A Woman of Substance

Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually — claiming our space

My elephant friends have taught me so much.

I have been lucky enough to volunteer at our local zoo for the last 12 years and got to spend 11 of those years observing the elephants. What a gift that has been, beyond anything that I could have imagined.

Elephants are huge. I observed 4 elephants during my time there. Osh, our only male, is 11 feet tall and weighs over 15,000 pounds. Standing anywhere near him made everyone become suddenly struck with awe. I came to love these elephants to a depth that I didn’t know that I had.

Elephants don’t apologize for their size, wrinkles or saggy skin. Yet all who came to visit them stood in awe and called them beautiful.

This is not so much the reaction toward many women who may not fit the cultural ideal of the time.

For most of my life I have struggled with my weight and being larger than I would like. Now some of this is still something that I want to keep working on, in that I would like to be healthier and fitter. I keep working on that, sometimes more successfully than others. But I am also aware of the messages that women have been given about themselves, at least in American culture. Being called Rubenesque became an insult. Weight and girth became badges of shame. Being feminine was equated with petiteness and slenderness (except in certain areas of our bodies, of course) and with lightness. Let that sink in. Being less is better. Being smaller is better. Excuse me?

The message is to be small, fragile, petite, cute, ethereal, slim, tiny, sweet, you name it. This also applies to personalities…to be sweet, kind, quiet. Don’t be too loud or you will be a bitch. Don’t be overbearing. Don’t speak your mind. If you influence, do it quietly and in the background. Be the woman of power behind the man and let him take credit, while you smile sweetly in the background.

WTF. Seriously? I don’t think so.

We have such narrow parameters for what is acceptable for women. And we have learned to shame ourselves, stuff ourselves (sometimes with food), stuff our rage, stuff our sexuality, shrink our size in every way. Enough.

No, I am not petite. But I do not need to allow others to shame me for that, or for being anything that I am. And most of all, I do not need to shame myself.

And now, as an elder, I have now found yet another way that somehow, I am supposed to shrink and be ashamed of…my age. As older women, we are no longer seen as vital, powerful, sensual, physical, passionate, or even, at times, as alive. WTF. (I say that to myself a lot these days). Younger is better, older is done.

With the current deplorable political atmosphere, another message is that women are now supposed to have more babies, even though they won’t get much help once those babies are born. If we choose not to have babies, and the reasons are no one’s business but our own, we are judged as somehow less than. We are still called “granny” whether we even have grandchildren or not.

We are made to feel shame about our size, about our softer rounder, sometimes hanging bellies. These are bellies that have contained so much through the years, contained being pushed aside, not being heard, not being seen, not being validated, not being paid as much, not being allowed to have a voice in meetings, not being given the grace of being human.

So now, as an older larger woman, I find I have things to say…aloud. I don’t agree with a lot of what is going on in the world. Maybe it’s time for we women to begin to take some of this over. Women, for the most part, can be better at relationships, better at collaborating, better at thinking of the future and our next generations (whether or not we have contributed members to that). Perhaps we can do better at running this world, given that the common male pattern of domination and war doesn’t seem to be working so well. I do not shame men for this, for there have been childhood wounds inflicted upon men where they have been taught about domination, power being linked to force, everything seen in terms of winning versus losing. The wounds can be quite deep.

Now, as not only a woman, but as an elder woman, I am done being pushed aside. I am done being made to feel less than. I am done. I want more for the young people coming next. I want more for our mother earth, to whom we have done such damage. I want more for the earth’s creatures that we have been slowly making extinct. I want more for all of us.

We can do better, especially if we stop letting ourselves be divided and labeled as better or worse, them versus us, divided so that we could more easily be conquered. Enough.

We are in this together. We are all races, colors, genders, sizes, all humans. We have been tasked with taking care of this earth and of each other. We can do better than we have been. It starts by stopping the ridiculous shaming, dividing, separating, shunning, and ignoring.

We come in all shapes, sizes, colors, sexual preferences, cultures, and lifestyles. We are all the same inside. We all hurt, we all bleed, we all feel (well, most of us, anyway. I cannot help but wonder about some of the current deeply wounded personalities in positions of leadership that seem too wounded to be able to heal who, in my opinion, do not need to be in positions of power where they can cause such harm and damage). Money does not equate with what makes us good, nor is it what gives us real power.

Similarly, size does not need to equate with badness and shame for women. This includes the volume and strength of our voices.

Loud trumpeting, like the sacred elephants do, is sometimes necessary to be heard. Standing full and tall in our size is necessary to show all that we carry inside of us. It’s time to own our size, wrinkles, girth, rage, power, voices, and courage. The time is now.

This is one of the greatest gifts of aging…to care less about what others think, to even be able to use the gift of imposed invisibility so we can then use the element of surprise to strongly proclaim our presence and power in ways that matter. It is time to come into our own, come home to ourselves, and stand up for what we believe in and to possibly even save this planet and its beings from complete destruction.

That is real power. We can be big enough to own it, use it for good, and claim our right to be here. This is not just our right, but it is our mandate to be here and do what we can, because we are big enough, powerful enough and have the right to be here in all of our fullness.

Stand tall and large, with trunks up and ready to trumpet…Let’s do this.

A Performance of Ageless Aloha

A Hawaiian performance of music, dance, love, and hope

Years ago, I used to dance the hula. It can be a sacred dance, not the Hollywood stereotype, but rather a form of prayer and homage to the earth, of love put into graceful motion.

