Life Ever Renewing — Even in Age

“It’s a great life, if you don’t weaken,” my mother used to say.

“It’s not over until the fat lady sings,” is an oft-repeated allusion to the final arias in Wagnerian operas — as well as baseball games (!!)

In the general spirit of these morsels, I want to share what I’ve learned this past year about regeneration and renewal in late middle age.

In my small corner of the world, as I take cuttings from bright red geraniums to overwinter, batten down my storm windows, and like a squirrel start to collect small treasures  for December’s Christmas stockings, I have been amazed, humbled, and grateful beyond words for the new forms of creativity that have emerged when I was sure that these streams of purpose were over.

I have learned that life and the spirit of renewal are always beckoning, even in the bleakest of times.  We only have to pay attention and agree to a bit of playful surrender to its call.

I’ve discovered that I could finally pull together a collection of the poems I have been writing in private for nearly a quarter century.  They will be published in February.

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I have taken up – joyfully – pickleball.  I have designed and tended new gardens, pulled out my old watercolors, returned to yoga, and offered several profoundly meaningful – to me — online spirituality programs.

These days, I look for inspiration to the likes of women like the painter Alice Neal, who continued to create her amazing portraits well into her 80s, to Sr. Joan Chittister, still the guiding light of several generations of spiritually-minded women, also hard at it into her mid-80s.  And how can I omit Dame Prue Leith, who at 86 still sports her neon glass frames and flashy wardrobe across the screen of British television?

My mother was wrong about one thing.  We CAN and DO weaken with the blows of life that come at us.  But we can learn to stand again, take our small spot on life’s grand stage, and sing.

Here, my morsels of wisdom…what I’ve learned – for the creative life, friendships, marriage.  You’ve read them before, perhaps, but they remain vital and true.

1. Stay involved….Even if you feel you are “done” with some skill or earlier creative passion:  join a group, take a class.  My high school friend Beth began taking watercolor classes a few years ago.  She is now in a group that regularly travels to beautiful destinations for week-long artist retreats.

2. Give back – Be generous. Share what you know.  Your life will be so much richer for it.  The poet and potter M.C. Richards, a stalwart at the great Black Mountain School, spent her later years at Camphill Village, an intentional community, where she taught pottery to residents with developmental disabilities.

3. Stretch yourself. Don’t let the elasticity of your connections atrophy.  I’m a hermit.  I am ambivalent about things like reunions, zoom meet-ups.  My friend Susan, in her late 70s, relocated to the Cape from Boston.  Within weeks, she had found a community of fellow book artists, and at this writing is part of a marvelous group show in Cotuit.

4. Go for it!!! Do you have a sketchbook full of work you’d like to polish and exhibit?  A folder full of collages?  A drawer full of poems.  Local cafes, libraries, and bookstores are always looking for original work.   Reading series abound and are excited to find new voices.

5. Don’t forget to pray. You aren’t here alone.  The Spirit wants the best for you, always.

Namaste.