A friend of mine on a social site posted a quote recently that made her angry. It was something along the lines of defining four particular rites of passage required to become an adult. The four listed were: leaving home, becoming financially independent, getting married and having children. Her anger was due to the fact that not everyone is allowed to get married and not everyone is able to have children and she felt that having those requirements for adulthood left a large chunk of our population out of the loop. I agree with her and I have felt how ingrained those particular rites are in my own experience and how I am frequently judged for missing two of them.
However I've long since passed the stage of angry indignation and I can't seem to work up much of a head of steam over it any more. I recognize that people look for particular mileposts, not so much out of a desire to judge them or belittle them, but to find common ground on which to meet. It just doesn't seem like such a terrible thing to desire, even if some of that common ground is marked off limits to me.
I did have a couple of experiences recently though that got me thinking about how to mark off some new territory. Last weekend my partner and I went out to my car, turned it on and started off down the street. Almost immediately we noticed an odd thumping sound. I pulled over and she jumped out of the car to look. One of the front tires was completely flat. From there I could go on into the rest of the day's adventure in getting to my yoga class in time to teach it, getting home and taking care of the tire before all the shops closed for the weekend. And I do have a really good story about it that I've been telling everyone with great delight!
The story though isn't really the point. The point is that even in the midst of the stress of taking care of a flat tire, something in me was sitting up and taking notice because it was my very first flat tire in my whole life. That took it out of the category of annoying things that happen in life and put it into the special category of "Rites of Passage". Even while taking care of the situation I felt myself moving into a deeper understanding of what it is to be an adult and an owner of a car. It's something that connects me to other adults who own cars.
Then last night I made quinoa and I was able to rinse it easily because we finally bought a real sieve, one that a grown up would use, solid, made of metal with a fine mesh. And again I thought, I've made it now–I am a for real adult person with a sieve!
What I find interesting in both these cases is that they illustrate in some ways how I define adulthood to myself. You would think that a 43-year-old woman would feel her inherent grown-up-ness quite strongly, but, in fact, I still look for these signs of moving from one stage to another. For many people, these particular two events would have happened significantly earlier in life. Others may live out their entire lives without a real sieve and never feel anything amiss.
Sometimes it's tempting to look at the stages of life sort of like one of those video games where you do certain things, accomplish certain goals, and the music plays, you get points, and your character moves on to the next level. Life, though, is significantly more convoluted that that and the accomplishments of different stages may not be quite so simply defined. Where do you find your common ground and what are your particular rites of passage to get there? Maybe we can all find a little space to stand.
copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aging. Show all posts
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
The Physics of Facebook
I joined Facebook not too long ago, under protest and sure that I would hate every part of it. There are parts of it I don’t appreciate. And I just close my eyes and stick my head in the sand when I see how carefully targeted the ads are that pop up in response to anything I write. (Goodbye, privacy!) One thing has surprised me though—the opportunity for grace and healing.
First I found a man I had befriended back in college during turbulent times for us both. We developed a friendship and became lovers all in 2 weeks, after which we never saw one another again. We tried to stay in touch but, as I said, it was turbulent times and things get misplaced when everything is moving. Over the years I would try occasionally to find him again with no success. I changed my name so I thought there was no chance he would ever find me. And then on Facebook there was a friend request from him and a short note. We reconnected, spoke on the phone and had that opportunity to say to one another, “You were important to me. It was only 2 weeks and we moved on but you were someone who meant something.”
Then came the high school ex-boyfriend, who broke up with me and with whom I broke up over and over. And over, over the years. When it finally ended it was bad as these things often are. But I always loved him deeply, thought of him with fondness and regret and never imagined there could be healing. Then came Facebook. And again the chance to say, “You were important to me. I’m sorry I made mistakes. I’m glad you’re well and happy and I still love you deeply.”
In both cases I just keep marveling… Twenty years and more it’s been and yet, here’s the healing, here’s the grace. And I feel so grateful. And that’s what they both have expressed to me as well, the gratitude for this chance to say what needed to be said. And the wonder that it has been provided to us after all this time.
I started thinking about how I will frequently tell students not to force a pose, but to allow breath and gravity to create it for them, with ease. The forces of nature are a given but we can choose to work with them, and in some cases to allow them to do a lot of the work for us. Frequently we are tempted to fight them at every turn, trying to do something we have envisioned despite them.