I loved it, felt honored to be among the dancers and the culture that spoke of this aloha, love, inclusiveness, respect for the power of nature and its beauty and of our mandate to take care of it.

I am an elder now, and I have stopped dancing. But maybe…

Going to a performance (Popolohenu – Songs of Resilience and Joy) (created by my former teacher, Māhealani Uchiyama, Director, Mahea Uchiyama Center for International Dance www.centerforinternationaldance.org, which was this time a celebration of African American roots and contributions in Hawaii, was like going home. I immediately felt welcomed as we entered the auditorium, seeing everyone adorned with leis and flowers in their hair, smiling warmly at all who entered.

The music began, and I was transported back. The performers, singers, and music all spoke of Hawaii’s rich history and the love that connects us all. The spirit of aloha is that…a welcoming love that reminds us of our connection to each other and our mandate to love each other, to care for each other, to appreciate each other, to include each other.

Is there violence in Hawaiian history? Yes, there was a taking over of culture, as can so often happen when something new is discovered and immediately feared because of its differences. But it survived and came back. The strength, the ties, the family, the aloha that will not be silenced are all still very much alive. This spirit of aloha is stronger than hate, more resilient than divisiveness, more powerful than the forces that move us toward fear and suspicion.

My friend and I sat transfixed as we watched and listened to the magic in front of us, mesmerized by unity and grace. Pride in history, the weaving of different cultures, and the interpretation of the beauty of life into music and graceful movement of dance touched our souls.

There was a mixture, in both the performers and audience, of everyone, all races, genders, ages, sexual preferences, cultures…a lei whose colors beside each other were more beautiful than any one color on its own. The whole became greater than the sum of its parts. It reminded us that we are more together, stronger together holding each other’s hands, dancing together to the beat of the earth, the music of life, connected as a family.

There was one group of dancers that was composed of older women. The grace in their movement and the joy that shone from their faces was a glow that could not be dimmed by the years. Beauty and grace transcend age. Stories told become richer with experience. Bodies still ache to move to the music to express their life within, the life force that remains strong, even if those bodies change. You could see the seasoned grace of who they were now and the timeless grace of the younger women that they had once been, the sacredness that was always there, that never dies, that never ages out of existence. Theirs was the season of wisdom.

The younger dancers had their own kind of beauty with deeper and more flexible movements that can take your breath away. Theirs was the season of life living, being, stretching, reaching, dancing.

The final groups of dancers were the youngest, two adolescents, achingly beautiful. This was beauty starting to blossom, sensuality beginning to bloom, life yet to live, and an innocence about it all, movement that was easy and light. Theirs was the season of hope.

They were all beautiful and all had their own gifts to offer, as each season brings its own beauty and gifts. Such is our life with each season. We can learn from them all.

Singers honored the language of the islands, the love and connection to the earth, to family, to the spirit that is Hawaii, to the spirit that is us all. Performers included a grammy award winning singer and his husband, who danced to the songs….each acknowledging their deep love for each other and for the culture, a Black jazz singer with Hawaiian connections that added another hue to the rainbow with her melodic voice, rhythm, and own personal history, a father with his two sons, singing, drumming, and playing ukelele….a family legacy remembered, honored, and carried on.

And somehow, we, the audience, were included in the feelings on that stage and were welcomed into the family.

This was a much-needed gift to receive during all the division and hatred that has been in our country recently. It was a breath of fresh air that brought tears to my eyes as I remembered that this is who and what we are. This is what we need to remember, to wake back up again. To be woke can once again be a good thing, if we remember. (I think it is time to claim back the word woke.) We need to be awake to the ties that connect us, to what bring us together in the tribe of humanity, awake to the power of love. Boundaries need to be set to protect this, yes, so that we do not lose our way again so easily. It’s not too late, if we wake up from this nightmare and trance of horror that has been currently sweeping our country and the world.

Isn’t it interesting how something can be so much more than what you expected. A performance became a reminder and a call to action, a call to awaken, a call to dance once again with each other in a dance of love rather than war.

I am so grateful.

I may even go back and take some hula classes again and join that wonderful group of loving older women who remind us of all we have been, who we are, and what we can still be. We are still alive. We still have dance within us. We still have love within us. It’s time to use that love to begin to heal.

And just like in this performance, maybe we elders can lead the way, begin the dance, remind us all of who we are deep within. We can be a beacon of light to lead the young, to teach, to console, to inspire, to remain steadfast, to keep fighting, to keep dancing, to keep living and keep loving…to be the best of who we can be. Perhaps Aloha can be our battle cry, our call to action. Being elders, we may not see the result, but we can lead the way toward it. It can be our final gift, the gift of ferocious love, the gift of the power of Aloha.

The Loneliness of Elderhood

Exploring the sometimes-unique qualities of loneliness as an elder

Lately I have felt such a deep loneliness. As an elder, this can have different qualities to it than loneliness did earlier in my life.

It seems to be much more frequent these days. It is often not a loneliness that can be soothed by others.

Rather, it begs to be heard, seen, felt, and acknowledged.

So, here I am doing that.

