The days and weeks bleed into each other, speed nourished by long “to do” lists. Meditation practice is sporadic during these times, writing almost non-existent. Instead, life is a packing box, punctuated by the purge of things that will not make the journey to our new home.
Today “The Daily Writing Prompt” arrived in the email. Like a siren of the sea, I was seduced to put down the packing tape and pick up the lap top. Scaling a blank screen, my energies having been elsewhere is scary. The theme for today’s prompt “How do you stay young at heart?”
Here’s the thing, you get to be to a certain age and you realize that the life you have already lived is longer than what is in front of you. While that may seem bleak, it does provide an immediate opportunity. If you know that you are only going to be alive for another 20 years or so, the question becomes, “how then, shall I live my life?” For me, living with the consciousness that everything eventually ends, is what has made my life more alive. The luxury of believing that there are years in front of you is gone. But to live consciously, savoring the days, becomes immediate.
A young heart is really a heart that is awake to the world. I walk every day with my dog and my husband. Being out doors is a great love for us. Feasting our eyes on the sky and watching the season’s change as we trompe through snow, mud, rain and more mud until we get to the hard ground of warm summer days. Keep moving. That keeps you young. I have left behind a life of running and tennis, skiing and weight training–none of which serves me these days, but walking…I feel that I can walk forever– that there are trails and paths yet to be discovered, waiting for my feet to cross them.
Then there is the contemplative part of life so necessary when one is standing at the threshold of old age. I call this decade of my life “reclamation.” It means that I reclaim those things that have angered me, wounded me, betrayed and stung. And I strip from them the pain, seeing where they emptied me and softend my edges. The acid speech is then removed from my tongue and any regret is tempered with a compassion for the frailty of all human beings as they create their story.
Story, that’s a big one too. If you are going to be old and young at the same time, you must know your own story. You need to know it with all its glory and all of it jagged, ragged edges. I embrace my story. I don’t turn away from the dark or the mistakes that were made. Instead I string together the events and processes that formed this person over decades of living. It’s so nice to no longer feel that I need to be fixed. Over time I have slowly learned and still slowly learn to love every step that I took upon the journey to becoming fully human.
Isn’t that what we want when we grown old–to become fully human? To love with a heart that has been broken and yet is open wide, receiving life with enthusiasm?“I grow old, I grow old…I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Do I dare eat a peach? I have hear the mermaids singing each to each…” I didn’t look up the poem, it is in me now and I have probably bastardized it somewhat with my memory. Apologies to T.S. Eliot. But I love the affirmation of “I grow old and I shall wear the bottoms of my tourers rolled.” It reminds me of the slower walking that escorts us to the inevitable edge.
I walk and I read and I write. I so need to get back to writing every day and I hope that after this move is done, I will sit at my desk each morning and record the world that I see; the realizations that grace me; the humor that keeps each of us going in the tougher times. But for now, as I pack up and end this piece about what it takes to be young at heart, I conclude and repeat that I read. I walk and I write. And each day I find a way to breath deeply the cool air around me and say thank you. Thank you. Thank you.