Looking Back, and Forward .....1001:56

It's been a year or so since I started blogging on the topic of "Growing Old."  My goal: write a post-a-day of personal observations, until reaching the magic number 1,001.  This would've taken 3 years at the Scheherazade rate of "1 story per day."  I aimed to "Inform, Enlighten, and Cheer"  about the road to ageing. 

Time to review Goals.  I still want to I, E and C.  But writing regularly, as any writer knows, brings its own personality into the mix.  The writing itself arranges some things, and I try not to stand in the way.

First Goal Review: although I see a definite advantage in disciplining myself to write every day, it's easiest to write when the muse moves me.  This decision quashed the post-a-day thing, but preserved the joy-in-writing thing.  It will take longer than 3 years, but I'm still shooting for all 1001.  I'll never make professional writing status with such a lack-a-daisical attitude, but maybe I'll manage daily writing (a.k.a. chairbound) for when I can't move around much anymore.  Something to look forward to, provided I can still keyboard.

An unanticipated bonus Goal is, obviously, honing my writing skills.   Writing, like anything else, can be constantly analyzed and improved.  My writing goals now include: trying to move beyond my trademark heavy-philosophical-sociological-Latinate-Madeline L'Engle/ Carl Sagan-worldview to Simple Statements.  Whittling down Great Thoughts to manageable proportions.  Alternating sentence sizes.  Short is Good.  Edit, edit, edit.  And all those goals slide from the belly of the Beast of Practice, Practice, Practice. 

Also, because I love to write and it makes me happy, the Goal of joining a writing community manifested itself.  I recently joined a local writers group.  Feedback is good.  I anticipate benefits on ideas and publishing, as well as a new community to enrich my life.  Relatives come and go, but communities hang around.

Finally, the blog has invested in me as I have in it.  It's given back the interest I've put into it, like a reflecting mirror. An essence of ageing well is embodied, for me just by the act of writing this blog: doing things you love keeps you on your toes, involved, and most of all it keeps you happy to be you.  That is the best advice I can possibly give myself about ageing, or living.

Sandboxes and Resurrections

When my son was born 33 years ago, I was a young and very inexperienced mother.  He was born in December, the day I put up the Christmas Tree.  Foremost in my thoughts that season: "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Child is given."  It was like having Baby Jesus in my home, and the story was a comfort to me.

Thirty-three years later--last Christmas--I held my son's baby daughter and reminded him of that story.   His smile as he looked at his personal little Christ Child was, undeniably, beatific. 

Yesterday I sat with Lila, all of 15 months old now, in her new sandbox.  Her Dad set it up a few days ago: the nifty, ubiquitous, green plastic Turtle Sand Box replete with Moat and Lid.  Under the shade of a big tree growing up through the wooden deck, she and I sat and Explored Life.  Sifters, cups, and dippers of sand.  How sand feels on feet, in hands, how it pours itself sweetly onto all things. We tasted sand (well, she did, a little).  We dropped things in the moat, and poured water in the sand.  A trio of squirrels ran through the tree and across the deck, another distracting and brand -new experience.  When a good breeze nudged the tree, helicopter seeds swirled lazily down, requiring some attention.  The heavy metal wind chimes bonged dreamy angel music, without repetitive melody, no anticipated rhthyms.

We took a break from sand duty to walk through the grass--rife with more amazing distractions, including but not limited to: ants, twigs, dead grass, and rocks--to the hammock.  I put Lila on the hammock and pushed her.  She was not pleased, and wriggled her way down and out of the confining ropes.  Feet firmly on the ground, she took firm hold of the hammock and pushed it herself.  Back and forth, with concentration.  Her own unanticipated melody, not formed yet, reminding me that she is finding her notes and they don't fit my patterns.  What a kid.

What a brand new, independently activated, New World Child.
Being Grandma to the Christ Child's Child is every bit as resurrective, I find, as being the Christ Child's Mama.  The Memories of First Things, reborn with every baby, lifts and cheers.

With practice, Resurrection gets easier.

The Last Tango over Gray .........1001:45

I did it.
Or, rather, Gigi did it.
Because really, she was as excited as me.

We've been in this client/ hairdresser tango for a couple years, as only those who have a deep relationship with the person who cuts their hair can know.  Our back-and-forth was on the subject of Going Gray.  We have had differing opinions.  She voted for keeping color with the hard-to-resist argument that "you're too young to go gray."  As a woman who is going gray and who strives for seeing things clearly, I felt obligated to Be Me aka Gray.  Both of us had some good points to support our views. 

Back when I turned 49, and began acquiring a few silver hairs, I gave myself the Clariol Curse.  Hair dye is like plastic surgery:  once employed, the natural course of things alters.  Things like self-image, projection, reflection, expectation.  You can skip past Inevitable and go straight to Avoidance.
But avoidance is exhausting.  I've never been a good liar because its a lot of work to keep alternate reality facts straight.  Hair color is like keeping up a charade.  Too much work, my brain needs a clear path to too many other tricky life requirements to share the cargo space with non-essentials.  Getting Older lends itself to dumping the non-essentials.

I went to my appointed round with Gigi yesterday at 4:20 p.m. for a trim.  By 5:12 p.m., I was my True Color. 

Gigi pre-empted my final moment of realization by a few months. I just wanted a quarter inch off to lose the split ends and nudge those cursed fomerly-colored horizontal stripes to oblivion.  She knows how long I've been working to Be Me, she's argued against it, she's helped cover IT, and she's heard my pros and cons for a few years.  Finally, she cheered me on, saying a few cuts back that "theres no going back now."  After all the waffling and the slow growing-out time, she wanted to see WHAT the hair would look like as much as I did.  I could've dipped my toes into the water for a few more months with just a trim.  But she shoved me in the deep end.  She clipped past the Brassy Dyed Leftovers, straight to the heart of the matter.  Which meant that my hair is shorter than I wanted it.  But it's a wrap.

Right away, it felt good.  Short.  But good.  It was a Let-Go moment.  And a Hello moment.  I like it very much.  I think that people react differently to me, in the last 24 hours.  Maybe I have acheived Eccentric Status, because being gray and acting like I usually do--abrupt--is more acceptable under gray hair than it was under dyed.  Its a whole new world, which I am happy to explore.

Gigi likes it too.