I feel lonely for days gone by…for casual glances that speak of attraction and desire, for feelings of looking forward to the future and all that it may hold, for easy laughter in the moment, for friendships that are formed easily and enjoy the light of day together, exploring what is there and what hopes and dreams for the future are there as well. I miss the excitement of not knowing yet looking forward to what may come next.

It’s different these days with fewer days to look forward to. My changing body gives me new glimpses into a future that can be scary. Things are not going to get easier. People are going to leave more frequently. Friends are not so easily found.

There are no more glances that speak of mutual attraction, only those feelings within myself that I keep quiet and that are only for me to see and acknowledge. There is not much space these days, I think, in society’s way of looking at elders, for acknowledging our desires, as if aging has destroyed those. Sometimes I just want to be held, have my face stroked with tenderness, have my forehead kissed tenderly, feel a hand brushing the hair away from my eyes. My body is older, my need for touch and connection never age.

No, a massage will not replace that. I am not comfortable with massages, given the changes in my body. Sometimes I have come out of massages in more pain, and I don’t want or need that. And it’s a touch from a stranger, which doesn’t address what I crave.

I don’t get pedicures very often, as I feel strange when others are touching me yet not looking at me while speaking to each other in a language that I don’t understand. They can only add, at least for me, to the jury within my head that is always ready to judge.

I bought a weighted stuff animal recently. It’s like weighted blankets that can help calm someone. Rather than a blanket, mine happens to be a sloth, which makes me smile. That’s a bonus. It feels comforting and I am grateful for that. It reminds me that we can be creative in finding ways to help ourselves. It’s not perfect, but at least it’s something.

I haven’t danced in a long time. That used to be a way to feel my body more. I think about taking dance classes again, although I hesitate as my body is stiffer and larger, and I am shy about it, as well as feeling some shame. Somehow part of me still buys into that message that only pretty bodies can allow themselves to be seen, to be enjoyed, to be felt, to be touched, to dance. I don’t believe that in my brain, but deep down, I can still feel those old messages that wound and judge. Now they come from me.

That hurts.

I used to have kitties but lost two (both were 17 years old) within 6 months of each other (at the beginning of the pandemic 5 years ago when I had just retired,) and I don’t know if I can go through that kind of devastating loss again. These days, I also wonder about who will take care of them if I precede them in death. That’s a concern that I have heard others talk about who are also in my elder tribe when they consider getting a pet.

I don’t have siblings, so I don’t know if that would help or not, to share these feelings of loneliness as we age together. I do miss having someone hold my history the way that a sibling might. I feel lonely for that these days, lonely for something that I never had but that I see others have.

I feel lonely for myself, as I tend to abandon myself when I feel sad and depressed. I miss the part that takes better care of me than I have been for a while. Maybe that is something that I can work on, once I climb out of this dark hole a bit.

I am still here.

Maybe I can begin to focus on what I do have here and now and keep focusing more on being present to the eternity held in each precious moment, the joy of still being alive, the gift and wonder of my breath, the feel of the wind on my face, the welcome warmth of a hug, the taste of morning coffee, the dance of the birds as I watch them take a bath. I can still feel and delight in the connections that I make with animals and people all around me, as well as with the majestic redwood trees in the park where I walk, who remind me that we are part of them and they of us.

I can appreciate this feeling of loneliness too, as evidence of a life lived, a heart opened, desires known and filled, tears and smiles…all the passion of being human.

I am lonely and it’s ok. It proves that my heart is still beating, still loving, still here, as am I. I have enjoyed all the feelings in my life, all the experiences, touches, companionship, and relationships. I love tasting it all, feeling it all.

Remembering is not a bad thing, even if it brings nostalgia and wistfulness. What a gift and joy it is to have lived this life so far, to have others in my heart bound there by love, to wake up to another new day each morning.

I am still here, still alive, still feeling, and so very grateful.

Appreciating the Cloudy Days

Why is sunny weather always considered good?

Photo by Alberto Sharif Ali Soleiman on Unsplash

I love foggy, cloudy, rainy and stormy weather. I always have. I am not talking about the kind that is severe and causes damage and injury, but the regular kind of stormy grey weather that is normal, part of the weather, part of life.

Maybe it’s the melancholic part of me, the part that relates to storminess, greyness, not being bright and sunny. I am, for the most part, an optimist, although I must admit that these political times are testing that severely.

I look for the lessons in pain, am grateful for all of my feelings, feel like they all have value and are part of the glory, bittersweet as it is, of being alive.

I am constantly bombarded by judgmental weather forecasts. Laugh if you must, but these days, I guess my irritability quotient is higher, for the political reasons mentioned above. I now speak up. In whose opinion I might respond to the weather forecasters on TV when they predict lovely weather ahead, meaning sunny and bright.

I find it amusing that people are so perplexed by my view.

Good weather, I respond, is in the eye of the beholder. I know that people don’t mean any harm, but frankly, it’s getting on my one last nerve. I can’t wait, they say, for this lousy weather to change. Might I point out that I don’t complain when they are in their glory and talking about the wonderful sunny days. I ask for the same respect about what I feel, like taking comfort in the clouds, being soothed by rain, feeling understood by storms, and feeling safer in the grey, where it is somehow more acceptable not to be out and about bouncing around like happy extroverts.

Ok, so this is my introvert side speaking. But she deserves to have her space, and I am finally old enough to claim it, own it, and speak it aloud.

