stem doesn't reach up rightly anymore, either. I look often at the ground rather than the sky. It looks likes defeat. It looks used up, and maybe it is, or nearly.
There are times when insight and adventure still reign, and the 'A' side of life still takes hold - when I buy a ticket for Italy or hop on the Queen Mary, or sign up for college - but on many days, I'd rather just take a Tylenol for the aches, lay down on the couch, and nod off, realizing that someday, sooner rather than later, I won't wake up.
I pretty much know what it is. Something happened to the angst of living, the tortured thoughts that provided steam for my engine, the knowing that what I had was not all there was to have in this world. That there was more, and I wanted to taste it. At first it was more money or more excitement, but became later desire for more understanding, more light, more space.
And I found a lot of it. It turned out not to be too complicated. It was simple, and still is, God lays it before me every day. The wonders of clean breath. The golden light of evening. The feeling of sand on bare feet. The sound of someone calling me grandma. I remember (or think I do) an interview with Raymond Burr when he retired and was asked what he was going to do with himself, saying something like "I'm going to sit in my garden and watch my lemons grow." I didn't get it at the time. Now, I do.
It was a shock to be done with achieving, but most days, it leaves me content. Now that my job is more giving away then grasping, I can relax a little.
It doesn't look all that great, but it feels pretty good.
Photos by the author from her garden
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