Time is one of those forces as well, and one that we often feel we have too little of and have to struggle against. Lately though with these moments of grace provided via electronic means I’ve been wondering if I can let go of the concept of time as an enemy and allow it to help me create my space in the world. With these two relationships, over the years I often felt that I needed to do something somehow to change things, and here all these years later the time itself has done the job. I find myself often frustrated by the things I’m not doing, or that I have stopped doing, because I feel like I don’t have the time. At the same time, I feel a sense of desperation, a feeling that I have to do something, ANYTHING, to change my circumstances. I’m not getting any younger, I think to myself, and I may lose the ability to do all these things I want to do.
That is very true, no doubt about that. And you really don’t know when and how things may change so it makes sense to seize the moment. But churning frantically through my little piece of time because I’m desperate to do something doesn’t seem to be effective in allowing me to seize anything. I'm like the panicked drowning person surrounded by rescuers, liferings and boats incapable of making use of any of them. So maybe instead I will try to allow myself a sense of spaciousness, remembering the grace that time has allowed me to access with these people, and remember that the 20 years past, while they have gone quickly, have also given me space for many opportunities and changes. There is no reason to believe I cannot also have that in the 20 years to come if I am willing to work with the time and allow it to help create me, my pose in the world.
copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
A Perfect Day
Okay, so the book is finished. *wild cheering ensues* Yes, of course, I'll let you know where you can find it when it's published which should be very soon. Writing it was an interesting exercise in letting go of perfection, first in the writing itself, just to get words out of my head and into the computer in enough volume to make a book, and then in the editing, letting go of the idea that if I just got the commas right and rearranged the sentences just so it would become the best book ever in the history of the universe, and then in the cover design and blurb, figuring out how much input was just enough input to let the artist do her work. The concept of perfection is daunting and limiting and hard to let go of.
But now it's finished. Which frees up all kinds of time for me and I can go back to a more normal routine. Yesterday I was manic: teaching, cooking, cleaning, doing doing doing...I was full of purpose! Today I slept late and couldn't seem to manage handling much more than an extra cup of tea on my to do list. I'm always annoyed with myself when that happens. Why can't I figure out how to dole out my energy evenly over time? I talked with my mother this morning and she assured me that she hasn't figured it out and she has 20 years on me. So maybe I'll never learn it?
Talking with my mother lately has been interesting. I'm aging, you see, in very clear ways these days and as I've come into middle age my mother suddenly has become more of a peer. At the same time, my step-father has been sliding into dementia, picking up speed on his way down. As my mother and I share more and more of our everyday lives with one another, I see her struggling to cope with this new challenge, forming her days around trying to alternately accommodate then manipulate him just in order to make it through each moment, wishing that if he can't go back to what he was that he could just, you know, go. Go peacefully, go before she has to hate him for taking away her life and her freedom. And I've been realizing that I actually have to grow up, grow up in a different kind of way this time, take on a new role with my parents, and it's a real struggle. I don't want to have to be that kind of grown up.
I've been talking it over with my partner who is older than I am and whose mother is farther along that line and whose father has died already, and she has told me about having to become the bad guy, to take the pressure off the parent who just simply doesn't have the internal resources any more to do it all and make the hard choices.
And it's all so surprising to me. Which is in itself surprising, you know? I mean, this is what happens, right? We've all seen the progression before and read about it and seen it in movies. It shouldn't be a surprise. But I'm finding as I come into each new life stage that the things you think you know about what will be, you just don't really know. Or more accurately, you just don't know the way it is inside the experience as it's happening. It feels surprising when you arrive, even when you feel like you could write the book about it before you ever get there.
So I had the conversation with my mother and my partner came home for lunch from a really, really bad day and in the middle of my crying for all of the surprise I feel, we come to one another and touch each other simply, knowing we need to get on and go about our day.
And I teach 3 classes, none of which I look forward to teaching and each of which brings me joy and the memory again that moving my body in the midst of, well, anything really is a good thing, and I am surprised again by that fact which I learn each time, every time I move, every time I teach and connect with students, every time I practice. And then in the midst of the third class of the evening when I'm tired and ready to sleep instead of doing yoga, when my mind is blank trying to come up with what to share with my students, and every class lately is becoming one long hot flash so I move through class wet and red-faced, sweat dripping off my eyelashes and puddling on my mat. Right then on this very not very perfect day, suddenly everything falls away, even while I know I am still there in all of it, I am moving, I am sweating, I am breathing and I am invincible! I am perfect. I am perfectly held, perfectly balanced, no limits to my possibility. I know this very certainly and in this moment it is truth. And I am so very grateful for my perfect day in my perfect body with my perfect life.
copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles
But now it's finished. Which frees up all kinds of time for me and I can go back to a more normal routine. Yesterday I was manic: teaching, cooking, cleaning, doing doing doing...I was full of purpose! Today I slept late and couldn't seem to manage handling much more than an extra cup of tea on my to do list. I'm always annoyed with myself when that happens. Why can't I figure out how to dole out my energy evenly over time? I talked with my mother this morning and she assured me that she hasn't figured it out and she has 20 years on me. So maybe I'll never learn it?