I can accept that most people seem happier with the sunlight. They like houses that have a lot of light. It’s even a selling point in real estate. Darkness and greyness are pejorative terms.

My house is not light and bright. It has more of a cabin in the woods feel. I feel welcomed by it when I walk in. Inevitably people describe it as cozy when they visit. It is a small house, and it suits me perfectly. I enjoy being cozy. I don’t enjoy bright and open spaces as much with no place to sit quietly with my thoughts, hidden from the brightness, and with darker spaces that grant more permission to explore the grey storms within.

It’s interesting, I think, to look at all the ways that brightness, extroversion, and bubbliness are seen as better somehow in our society. I love Susan Cain’s books and work on the power of introversion (Cain, Susan, Quiet -the Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, 2012) and the recognition of the bittersweetness of life (Cain, Susan, Bittersweet -How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, 2022.) I am a card-carrying member of that tribe.

I am an ambivert. I strike up conversations with strangers in elevators, notice my environment and frequently interact with others around me. And I also love, after my time when I have been out being social, to retreat to my nest at home to replenish myself, to come home to me, and to feel all that may be churning inside me, which usually includes a few storms within.

As an elder now, I find that I express these parts of me much more, and express myself when I am not feeling seen or heard. I don’t express everything to everyone anymore, which is also one of the joys of having reached this age for me. Why talk about such things with those who have no understanding of my language of storms and no interest in learning about that, but who would rather try and coax me into the sun and have me look up at it, not hearing that this hurts me.

Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy sunny days. But truth be known, I am more at home in the grey, in the storms, in the quiet rain, in the fog. I am home when I feel safer to be all of me, and when I can retreat and simply be. I am home in my cabin and quiet.

So, weather forecasters, please take the judgment out of your descriptions. Say it will be sunny, don’t say it will be great. Say it will be cloudy or rainy, but don’t call it dismal or gloomy or something to be tolerated until we get back to the good weather. Could we just have the facts, please.

And maybe, just maybe, we could grant ourselves and each other the same grace when it comes to our feelings. Maybe we can say we are sad, angry, frustrated, joyful, or excited, but not have to call it feeling good or bad. There really is no good or bad when it comes to weather or to feelings. Yes, some may not feel as pleasant as others, that is for sure. That doesn’t make them bad. They are simply feelings. They are part of the gift of being alive, like weather is part of the gift of this precious earth. It needs the sun and the rain, as do we all.

So, I wish you whatever kind of day that you need, that nourishes you, that helps to sustain you. Claim your own kind of weather. Claim what speaks to your soul. .

Portrait of Rage

I finally found the motivation to start painting again

I haven’t felt the urge to paint for months. The political climate, the chaos, the pain of our country and of the world…it has all felt like too much trauma. I find that it can freeze and immobilize me.

And then a thought started popping up in my brain. What if I tried painting the rage that I felt? What if I let some of that out onto a canvas? I have written about it, which helps. So, why not paint it as well.

I have never painted fury before. Now I had inspiration. I have a sign that I take to protests with a photo of Lady Liberty hiding her face in shame, embarrassment, and sadness. And now I have an additional image, an image that expresses what I feel we need to tap into more. An image of Lady Liberty’s righteous wrath that expresses ENOUGH.

I am not sure how we will turn things around in our country, but turn it around we must, or at least begin. It will take some time, I believe, and I may not be around to see it finally happen, being an elder with much less time ahead of me than behind me. In the meantime, I will do my part. I cannot sit idly by and watch our country and what it really has stood for be destroyed by a tyrant and his sycophants. Cults are dangerous. Lies become the norm and chaos confuses everything. ENOUGH.

My portrait’s face emerged clearly to me as I painted what I felt inside me. I could feel the pain in her eyes, the storm inside, the sense of betrayal and determination to fight back for what she has stood for, and the strength pulled up from deep inside. Yes, we can feel sadness, but we must also tap into our fire and power, our vast power that they are attempting to quiet and discourage.

I kept painting. I saw the furrows in her brow, the fire in her eyes, and felt the burning flowing from me and through me to what was showing up in front of me.

I want to remember what Lady Liberty has stood for all of these years, what we have been proud of, what message she has tried to spread. We have been far from perfect with her message, but at least there was the intention to include, welcome, and embrace. It is, I believe, what has made our country great…to come here and become an American, with your own roots and to all work together to be better, to do better, and be one in our intention and purpose.

This is not what we are seeing now. And I am furious, as are so many of us. Rage is powerful.

For most of my life I was taught to swallow my anger, to dampen it, suppress it, push it aside.

No more.

One of the joys of aging for me has been the growth toward being who I authentically am. And right now I am authentically enraged. I am also disheartened, demoralized, sad, hurt, in shock, and infuriated. It’s time to claim this fury and use it for good, to come together to turn things around.

We had to have a revolution before, and we may have to do that again. So be it. Sometimes you have to fight for what is right. Sometimes the boundaries need to be clearly drawn and defended. Sometimes you have to get their attention with a show of strength before they can hear what you are saying. Sometimes you have to be louder, angrier, relentless.

An artist’s canvas is not only about peaceful beauty. Sometimes it is about powerful, raw beauty. It is about fighting for what is right, about ferocious love, determined kindness protected by power and strong boundaries…holding hands, marching together, making calls, donating, protesting, screaming, voting.

