Age is Not a Number

4 Comments

Today is my birthday. I’m sixty-seven years old. And I’m here to tell you that age is not a number.

Age – aging – happens and by believing that age is simply a number bypasses the truth that as the years roll on we change. For example, the hair on my legs is now growing out of my chin and the hair on my head is thinning. My first step in the morning is more like a first limp (yoga hip). My skin is wrinkling, my eyes have gone dry, and over the past year I’ve developed the same hammer toe my mother was blessed with.

So age is not ‘just a number’. I know people mean well. I know the phrase is meant to comfort. But the words also imply that I should ignore reality. The words imply that if I repeat them like a mantra my body at sixty-seven will perform like it did when I was twenty-seven.

I’d rather embrace all the circles I’ve made around the sun. I’d rather embrace all the changes. The not so great changes but the good changes, too. I’m sixty-seven years old today. I have greying hair and I’ve put on weight but I’ve also let go of the envy that consumed me forty years ago. I’ve become more appreciative of the small moments in life. I laugh more. I go to bed early so that I’m awake to see dawn. I want to remember to accept it all.

Acceptance isn’t curling up in a ball waiting for the end. Acceptance puts me on a path of exploration. What can I do now that I couldn’t do forty years ago? What attitudes have shifted? Moving forward, what steps will I put in place to ensure good mental and physical health? What will I do to commit to living a creative life of purpose – a life that has heart and meaning? 

This week I will reflect on these questions – I understand the answers will change over the years as I continue to grow and change. But where am I right now, in this moment? And how can I use the insights I gain by reflecting on these questions? How will these insights impact my art practice? My yoga practice?

Moving Day

Note: I’ll be shutting down my WordPress site in a few months. If you signed up to receive my little posts – thank you! If you would like to keep up with my art, my online yoga classes or just the ups and downs of life, please visit my new Squarespace website.

Some people thrive under pressure and chaos. But I’m one of those people who prefer order. I like routine. I perform best when there’s a place for everything and everything is in its place. This isn’t limited to the objects I choose to keep around me. I need a place for my thoughts and feelings, my reactions to the world around me. I need a place for unfinished conversations, my hopes and my fears.

The home we loved. Until we didn’t.

Order is a little tricky to find right now. My beloved and I moved house over the weekend. We’ve downsized and our new home – a late 1990’s duplex on the other side of town – is lovely but it is also much smaller than the townhome we left. And it lacks a garage which is, of course, the space in every house that collects the detritus of life. That being said, our new home is much larger than the five hundred square foot condo we shared in California with our dearly departed cat Bruce (naturally Bruce took over most of the real estate). We lived there for almost a decade – even through the pandemic – so if we managed that small space I’m certain that with a bit of determination and perhaps more than a little compromise we’ll manage this space, too.

Besides, trading square footage on a high trafficked main street for a quiet cul-de-sac and a back garden was an easy choice. Right now that back garden is more a dense carpet of weeds and broken branches but you ought to see what it looks like in my mind’s eye.

But it hasn’t been an easy move. Is any move easy? This one – just two miles down the road – has been one of the most difficult I’ve experienced. My beloved agrees. It doesn’t make us less grateful. We’re just aware that the last few months haven’t been easy.

I’m reluctant to blame age and more inclined to blame circumstances that are too boring to get into. Let’s just say, for the time being, chaos and clutter reign supreme.  No matter. We both know that it won’t always be like this. At some point order will be restored.

I hope.

I hope because I have a solo exhibit in four months and then another just five months later and of course I’m excited and grateful but after a week away from the studio the deep unease of slow rising panic was beginning to overwhelm me. 

But today, after seven long days, I got back to the work. And in doing the work I found a place for my thoughts and feelings, my reactions to the world around me. I found a place for my hopes and fears.

My beloved and I will be living with a few more weeks worth of chaos and clutter in our new home but for now, for me, a little bit of order has been restored.