Still Celebrating

"The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate." -  Oprah Winfrey

Sixty years and eighteen days old and still celebrating.  My birthday bliss has gone on and on.  On the morning of my birthday, I woke with a heart filled with joy.  Sixty.  I made it.  I am truly blessed.

I spent the day in the most perfect way.  Time with Jacob, time with my mother and dinner with those I love most in the world.  I drank a lot of good champagne, was spoiled with beautiful gifts and delighted with the many birthday wishes that came my way from near and far.  I could not have asked for a better day.  And that was just the first of my big celebrations.

Last week, Cathy hosted a twilight tea for the special women in my life.  It was a wonderful evening.  Women came together from different parts of my life.  While they all had heard of one another, some of them had never met or only met once, at my fiftieth birthday.  The food was delicious, the bubbly was flowing and the weather was perfect.  I can think of few celebrations that have given me so much joy.  As I have aged, I've come to appreciate how much this circle of women has enriched my life.  My cousins came from Michigan, my high school friend, Miriam came from Windsor.  There were colleagues from all my old jobs and the moms of some of my kids.  Sara wore the nametag with the caption, Sara: Daughter of my heart. As has been often the case, having a summer birthday precluded some of my dearest friends from attending as they were away on vacation but I will catch up with them another time and will create an occasion when we can all get together again.

So far, I'm loving sixty.  I am convinced it only gets better from here.

Sixty

"There was a star danced, and under that was I born." -William Shakespeare

In a couple of hours I will officially turn sixty though in fact, I wasn't born until ll o'clock in the morning.  Unlike some of my friends, I'm not struggling with this milestone birthday.  I am truly, overwhelmingly grateful for it.  It is the birthday I feared I would not get when I got my cancer diagnosis shortly after my fiftieth.  But here I am, healthy, thriving and feeling blessed.

There are some great things about aging.  There is a certain wisdom that can only be gained by living enough years to acquire it.  It is not an intellectual process, but an experiential one.  There is a level of confidence that comes from developing a real comfort in one's own skin, even if the bones underneath it are aching a little.  There is freedom from the pressure of meeting a lot of extraneous expectations.  It doesn't matter anymore.  Been there, done that.  I've already proven I can be the successful executive and the mom who makes the best goodies for the bake sale and the perfect hostess and the snappiest dresser all at the same time.  But I'm sixty now and I don't have to prove anything to anyone anymore.

This is my time.  My life.  My journey.  If I want to be the successful executive and the best hostess and the snappiest dresser, I will.  And if I choose not to, I won't.  I'm giving myself a get out of jail free card to be used whenever I feel I need it, as often as I wish to use it.

Here's to liberation from expectations.  Happy Birthday to me.

Colour Me Happy

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." - Anon

I got home from work a few days ago to find a delightful surprise in my mailbox.  My dear friend Frank sent me a colouring book and a beautiful set of coloured pencils.  It is a beautiful book filled with pages of beautiful drawings and inspirational quotations.  I love to colour.

The popularity of adult colouring books is soaring.  Chapters has a whole line of them on sale right now.  A number of my friends have been posting pictures of their books on Facebook lately.  I've posted some pictures of my creations too.  There is something very calming about colouring.  Not only does it bring me back to childhood days, but it gives me a chance to unleash my inner artist.  I cannot draw or paint for beans but I love playing with colour.  There are no rules and no way to make a mistake.  

One of my favorite pieces was a drawing of some paint brushes drawn underneath the caption, "Some pursue happiness, others create it."  There are six brushes.  In honour of pride week, I coloured the tip of each brush in a colour of the rainbow and then coloured each word of the caption in a different colour.  This piece was my first attempt at shading and mixing colours.  It was a perfect opportunity to colour outside the lines and I loved it.

My 60th birthday might be right around the corner, but my inner child is having a blast.  Thank you Frank.  You know me so well.

The Count Down Begins

"Everyone is the age of their heart." ~Guatemalan Proverb

One month from today, I will be sixty.  Aging is a good thing when you consider the alternative.  Still, it is a bit shocking to be here already.  I visited my back specialist today.  There was good news and no news but at least there wasn't bad news.

The good news is that the multitude of tests I had, show no serious bone abnormalities.  No metastasized cancer.  No cracks or breaks.  There is some arthritis in my legs and especially in my feet.  Whatever.  I'll cope.  Though I had hoped to be further along in my healing process by now, the physiatrist tells me that my nerves will recover from last years problems at the rate of one millimeter per day.  She told me to do the math.  It has been ten months but I still have a long way to go.  At least I'm moving in the right direction.  

It is the time of year when I tend to become introspective.  I'm taking inventory of my life again and while it is a pretty good life, there is room for improvement and change.  It is time for me to pay more attention to my health.  To stop eating like there won't be sugar in the world next week.  To tackle my level of stress which has been growing exponentially with each day I watch my mother transition, and each new client with unreasonable demands.  I want to turn my attentions to other things - things that bring me joy, like making jewellery and penny tables and art projects.  It is time to give serious consideration to how I can monetize that work so I can do more of what I love and less of what eats at my soul.  I'm so tired of firing people for a living.  