We are all artists… painting our lives, writing our lives, speaking our lives, singing our lives, each finding our own way to allow our voices to come out and speak the truth of who we are and who we want to be. Together we have more power than we realize, more than they want us to realize. Do not believe the lies about you. You are more powerful than you think. You are no longer a child who cannot fight. ENOUGH.

Let’s use our brushes, our pens, our voices, our microphones, our souls…and let us come together. We must fight. We must revolt. We must tap into our strength, the strength that also comes with kindness, compassion, and pure anger. Let’s create a portrait of rage that can help speak what must be expressed.

We must become what a friend of mine called my painting when she saw it…a bad ass Lady Liberty, one who has had enough.

I Don’t Need to Feel Important

But I do want to feel significant

We can spend our lives searching..for purpose, for meaning, for love, for answers to our questions. Society gives us ideas about what is important, what we should strive for, how to make a difference and fulfill our potential.

But we can get lost in the search for that elusive purpose. It fades, we fade, everything fades.

So, what do we do?

I realize that rather than being important, I would cherish being significant, even for a few moments, in the lives that I may have touched. I mean significant in that I was seen, saw them, and that we connected, significant in terms of moving into others’ hearts with perhaps an act of kindness, a word that they may have needed to hear, a touch that says more than words can convey, a steady reliable presence, a memory that brings a smile when they think of me.

To be a smile, to have been noticed and part of someone’s life…that is significant. To have been in someone’s heart, even for a moment, that is significant.

And, as I continue to age, I have come to realize that I need to be significant to myself. What do I want to do with this brief time that I may have left? What matters?

I want to still contribute, to volunteer where I feel called. I want to reach out to others with kindness so that they can breathe more easily for a moment in time, to touch their soul and have them know that they are safe with me, to share what lessons that I have learned with those that may be interested in what I have to share. I want to let them know that they are not alone.

I want to feel and live in my own soul and know that I matter, that I am still here, still alive, still able to breathe, to feel, cry, laugh, and love, perhaps in different forms than when I was younger, but to love, nonetheless. I want to finally validate my own personal history, what I have been through and to appreciate that I made it to here and now. I want to hold my heart and soul with tenderness and love, to be present for myself, as I try to be for others, to be the love that I have been searching for all along, and to find, with poignant bittersweetness, that the missing piece that I have long been searching for has always been inside me.

I will write, because that is where my voice feels most comfortable expressing itself. I will paint, because that is where my Self with no words comes out. I will cry, because this earth and all its creatures, trees, pain, joy, birth, and death, are wondrous, awe inspiring, and worthy of sacred tears.

I will live, until the last moment, because life and time are precious. I will keep using my voice to fight for what is right, keep loving amidst the hatred and division currently being sown in our land and in the world, keep setting boundaries to my love to protect and safeguard it and yet spread it where it is needed, especially to those who realize the sacredness of it and who will cherish it.

Finally, I am learning to cherish my own love, life, and self. I am learning that I deserve to be significant…to myself.

Tending to My Broken Beautiful Heart

An elder heart and its many cracks

My heart is aching these days, for many reasons.

I think that as an elder, there are more cracks and broken places in my heart than there are untouched places. That’s a gift. It means that I have been putting this heart to good use, been loving with it, been risking getting it broken, been getting it broken, been open to the pain around me and in the world, been healing it to start all over again.

Except these days, my heart is asking me to try and be a bit more discerning about the breaks. One too many might cause it to explode, it tells me. And maybe that’s ok, too, if it is exploding for loving in the right way at the right time.

Different kinds of love experienced by this heart of mine

I love the earth and its trees. I cannot gaze into the eyes of an animal for very long without both smiling and shedding a tear. I relate and connect in a way where words do not get in the way.

I love the children at the zoo where I volunteer and their sweet innocence and awe.

I love my friends who reach out to me and aren’t afraid to see the broken places in me. In fact, they touch me from their own broken places, and we are both healed for a moment.

I love the random connection with a stranger as we exchange hello’s and know that we are really exchanging love, simply because.

And oh, the romantic loves that I have had. I cherish each of them. They helped me become who I am today. Like the Japanese vision of a broken pot with its cracks being repaired by being filled in with gold and becoming even more beautiful, so it is with broken hearts. I have a lot of cracks these days. So, I must be filled with that wondrous gold shining through indeed.

Online romance, or scam…?

And here I am (trigger alert for elders’ vulnerability to the seduction of romance), feeling broken hearted and sad, yet also grateful. I have had contact with a man online, I hardly ever respond to these online requests, but something about this one felt different.

He had responded to my posts and read some of my writing online. His words were the kind that touch my heart, about my openness and vulnerability in my writing, about feeling the ache beneath some of the words, about seeing and hearing me. I felt moved. This is exactly the kind of approach that can get to me, can draw me in, can make my heart beat a bit faster.

I responded, thanking him for his lovely feedback. We wrote back and forth. He asked questions, as did I. I wondered where this was going and knew that I needed to be careful about online situations with someone who I never met, especially someone from another country. And then I found out he was so much younger than I. I am embarrassed to even admit this here, but he is 34 years younger than I am. I felt like the typical older woman who is in danger of being scammed and used. Shame and embarrassment began to come up inside me.

I must be honest that, even though I had not been looking for romance this way, my heart began to open to some of his words, which felt like poetry to me. I realized how much I sometimes miss this romance, how much those wants and desires can still live inside me, how I have set them aside for a while now.

