You Fill My Heart

Last week, I asked Ageless Possibilities subscribers for ideas for blog posts and resources - and you delivered! What I find fascinating is receiving the same links from multiple readers. Links that are humorous, wise, and resonate with Ageless Possibilities.

So, this week, I want to share some of the gems I received from some of you this week, woven through with my reflections.

Our Aging Bodies

Ann and Nancy both sent me a link to an article Anne Lamott wrote for the Washington Post, The dressing-room encounter that made me get real about aging. Definitely an article about one of my favourite topics, aging bodies. Here are some gems from this article:

One morning 10 years ago, my young grandchild asked, “Nana, can I take a shower with you, if I promise not to laugh?”

My two-year-old granddaughter is fascinated with my body. When she stays with me, I bring some toys into the bathroom for her to play with while I shower. She never plays with them. Instead, she sits on the little garbage by the bathtub and watches me shower, naming all my body parts as I wash them. No judgment, just wonder that I share the same body parts as her mother, but they don’t quite look the same!

Lamott writes about walking with her 84-year-old friend Neshama, short and sturdy with fuzzy hair. Neshama had come planning to swim. She took off all her clothes. 

“Do you feel shy?” I asked as she walked to the bank. “Nope. This here is what I done got. This is what me being alive looks like now.” She scooched her butt over a tree trunk, like the world’s most graceful Komodo dragon, lifting one leg over and then the other, and then slipped into the water.

Have you ever swam naked? I often see women swimming naked in the little bay near our home. These women are comfortable with their bodies, not shy in each other’s presence or in the company of strangers walking by. How I envy them! The only time I swam naked, was in a backyard pool under a moonless sky. 

And then there was the dressing-room encounter she shared.

Pammy and I went shopping a few weeks before she died. I needed a new dress for a concert with a new boyfriend. At the time, she was in a wheelchair and a wig. I came out of the dressing room wearing a short dress, tighter than normal and asked if it made me look big in the hips. She looked me in the eyes, calmly. “Annie,” she said, “you don’t have that kind of time.” That sentence shocked me into getting real about how I was spending my life.

I also felt the impact of that sentence. I have wasted so many years being ashamed of my body, avoiding activities and social events because of my body, dieting, and talking about being overweight.

I recently discovered the poetry of Andrea Gibson. I checked out her website and read the following words in one of her Love Notes From the Chemo Room:

Cancer patients don’t complain about aging. “I’d love to look like that someday,” I whispered to Meg when on our walk last week, we saw a woman with so many wrinkles her face looked like a road map to heaven.”

That sentence just puts all into perspective, doesn’t it?

Blessings, Gifts and Gratitude

Beth, Margaret and my daughter all sent me the following quote. I had also seen it in my Facebook feed:

What if your markers of success were how well you slept at night? How many books you read? How easily you laughed? How much time you spend storytelling, and feeling warm in the arms and homes of people you adore?

Success is no longer a word in my vocabulary; it is a word that has been used far too frequently to measure markers that have little meaning in life. I prefer to think in the language of gratitude and blessings. I am grateful that I can sleep well at night. I am so blessed to feel warm in the arms of the people I adore. I am thankful to have access to so many books. Storytelling fills my days. And laughter is a gift I cherish.

The Gift of Stories

A woman from one of my Writing Our Life Stories groups, sent me a piece she had written about Christmas over the years. Another reader who had heard the story, described it as “a childhood Christmas that moved from stark austerity to the brilliant light of family love.” The story gave me pause as I remembered the traditions we adopted as a Dutch immigrant family in a new country. No stockings, no turkey, but on Christmas Eve, we would drive into Montreal to see the lights. Santa (in the guise of my mother, always the last to get into the car) stopped by while we were in the city. Returning home, my mother would fix snacks and drinks, and we would open presents late into the evening. When I met my husband, I learned new traditions. With the birth of our girls, we introduced new traditions. And now, as an omi and grandpa, we are discussing traditions we would like to start for our granddaughter and future grandchildren.

Receiving this story was such a special gift. Writing my own life stories gives me hope, enlightenment and peace. The stories heal parts of me that still ache. Witnessing the life stories of other women has made me laugh, cry, and rage. Their stories also help me remember my own stories. They are a constant reminder that, as aging women, we have so much in common. 

A Sense of Belonging

And so I circle back to all of you rowing north with me. How we share so much as we struggle through rapids, paddle along calm rivers, or pull ashore for a rest. You fill my heart. I used to scoff at virtual friendships. But, you have blessed me with a gift I did not think I would ever receive, although I longed for it for years. You have given me a sense of belonging, and I am so grateful.

I look forward to continuing our shared journey north. I wish you peace, health, and hope in 2024.