Category Archives: growing older

Still standing

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I love old doors! When I found these two in an ancient house, I was hooked. They have weathered time and hardship and still are standing with a special beauty all their own. They remind me of family.

My sister and I have had our differences over the years, and our moments of joy together. But as we grow older, it is our shared history that becomes especially precious to me. Just like these old doors.

We know what it’s like to experience South Dakota thunderstorms, and steal apples from the neighbor’s orchard, and make snow angels in chest-high blizzard snow. No one else in my life, no one else in the world, can do that with me.

Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver and the other gold.
~Girl Scout singing round~

 

The hat makes the man…or the woman

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hats of the trade

Once upon a time, a millionaire of immense wealth decided to retire from business. He built a huge estate and in one small room off his library he kept his hats of leisure: a boater for the concerts given on the Aeolian pipe organ in his billiards room, a jockey’s hat for riding along his bridle paths, and a pith helmet for building the elaborate network of trails to the top of every mountain (there were six) on his estate.

I live in a less formal time, and I’ve owned a different collection of hats. There was the small blue hat-with-a-veil that I wore to my own wedding. A black velvet mortar board (with a tassel of real gold) that I wore to my doctoral university graduation. A hiking Tilly hat that has seen most of Arizona. A gardening hat made of paper which, I understand, will melt when it rains.

The first two have disappeared into the mists of history. The last two I still have, but I keep a close eye when storm clouds gather overhead!

Every night before I turn out the lights to sleep,
I ask myself this question:
I done everything that I can…
Have I done enough?
~Lyndon B. Johnson~

 

 

Falling apart and coming together

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Out of plumb

This ramshackle house, about to collapse, with not one true-square corner to its credit, is how I wake up some mornings. Out of plumb, not syncing with the world I find myself in. My jokes don’t seem funny, even to me. My cat purrs and bites me at the same time. I stub my toe on the sidewalk edge I have stepped over hundreds of times before.

And then I have to stop and breathe. I’m fine. The world is fine. We will all make it through this life, together.

     Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.
                  ~The Velveteen Rabbit~