I could hear the romantic direction that he began to go in his writing. And it was in a way that was seductive for me, not with crassness or physical innuendos, but with tenderness and wishes for closeness and connection, with reflecting back what he heard and felt in my writing, with sharing some of his own pain and history and vulnerability.

I knew that I had to address this, to let him know that I questioned if he was real, and that even if by chance he was, there was no way that this would go further with this huge age gap, that it could not happen. I wrote more saying that if this was a scam, then not going further was taking good care of myself. And if it wasn’t a scam, then I still had to take care of myself in something that could not work, would not work.

His response was lovely. He wrote that he understood, told me that he was real, realized that he might have moved too quickly, but felt drawn to me and what I wrote and who I seemed to be. And he went on to say that he would still be there if I wanted to reconnect, waiting patiently, and that he would always be grateful for what we had shared, even if for a brief moment in time.

Is it a scam? It might very well be, but I don’t know for sure. It certainly awakened parts of me that caught me off guard.

The surprising gifts

What I know is that this experience has been a gift, because it opened a place inside me that has been shut down for a long time. It awakened my heart to what it can still long for. It made me feel the ache inside my chest, the tears buried deep inside me, the ache in my throat, the longing for tender kisses and words that help me feel seen, heard, and cherished. There is a gift that comes with the pain of not having what I crave, yet knowing that I am still alive enough to crave it, the gift of having found all of that still inside me. How wondrous and bittersweet that is.

I still desire, whether that is acknowledged by others. I need to acknowledge that within and about myself. Can I get scammed? Definitely. That is why I need to own that loneliness within so that I am aware of it, am aware of not being pulled into something that may be the final straw for my tender heart. I am vulnerable to the right words, the tender acknowledgments, to feeling seen and heard. I need to remember this about myself, own it and protect that vulnerability in me from any who might abuse and hurt me.

The final message is for my own heart

And so, I say to my heart, I hear you. I will take care of you. I am so proud of you and your ability to still love so passionately, to still crave, to still desire, to still feel the longing. How wondrous and amazing you are.

I am here. I see you and all your vulnerability. I will do my very best to take good care of you. If and when we explode, it will be a glorious explosion, drenched in tears… tears of joy, tears of love that cannot be contained, whether seen by anyone else or not. And most of all, I will do my best to give you that love that you crave. I see you, hear you, feel you, and cherish you. I am here, whether someone else ever will be or not. I am here.

A Very Different 4th of July

No fireworks or parades for me this year. I just can’t.

It’s the night of the 4th of July. This is a holiday that I used to love celebrating, especially as a child. As a daughter of immigrants, my parents taught me such pride for this country, such gratitude for what she provides, such love for her. As a child, I would even entwine red, white, and blue crepe paper in the spokes of my bicycle and ride proudly around my neighborhood. We would go to parades and at night go to watch the fireworks with such awe and pride.

I have always felt that pride and love…until lately. Now I fear for this country and her very identity and all that she has stood for.

I can hear the fireworks, and I feel strangely detached from them. If anything, they remind me of bombs that can destroy a country, the bombs that my parents would describe from World War 2. How much destruction those bombs would cause (my mother lost one of her sisters to a bomb). The pain of liberty fought for was always very real for me, as a daughter of these brave immigrants.

And as a young adult, I fought to stay in this, my beloved country, when my parents wanted to move back home to their country of origin. They informed me that we would be moving, that I could go to college there in Italy, and that they were making plans for all of this to happen.

For the first time in my life, I said No. No, I wlll not move there. No, I wll not leave my beautiful America. No.

Because of my No, I was on my own, having to figure out how to support myself, how to stay in school, how to survive. Survive I did. I figured out how to work my way through college and earn a degree. Was it harder? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes.

And now, in my elder years, I feel as if this beloved sacred country that offered refuge to others, that tried to welcome all (imperfectly, to be sure), that stood for freedom of speech where you had the right to disagree and express your opinion….this is all being threatened. Immigrants, most of them not criminal, are being rounded up and deported, all the while being treated in an inhumane and cruel manner. Differences between us are defined as bad, people who disagree with us are defined as other, division is constantly created and fueled by our leaders. We are aimed at each other so that we do not see what is happening above us. People are called names, cruelty and being mean are becoming a norm for what to expect from those who are in positions of power. Seriously?

Freedom is being stripped away, quickly and brutally. Fear is being spread everywhere. Those whom we elected to represent us and to follow our Constitution are bowing to a would-be-king, out of fear of losing their jobs. The Supreme Court, who is supposed to be above all of this, is no longer supreme. To say that I feel disappointed does not even begin to describe the depth of the sorrow and betrayal that I feel.

The sound of the fireworks is unsettling to hear tonight. To me, it is the sound of a people being distracted by pomp and circumstance, by lies… this is what I hear. And it hurts deeply.

Friends call to wish me a happy 4th, and I cannot even bring myself to wish them the same. I let them know that I am not in a space to celebrate this year, that we are in deep trouble, that we need to pay attention to this, that these fireworks might as well be aimed at destroying our democracy. Is this what is being celebrated today?

At times today I felt like I could not even breathe. I felt pain in my chest and in my throat, the pain and heartbreak of betrayal and of things lost, destruction of values, and loss of ways of life taken for granted. My head hurts from trying to understand how this happened. I shed many tears, felt immobilized and unable to even speak with friends, letting them know by text or email what was going on inside me.