The weather is growing warm and the days are longer.  I love this time of the year.  I intend to take a few days before July 2 to sit on the deck and contemplate.  I'm almost sixty.  I've earned a little rest.

Awake

"When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited." - Ramakrishna

I was roused from my bed at 5:45 this morning by the buzzing of a bee that insisted on circling my head.  I don't know when or how the bee got into the house or where it is now but it's persistence served as a message to my spirit that it was time to get up, in spite of the early hour.  There is much to be done today.

I need to file my taxes and write a client report.  There is a picture frame resting in my den in need of a touch up and a penny table only a quarter of the way penny topped that needs to get finished.  The ravine is looking lush and green this morning. My heart smiled when I saw the finally unfurled leaves.  There is warmth in the morning air.

What will this day bring?  I guess I'll jump in with both feet and find out.

Transitioning

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas

My mom is in transition.  After ten and a half years in a nursing home, it seems she is now close to the end of her days on this earthly plain.  She is slipping away in inches while we sit and watch, unable to do anything to ease the way.  It has been a couple of weeks since I've seen her eyes open.  Yet, she is still eating, still drinking almost as if it is a reflex.  Parts of her body are now covered in sores as if the tissues and skin holding her frail bones together are now just too tired to do the job and are protesting.  She can no longer sit for more than two of every twenty four hours.

It is a sad time for me and my sisters and we are all dealing with it in our own ways.  In truth, I mourned the loss of my mother long ago in the days when she first stopped knowing who I am.  I mourned for the loss of my best friend, biggest supporter and most reliable sounding board.  I mourned for the loss of Jacob's chance to know his only surviving grandparent.  I mourned for the ability of Alzheimer's to rob my mother of her brilliant mind and her abiding dignity.  And though I thought I would not, I find myself mourning anew.

I do not spend my days wishing for my mom's life to be extended or spared.  I want her to go when she wants to go.  I want her to be free, to be with her sisters and her mom and dad and with my dad.  Clearly, she already has a foot on the other side.  There will come a day in the not too distant future when she pulls the other foot over.  She has not gone gentle into that good night but I'm praying that she goes into it peacefully.

Miriam

"You don't have to have anything in common with people you've known since you were five.  With old friends, you've got your whole life in common." - Lyle Lovett

I was thirteen when we met.  It was my first year of high school and we met in drama class.  Miriam and I were both actresses, though she was better at it than I.  She reminded me last night that in those days, we looked alike - olive skinned with long dark hair, neither of us very tall and both wafer thin.  We were pretty girls.  We both acted in every major drama production through our high school years.  She was Lady Macbeth.  I was a witch.  Double, double toil and trouble.  I still remember my lines.  One year we shared the stage in a two-person, one-act play called Please No Flowers.  Miriam won the best actress award that year.  I didn't even get an honourable mention.  

In spite of our aspirations to both be leading ladies, there was no competition between us.  We were very close friends.  She spent a lot of time at my house.  I was never at hers.  I did not know her family.  Outside of school, we had very different home lives.  When high school ended, we went in different directions - I went off to university; Miriam got married.  By the time I graduated from university, Miriam was a few months from giving birth to her first child.  I moved away. We lost touch as people often do.  She had a tree planted in Israel to honour my dad when he passed away.  I was very moved.  I sent her a thank you note and then twenty years went by.  It happens.

One day a few years ago, I opened my mailbox to find a letter.  The return address was from a house a few blocks from my childhood home.  The last name on the envelope wasn't one that I knew but I knew without opening it that it was her.  Since our last contact she had divorced and remarried.  I am easy to find.  I kept my own name after I married.  It was a beautiful letter.  She wanted me to know that she still thought of me after all the intervening years.  She didn't leave a telephone number and her phone number is unlisted.  It took me all of about three minutes to find it anyway.  I called her.  We arranged to get together for dinner when she was next in Toronto.  Her children live here now.  

I was a little nervous about seeing her after all these years but of course I needn't have been.  We are a lot older.  We don't look alike anymore.  Our lives are different.  Our hearts are still the same.  Since that dinner, we've kept in touch.  Last year, Merv and I met Miriam and her husband Sheldon for dinner one night.  They are so well suited.  It made me very happy to see her so well partnered.  Last night they came to our place for dinner.  I made a simple supper.  Miriam keeps kosher so I made fish.  It was perfect for me.  I had time for visiting without being tethered to the kitchen. During the twenty minutes of kitchen time the meal demanded, we left the guys and chatted alone.  While the fish baked, I adjusted the size of the bracelet I made for her last year for her sixtieth birthday.  We were sixteen again.

In a few short months, I will be sixty.  As I age, I am growing increasingly nostalgic.  I find myself trying to draw back to my life all those important people who have somehow slipped away.  I'm so thankful Miriam took the time to find me.  It is a blessing to have her in my life, though truth be told, she was always in my heart.