Talking with my mother lately has been interesting. I'm aging, you see, in very clear ways these days and as I've come into middle age my mother suddenly has become more of a peer. At the same time, my step-father has been sliding into dementia, picking up speed on his way down. As my mother and I share more and more of our everyday lives with one another, I see her struggling to cope with this new challenge, forming her days around trying to alternately accommodate then manipulate him just in order to make it through each moment, wishing that if he can't go back to what he was that he could just, you know, go. Go peacefully, go before she has to hate him for taking away her life and her freedom. And I've been realizing that I actually have to grow up, grow up in a different kind of way this time, take on a new role with my parents, and it's a real struggle. I don't want to have to be that kind of grown up.
I've been talking it over with my partner who is older than I am and whose mother is farther along that line and whose father has died already, and she has told me about having to become the bad guy, to take the pressure off the parent who just simply doesn't have the internal resources any more to do it all and make the hard choices.
And it's all so surprising to me. Which is in itself surprising, you know? I mean, this is what happens, right? We've all seen the progression before and read about it and seen it in movies. It shouldn't be a surprise. But I'm finding as I come into each new life stage that the things you think you know about what will be, you just don't really know. Or more accurately, you just don't know the way it is inside the experience as it's happening. It feels surprising when you arrive, even when you feel like you could write the book about it before you ever get there.
So I had the conversation with my mother and my partner came home for lunch from a really, really bad day and in the middle of my crying for all of the surprise I feel, we come to one another and touch each other simply, knowing we need to get on and go about our day.
And I teach 3 classes, none of which I look forward to teaching and each of which brings me joy and the memory again that moving my body in the midst of, well, anything really is a good thing, and I am surprised again by that fact which I learn each time, every time I move, every time I teach and connect with students, every time I practice. And then in the midst of the third class of the evening when I'm tired and ready to sleep instead of doing yoga, when my mind is blank trying to come up with what to share with my students, and every class lately is becoming one long hot flash so I move through class wet and red-faced, sweat dripping off my eyelashes and puddling on my mat. Right then on this very not very perfect day, suddenly everything falls away, even while I know I am still there in all of it, I am moving, I am sweating, I am breathing and I am invincible! I am perfect. I am perfectly held, perfectly balanced, no limits to my possibility. I know this very certainly and in this moment it is truth. And I am so very grateful for my perfect day in my perfect body with my perfect life.
copyright 2010 J. Autumn Needles
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Making the Best of Things
Some time ago I wrote an entry about how nifty people are because we have this incredible ability to take a bad situation and find something of value there. But no attribute is purely one-sided and I've been thinking lately about the flip side of this one. Unfortunately, our use of pure grit and wishful thinking to just make things work out is sometimes too successful and we find ourselves trapped in a cell of our own design somewhere we really don't want to be. The energy we need to just make the best of things is often less than the energy we need to change for the better. So, like the good little animals we are, we make the choice that requires less of us, and in the process we do ourselves damage.
I recently had a cold that took a tediously long time to resolve. I kept working during that time and just slogged through the days. While I was very aware of the feeling of my body working its way through the virus, underlying that I had a strong sense of general well-being and health. And, although I kept working while sick (don't try this at home, kids!), my body just felt strong and vibrant and I didn't feel too stressed out about the work. This experience was in stark contrast to how I felt when I used to get sick at my last job, where my body felt badly used and every virus made me feel beaten down. I point out the difference because I wasn't really unhappy at my last job, and, if I hadn't injured myself badly at one point, I might still be there today. In a job that I drifted into without any particular direction, a job that physically exhausted me to the point where I changed my other habits to accommodate my exhaustion, a job that didn't speak to me or challenge me, a job doing something I frankly thought was a waste, a job where I would come back from one vacation only to begin the countdown to the next one. Why did I stay there so long? I could give you a hundred reasons, but they all boil down to: It's where I was and I needed to find a way not just to be comfortable with it, but also to incorporate it fully into my own story, to make peace with being there, to care about it.