I did get the opportunity today to communicate with a soulful young man who is fighting for his country of Ukraine. His courage and conviction still resonate deep within me. He is putting his life on the line to fight for freedom from someone who wants to take over their country and take away their very identity. My heart breaks for this young man and his people. We connected for a moment in time, he and I, across the boundaries of country, gender, and even age, to hear each other and offer support. Here was this young man, offering support to me from the midst of a horrible war. There is much kindness in this world, and strength in that kindness, if we stand together.

Can we begin to do that more here? I miss that connection that I used to feel with all Americans. What happened? I think that many people were feeling left out, not heard, not taken care of, and they looked for someone to change things. I can understand this. We did and do need change, but not what is happening today. This is not change, this is the destruction of our country and what it has stood for. This is criminal.

Laws are being ignored. Power is being funneled toward one branch of the government, and not the three that are supposed to balance each other. How do we come back from this? Can we?

Now that I am older, I realize that coming back may take some time, more time, perhaps, that I may have left to live on this earth. I can’t let that stop me from doing what I can now.

So, I will get up tomorrow morning and continue making calls, contributing, protesting. I must. We must.

I, as an elder when I write about aging, have often written that I am not dead yet. And I like to believe that our democracy is not dead yet, although there are times that I am not sure about that. We cannot give up. We must keep fighting for all that we have stood for, for who we have been to the world, for who we have been to each other, for trying to do better and be better, for inclusion, welcome, and equality, for being woke (can we please reclaim that word) as in awakened to the suffering and needs of others and trying to help rather than destroy. America has been great, and I like to believe that we can get there again.

But, for right now, I am going to skip the fireworks. Instead, I will keep stoking the fire of righteous rage within me. I will be kind, I will set boundaries, and I will resist where and when needed.

It’s time to say No again.

The Normalization of Cruelty

Our leaders are setting a pattern, and I must resist

I feel very sad today. The politics in our country recently have felt so demoralizing, infuriating, depressing, sad. Today it is hitting me more. Maybe because the 4th of July, Independence Day, is coming up this week, and it feels so very different this year.

I have never talked about politics so much in my life. And I find myself writing about it a lot. I need to get some of it out of me, to be able to take the next breath, to be able to focus and write about other things as well. Please bear with me as I vent a bit more today.

I still feel shocked at watching our democracy being destroyed by someone who wants power and will do whatever it takes to get that, who lies and projects all that he is onto others, who creates chaos and destruction while he works on something even more evil, quietly, quickly.

I am an elder and have lived through many fights for freedom in this beloved country of ours. We are imperfect, for sure. But we had an intention, at least by many, to do better, to be better.

That’s not true so much these days, given those currently in power.

Yet, I know that there are many of us who still believe in peace, in inclusion, in the welcome that our Statue of Liberty greeted others with. We are still here. How do we find our way back? Can we? Will I live long enough to see this madness turn around? What can I do?

How do I express my rage in a way that does not drop me down to the level of those that I see doing these things that I detest. How do I maintain my integrity yet fight for what I believe in my soul is right. How do I navigate the waters of the dominant cruelty that I see and hear. How do I not only survive but fight to pass on some of the glory and love that I have known our country to stand for.

We have many faults in our history. Racism, many isms, things we need to keep working on, to do better, to be better. And we have been trying to work on it, albeit imperfectly and way too slowly.

But now the fear in those who are currently in power and don’t want to lose it grows large and turns to hate, retribution, and cruelty. Evil threatens to take over. Hatred threatens to drown out love, light, and hope. And cruelty and violence seem to trickle down at times, as if there has been permission to operate from the darkness and hatred.

I do not believe that this is who we are, deep down. We are better than this. America is better than this.

We cannot give up. There is too much at stake. Our silence and sense of being overwhelmed is what is used against us. We must protest. We must keep on. We must fight for peace, use our anger to fight for love, use our rage to defeat evil, and use our righteous anger to set the boundaries and say ENOUGH.

As a child, I felt powerless, having grown up in a completely authoritarian home. I was to be seen and not heard. I was to be what they expected. I was never to talk back, to disagree, to express a difference of opinion, to be a self that was not what the powers that be wanted me to be. I had to swallow my Self, quiet my voice, and wait until I could get out.

So, I learned to endure until I could escape. I did, finally. I fought with everything that I had to get free, to make my own way. Have I had a perfect life? No. Do I have amazing accomplishments to show for it? Not really. But I have me. Me. I found the Self that was silenced, but not destroyed, that was still there inside of me. I have my voice.

Now here I am as an elder, and some of those old feelings are coming back. I once again feel the fears, fear of expressing who I am, what I feel and think. I see minorities being targeted, hated, deported, imprisoned. I see division created, with false categories of us and them. I see young women treated once again in ways that I thought we were breaking free from. I see chaos created, lost souls trying to survive, cruelty being normalized. I know that there is still much kindness in our country as I see and feel it every day. But this is not the news that we hear and see and not what we are constantly fed.

No, this cruelty and destruction must not happen. We have seen this in the history of our world and we need to learn from that.

I must do more this time than cry quietly in my room as I did when I was a powerless child. What I learned to do then, to endure, was what a child can do. But we are not children and we have more power than we realize.

