Third Acts

Off We Go

Recently, I extracted myself from all that was familiar and moved with my husband 2,400 miles west of the place we'd called home for 27 years.  That's a lifetime.  No, really: it's my son's lifetime.  We moved to Michigan from Arizona when I was seven months pregnant, and we calculated tenure by his birth.

Seems inconceivable to have spent that much time anywhere. It's inconceivable to have spent that much time on earth!  Does everyone experience this dumbfoundedness as they age? I recall my grandparents being quite comfortable with their elderliness.  They fell into an easy swing, keeping a regularity of mealtimes, walks, tedious tasks that passed the time and gave them purpose. Weekly menus stayed the same, their clothes, their haircuts, the purchases they made: there was nothing new to adjust to, and that was fine with them.  Why is it my friends and I seem restless?

I won't count myself among the "elderly," something for which I'm sure my peer group is relieved. But I count my years and realize I'm past middle-age.  Years ago at a thirtieth birthday party, a friend received a t-shirt that said (paraphrased) "I'm not going downhill: I'm still climbing.  That's why I'm tired all the time."  But I am now feeling the wind in my hair.  My life roller coaster car has tipped over the top.  Y2K was how long ago?  Seems like just last year we were questioning our reluctance to store in our crawl space water jugs with added drops of bleach, and some cans of spam.  And Fig Newtons.  To quote my father:"They just never deteriorate!"

Yes, the acronym YOLO makes the rounds these days, and as far as we all know, it's true.  Even if it isn't true, we don't remember the previous lives, so it's moot.  Currently, I'm spending a lot of time on my own in small studio apartments as J and I move from one Airbnb rental to another, an adventure of its own, I suppose.  The niggling daydream I've had for years to be recognized as a writer is now an annoying idea.  I either act on it, or I let it go.  I let go of a lot of stuff when we emptied our house, realizing that if my kids didn't want it, it ended with me (more on this another time).  But instead of letting go of this particular fantasy, I need to make it reality.

So here goes.  And the question of the day: what are you taking with you in your coaster car as you pick up speed going downhill?

THE MIDDLE AGE

They call it middle age.

It is hoped that this age is the middle,

and some other age is the end.

The Middle Ages is most noted for the plague:

the Black Death.  The Shadow of Death,

for all its blackness, hangs over me

in my middle age.

I think about dying more now

than when I was a child, first experiencing death

with aged relatives

who had odd behaviors

and certainly were ready for it.

My father died at 58.  “So young,”

said women in the plant

where I worked.  “Really?” I thought,

all of 22 , and seeing the middle age landscape

as a distant horizon. 

I’ve always been bad with distances.

I consider now my husband dying,

and want some reverse incantation

just in case the thought alone

conjures the hooded specter.

I think of me dying, and am both

intrigued and afraid. 

As a believer, I want to see Jesus,

and want also to have Him give me some great

assignment I have to complete here

on earth

that will take a long,

long time.