What is difficult is that it always seems so clear in hindsight, that choice we ought to have made long ago. I had a yoga instructor who would occasionally raise his hands to the sky, "Seventeen years!!" he'd cry, referring to his 17 years as a celibate monk. "Why?" he'd ask. I am thinking of this now because I just had another birthday which was the occasion of looking at the joy that is my life today, the places I would like to go with my life in the future that I am working towards, and at the same time looking back and asking that same question. "Why? Why on earth did I waste so much time?"
Yes, I know what you're thinking. You're getting all yogic on me and thinking about how we have to live in the now, and our pasts are what created us, blah blah blah. Whatever. And all kidding aside, I get that. I do. (Mostly.) But I think where I'm going with this is, how do we make the time that we waste less? When we fall into that trap of making the best of things, how do we know when we're doing it right? And how do we know when we're just trying to make our story end a little better by editing it a little?
When I was a kid, I thought that every book was somehow sacred. If I began reading a book, in order to show respect to the author and his or her work and experience, I had to finish it. It didn't really matter if I liked it or thought it was good, my duty was clear. Finish the damn book. I was well into adulthood before I broke that habit. I think as we get older we get less tolerant of wasting time. Or at least of wasting time with something that isn't fun or of value.
Lately in order to help figure this out for myself I've been just beginning to use a new tool that came from an odd place. A few weeks ago I decided to take the test to become a certified group fitness instructor. The process I went through will have to be saved for another day's tale, but one little piece of the information jumped out and made its way into my psyche in a way that I don't think was intended. In creating an appropriate class we were taught to ask 5 questions about the exercises we choose. The first question is, "What is the purpose of this exercise?" At first I wasn't very interested in the question, or in any of the others for that matter. In yoga, as far as I'm concerned, the purpose of the exercise is just to get all the parts of ourselves focused in one place and time so that we can really pay attention carefully. For this class, we were talking about purposes that involved specific muscles and bones and heart rates and body fat percentage–it just wasn't all that interesting to me. But I kept finding the question resonating around my brain. "What is the purpose of this exercise?" And I realized that using that question might be a good way to begin weeding out those things that simply aren't functional in my life, but that I have been making the best of anyway. The second question: "Is it doing that effectively?" Huh. Well, that's actually a really good question. Because if it's not, then why am I here?
I don't have any kind of final wisdom on the matter. I am sure that 10 years from now there will still be things I look back on and think, "Why oh why did I waste that time?" But I think being more mindful of asking those questions at the outset and really paying attention to the answers might help make that wasted time less.
copyright 2009 J. Autumn Needles
I recently had a cold that took a tediously long time to resolve. I kept working during that time and just slogged through the days. While I was very aware of the feeling of my body working its way through the virus, underlying that I had a strong sense of general well-being and health. And, although I kept working while sick (don't try this at home, kids!), my body just felt strong and vibrant and I didn't feel too stressed out about the work. This experience was in stark contrast to how I felt when I used to get sick at my last job, where my body felt badly used and every virus made me feel beaten down. I point out the difference because I wasn't really unhappy at my last job, and, if I hadn't injured myself badly at one point, I might still be there today. In a job that I drifted into without any particular direction, a job that physically exhausted me to the point where I changed my other habits to accommodate my exhaustion, a job that didn't speak to me or challenge me, a job doing something I frankly thought was a waste, a job where I would come back from one vacation only to begin the countdown to the next one. Why did I stay there so long? I could give you a hundred reasons, but they all boil down to: It's where I was and I needed to find a way not just to be comfortable with it, but also to incorporate it fully into my own story, to make peace with being there, to care about it.
What is difficult is that it always seems so clear in hindsight, that choice we ought to have made long ago. I had a yoga instructor who would occasionally raise his hands to the sky, "Seventeen years!!" he'd cry, referring to his 17 years as a celibate monk. "Why?" he'd ask. I am thinking of this now because I just had another birthday which was the occasion of looking at the joy that is my life today, the places I would like to go with my life in the future that I am working towards, and at the same time looking back and asking that same question. "Why? Why on earth did I waste so much time?"
Yes, I know what you're thinking. You're getting all yogic on me and thinking about how we have to live in the now, and our pasts are what created us, blah blah blah. Whatever. And all kidding aside, I get that. I do. (Mostly.) But I think where I'm going with this is, how do we make the time that we waste less? When we fall into that trap of making the best of things, how do we know when we're doing it right? And how do we know when we're just trying to make our story end a little better by editing it a little?
