Bonica Rose
though I’m not twenty
and won’t be again but ah! seventy. And still
in love with life. And still
full of beans.
~Mary Oliver
I have been bracing for this birthday for months. Not at all sure that I own the graciousness to slip into this new decade for which I feel wholly unprepared, have no clue how to prepare myself for. It's a mystery how this has happened. Months, years, decades ripped from the calendar all the while yes, in the visible everything is changing, has changed: I now have jowls, wrinkled toes, my arms resemble my grandmother's, even my lower arms, and there is no wearing long sleeved shirts year around, it is simply too hot where I live. So there it is. Or, as one of my favorite YouTube peeps says, And there you have it! Saggy body, wrinkled, hanging chin beneath my actual chin, eyes shrinking, balance no longer always up to tree pose. Reality arrives, along with words like horror and terror and shame; average life expectancy--which I creep ever closer to.
Then there is the invisible. The part of me, of us, that never changes, the part that has not aged, will never age. I remember a long time ago in my early forties, wiping the mist from the mirror after a long soak in the bath, I see myself and at the same time, I see something else. Not actually see, but feel something else, am aware of an ethereal something, a presence, outside of myself but also inside, and all around me, in the entire room; something, I could not name, or find words for except that I knew that whatever this was that I was suddenly aware of, that had chosen this random Wednesday morning in early summer to reveal itself, it was somehow what enlivened me, and beyond that, it was unchangeable; not only would it never age, it would never die.
In these two lies the mystery. Between the visible and the invisible, that which is in focus and not in focus, matter and spirit, human and soul, lives the greatest most heartbreaking dichotomy, the profound chasm in which we live impermanently on this cherished earth, in this beautiful, bittersweet world, with our precious, beloved loved ones.
Once a few years ago talking to my therapist about aging, about my dread of it, my fear, she said something that utterly surprised me. She said, yes, of course, you would feel that way, Debby. Trauma has kept you from fully living your life. That will change, she added, as together we retrieve all that has been left behind, hold the pain and sorrow, the waves of all encompassing grief, witness and let heal all that has been wounded.
(I didn't believe her... isn't everyone terrified of growing older and dying?)
This morning at 5:51 I turned seventy. To my surprise, the world did not end, has not ended, I am not curled in a fetal ball filled with terror. New words have come in the weeks leading up. Words like perspective. Like thankfulness. Like precious. Wow. This morning new ones are added, like holy shit. They weave themselves in with all of the other words in the tapestry of change, of life, of living. In this brilliant shell of decaying matter, She is ever present, whomever She is. Both local and vast. Mortal and not. Personal and mystical. The one in the bathroom mirror. The one who is at turns afraid and in awe, who loves life to the point of the painful, always has. Who is, like Mary Oliver, "still in love with life and still full of beans."
And there you have it, in a nutshell. No matter where in life, no matter what age, to still be full of beans. What more could one possibly hope for?
Self-Portrait
by Mary Oliver
I wish I was twenty and in love with life
and still full of beans.
Onward, old legs!
There are the long, pale dunes; on the other side
the roses are blooming and finding their labor
no adversity to the spirit.
Upward, old legs! There are the roses, and there is the sea
shining like a song, like a body
I want to touch
though I’m not twenty
and won’t be again but ah! seventy. And still
in love with life. And still
full of beans.
Thank you, Mary Oliver.
Seventy!
💗