I don’t have enough time or life left to endure, as I am at the later end of my life. So, what can I do while I am still on this earth? What can I do to help others to not be treated with hatred and as if they are less than. What can I possibly do to help turn this around. What can one voice, a voice that took me a lifetime to finally find, do?

I don’t know the answer yet. What I do know is that there are many voices that are aligned with mine and that we must come together to claim our power. I must keep trying, keep talking, writing, protesting, praying, yelling, contributing where and when I can, showing up, and not enduring.

No more enduring. I have already mastered that skill. Now is the time to work on something else. It’s time to rebel, resist, come together with others loudly, as well as quietly, time to fight for our lives and souls, and for the very soul of our beloved country.

I hope and want to celebrate another 4th of July in a country that celebrates freedom of speech, does not condone cruelty, and that extends a welcoming beacon of light and hope to those who want to love this as their home.

If Lady Liberty Could Speak

Remember who I am and who we all are.

I have always loved the Statue of Liberty. Her face is a strong one, filled with determination and force. She is not to be taken lightly. She represents freedom that has been fought for with blood.

Now as an elder woman, perhaps I relate to her on even more levels. I can hear her voice more as I can now hear my own voice. I have slowed down and stopped enough to hear us both and feel what lies deep within us.

She represents freedom won through the years, the right to speak, disagree, and be, and the right to breathe freely without fear. And as a citizen of this country that she represents and that I have deeply loved my whole life, I feel her essence even more, her fierce stand for freedom on so many levels.

Freedom that has been taken for granted.

Freedom that we are in deep danger of losing.

I wonder what she might say to us today. I wonder if she would be horrified at what is going on in our country, the country that she has proudly stood for, a country that she has been a welcoming beam for, where the first sight of her brought tears of gratitude and joy to those coming to her, coming for sanctuary, coming for solace, coming to give their children more than what they had, coming for the freedom to breathe.

What might she say to us all? I can almost hear her voice speaking…Can you hear her?

This is what I hear…

Listen to me. I have been a proud symbol for you. I have stood for the best of what you are and for all that has been fought for. I have been a reminder of what we are, all that we can be, for hope, faith, inclusion, and a sense of welcome and hope.

I am still here and am so sad at what I see happening. I feel the pain of the division among the people that are all part of this great country. I have stood for the freedom and rights that lives were sacrificed for, for the relief of the first breath taken in a free country by those who have been punished, stifled, beaten into submission in other countries where they came from. I have been the symbol for the promise of better things, for the right to speak the truth, the right to protest what feels wrong and unfair, for the right to disagree and yet all be together in one country that is home to us all.

I have been your home, I have been proud to stand tall for you and with you. I want to keep doing that. I am in danger. You are in danger. Our freedom and very breath are in danger. Our lives are in danger.

I know that there has been, for a long time, much to work on, that there have been problems and inequalities and pain for so many. But our intent was still there, written on my very being. Our morals and values were still there, even if we had a long way to go to achieve them. We can work on those problems together, but we do not have to destroy ourselves.

Confusion is planted everywhere. Words are used to mean the opposite of what their intention is. Anyone labeled as other has become demonized. Privilege and power are being granted to the few. Color, race, and different countries of origin are demonized. Humanity is being divided against itself, while those doing the dividing are quietly destroying everything for their own purposes.

Listen to me before it is too late.

I was born out of revolution and the desire for freedom. It was a fight that was hard won. Now I see it being dissolved and “disappeared”. We are deporting people that helped to make this country what it is, people who work hard to provide, who are proud and grateful to be here, and who don’t take this for granted. People, most of them not criminals, are being kicked out and sent to prisons and detention centers. Those who are different are being hated and named the enemy. They are your brothers and sisters. They may have come here to find me later than you did, but your ancestors were just like them. That is why you are here. Now you want to take that away.

We are a country of immigrants. Coming together should make you stronger, the differences weaving into a cloth that is harder to unravel because of all the variations, colors, hues and fabrics that come together to make it stronger. It is beauty that is being painted as ugly. It is our very foundation that is being destroyed around us.

What do I need to do to get your attention? What can I say? How can I make you hear me and heed my warning, pain, and fear?

To those who have been chosen to lead people, represent them in government, but are now quietly submitting to a dictator and would-be-king… Wake up. What are you doing? Listen to the crowds protesting. Listen to the fear and hatred that is being sown to distract you from all the destruction that is being done. Listen to those for whom you work and their pleas to you to do what is expected of you, to do what they voted for you to do, to do your job.

To those quietly despairing, I hear you and I understand. The danger is real. Do not give up. Do not be quiet. Do not be hopeless. I come from revolution, from fighting, from refusing to be dictated to, from refusing to have liberty taken away. Do not let them win.

I am still here. You are still here. There has been a lot of damage done, yes, but it is not over yet. If you start believing that it is over, then it will be. This is what they want you to believe. This is why I am speaking to you, calling you to be your best selves, crying out to you to keep me standing here, proud and welcoming. I am you. Do not let me die. We are stronger than this. Stand behind me and with me. United we are more powerful than evil. United we are America. Help me continue to stand proud for generations to come. We can do this, and we must.

Maybe it’s time to listen to Lady Liberty and all the older women among us and heed our call. Hear our strength, listen to our memories of battles fought and won, feel our spirit and determination, and carry forward what is the best of us all.