When I was a kid, I thought that every book was somehow sacred. If I began reading a book, in order to show respect to the author and his or her work and experience, I had to finish it. It didn't really matter if I liked it or thought it was good, my duty was clear. Finish the damn book. I was well into adulthood before I broke that habit. I think as we get older we get less tolerant of wasting time. Or at least of wasting time with something that isn't fun or of value.
Lately in order to help figure this out for myself I've been just beginning to use a new tool that came from an odd place. A few weeks ago I decided to take the test to become a certified group fitness instructor. The process I went through will have to be saved for another day's tale, but one little piece of the information jumped out and made its way into my psyche in a way that I don't think was intended. In creating an appropriate class we were taught to ask 5 questions about the exercises we choose. The first question is, "What is the purpose of this exercise?" At first I wasn't very interested in the question, or in any of the others for that matter. In yoga, as far as I'm concerned, the purpose of the exercise is just to get all the parts of ourselves focused in one place and time so that we can really pay attention carefully. For this class, we were talking about purposes that involved specific muscles and bones and heart rates and body fat percentage–it just wasn't all that interesting to me. But I kept finding the question resonating around my brain. "What is the purpose of this exercise?" And I realized that using that question might be a good way to begin weeding out those things that simply aren't functional in my life, but that I have been making the best of anyway. The second question: "Is it doing that effectively?" Huh. Well, that's actually a really good question. Because if it's not, then why am I here?
I don't have any kind of final wisdom on the matter. I am sure that 10 years from now there will still be things I look back on and think, "Why oh why did I waste that time?" But I think being more mindful of asking those questions at the outset and really paying attention to the answers might help make that wasted time less.
copyright 2009 J. Autumn Needles
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
There Goes the Sun
I don't really have time for this post. I am busy with other things. But this post has to do with Solstice so writing it now is timely. Sometimes, the time determines itself regardless of what you have planned for it.
Time has been on my mind lately. I took a walk on Solstice to let myself feel what Solstice is out there. What's happening around me on the day that both celebrates the strength of the sun, while seeing it into its decline?
Oddly (or not) I've been very aware of my own strength lately while seeing ahead to my own decline. I feel physically/mentally/emotionally better and stronger and more full of juice than ever before in my life. At the same time, I have never before been so aware of my age and of the passage of time, feeling a kind of frantic need to pack in as much as possible all at once. The heightened awareness has been kind of annoying to me actually and I suspect maybe to my friends and loved ones as well. (No need to chime in! Really!)
As I walked I realized suddenly that not only is the planet in Solstice, but I am in my own Solstice as well. That realization brought me quite a bit of peace. The sun comes up and the sun goes down, but oh, we enjoy it so much when it's at its height! There's no point in worrying about the fall because we know it will come but it's not here yet. Solstice is what it is, for me, for the sun, for the planet. We don't get a do over for the springtime, and the fall will come when it comes.
I found another happy note in my ponderings on the seasons: My name is Autumn for a reason. As much as I fear the end of summer, I have an inkling the best is yet to come. But for now, I will revel in the sunshine.
copyright 2009 J. Autumn Needles
Time has been on my mind lately. I took a walk on Solstice to let myself feel what Solstice is out there. What's happening around me on the day that both celebrates the strength of the sun, while seeing it into its decline?
Oddly (or not) I've been very aware of my own strength lately while seeing ahead to my own decline. I feel physically/mentally/emotionally better and stronger and more full of juice than ever before in my life. At the same time, I have never before been so aware of my age and of the passage of time, feeling a kind of frantic need to pack in as much as possible all at once. The heightened awareness has been kind of annoying to me actually and I suspect maybe to my friends and loved ones as well. (No need to chime in! Really!)
As I walked I realized suddenly that not only is the planet in Solstice, but I am in my own Solstice as well. That realization brought me quite a bit of peace. The sun comes up and the sun goes down, but oh, we enjoy it so much when it's at its height! There's no point in worrying about the fall because we know it will come but it's not here yet. Solstice is what it is, for me, for the sun, for the planet. We don't get a do over for the springtime, and the fall will come when it comes.
I found another happy note in my ponderings on the seasons: My name is Autumn for a reason. As much as I fear the end of summer, I have an inkling the best is yet to come. But for now, I will revel in the sunshine.
copyright 2009 J. Autumn Needles
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