The Magnetic Draw of the North
Some of you have wondered why I have embraced the term - women rowing north. Well, partly I am reiterating the title of Mary Pipher’s book, Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age, her words accurately reflecting for me this journey towards our later years. North feels like the end of the earth to me, the end of a journey. Heading west symbolizes the start of an adventure or a career. East represents new beginnings - sunrises and birth. And heading south – well, that just makes me thinking of droopy boobs and double chins.
Susan Cain, the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, wrote in a Facebook post earlier this year, “Whenever I have to make a tough decision or sense that I’m headed in the wrong direction due to someone else’s idea of what success or goodness looks like, I open a new computer file and write at the top of it: True North. Then I keep looking at those words and write down what really matters - to me. Not to someone else.”
Other words that make meaning of rowing north for me are from Lilli Nye, an intern clinician, completing a Masters of Science in Counselling. She wrote, “While it’s true that one can get a very strong intuition to do something in particular—or not to do it—I’ve come to believe that the compass is a more apt metaphor for the way intuition and inner guidance work. The compass needle doesn’t point southwest to indicate that you should turn southwest, and then switch to due south when that’s the better way to go.
The compass simply shows you the direction of the Earth’s North Pole. The point of the needle is drawn toward the north because it feels a magnetic attraction to north. That’s all the compass does for you. North is the only thing it reveals. What you do in relation to that knowledge is up to you. You can move directly toward it, you can turn in the opposite direction and walk south; you can keep north in the corner of your eye as you move in an easterly direction. You can hike upstream along a winding creek bed that meanders first this way and then that, but always moves generally in a northerly direction.” I am following that meandering, winding river.
Last year, Kate Bowler, a historian at Duke Divinity School and podcaster who interviews church leaders and everyday believers about how they make spiritual meaning of the good or bad in their lives, hosted a conversation with Mary Pipher about the Art of Aging. Erin Lane, author, theologian, and ‘someone other than a mother’ pulled together a series of discussion questions for this conversation.
These questions provide space for some self-reflection as we head north on this journey. They may not all resonate for you, they don’t for me, but I think it’s helpful every now and then for us to stop and think about this journey we are on.
Around the world, the number one thing that correlates with happiness, Mary says, is realistic expectations. What are your expectations for a life well-lived? How about a day well-lived? An hour well-lived? What clues do you look for to tell you whether your expectations are right-sized?
Mary encourages people to build a good day, in whatever increments they need, in whatever ways help move them toward health, friendship, creativity, and beauty, among other things. What are the building blocks of your good day?
“If we’ve been growing, if we’ve had our lights on, then what happens is, as more is taken from us, the more deeply we appreciate what is in front of us,” Mary reasons. Do you agree with Mary? What practices help you keep “the lights on” in your own life?
Aging is a series of losses. But, if we let it, it can also be a series of gains, such as skills, understanding, and attitudes that accumulate over time to help us cope. What do you think makes the difference between someone who feels expanded by age and someone who feels diminished?’
Kate asks Mary, “What are the best gifts you’ve found as you’ve grown older?” Among those Mary names are how many friends she has and how much time she has to spend with them. How would you answer that same question—no matter your age?