tamarjacobson

This …

… is what it looks like …

… to be almost sixty … 22 days to go …

A year ago at Mining Nuggets, when I was still only 58: As if I was tagged

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Quotes for the day

… Ada in the warm sun.

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Kicking the habit …

… Hm … and I am not done yet! …

 

Today, I am 59 and eleven twelfths. In one month I turn 60. [My old/young friend, Donna, generously and supportively reminded me about that this morning!) These are the things I am beginning to understand about becoming a sixty-year-old-woman:

• My ankle, hip, back hurt every now and again for no apparent reason. Sometimes I pop a couple of Advil and sometimes I do not. I live with it and it goes away. I don't let it stop me from walking briskly up and down the hills of Chestnut Hill, nor lifting my 8 pound dumb – bells. 
• Yoga stretches and pranayama exercises feel deep and comforting and spiritual. I sink into them like into a warm bubbly bath and pull their healing into my soul. When I am done, I feel like a lithe, young woman, and I stand as tall as five feet two inches (and shrinking) is able to reach.
• When I love, it is with all my heart. I love Ada, my life partner, my son – I love the seasons, the sky, trees and flowers, squirrels, nut hatches, cardinals, robins serenading outside my window at 4:30 in the morning when I awake. I love the smells of spring, snow in the winter and the hottest summer days when sweat pours down my face, under my armpits and into my shirt. I sob uncontrollably when a hawk catches a bird from my feeder, when my son plays his music on the piano, or if while driving, suddenly I remember Charlie's eyes the last time we looked across the room at each other, or holding Mar-Mar in my arms as she took her final breath.
• It is a relief to apologize and forgive. Anger has no excitement for me any longer. There is no time to bear grudges or hate someone these days. Lately, just as I am about to start feeling rage about anything at all, understanding and forgiveness seems to rise up in its place. 
• Passion feels real, and deeper than when I was young. Pain and compassion for the human condition is sometimes overwhelming in its forcefulness.
• I enjoy alone time more than I ever have. The other night, when I was away in San Diego at a conference, I wandered alone for half an hour to find a Brazilian restaurant I had heard about.  Sitting in the dim light, alone at my table, I felt an overwhelming sense of comfort and pleasure, enjoying the food, ambiance, deep red wine, music, and watching people coming and going, celebrating, sharing, eating, breaking bread together. 
• I adore the Internet – Skype, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, I-Phone, YouTube, connection through the anonymity and yet, oh so, public space of the Cyber/virtual world.
• I feel the presence of Time in every thing I do, in each waking moment, and, even, threaded through my dreams. Tempus fugit. No more time to waste on regret, shame, guilt or greed. I pull myself back into here and now, and cherish what I can moments after disappointment or anxiety fill my emotional space.    
• Death often peeks over my shoulder, nudging me gently, even though I am not quite ready to confront it yet. I think that moving into my sixties means Death might move with me slowly from nudging and peeking towards a more prominent presence in the future. 

There is more that I am beginning to understand about turning sixty – one month away today. Definitely more. For, I must admit that entering into my senior years is an exciting prospect, rich with change and deepening of understanding, even as it is accompanied by trepidation about reaching towards all the unknowns that come with aging …

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Reaching for a higher vision (Update I, II, & III); & What's wrong with the black vote?

And then, this morning, I saw this quote at Time Goes By:

It is out there -in the universe – the no-pain-no-gain concept. But, as I said in my presentation on Saturday – not for young children, please. 

We do not have to hurt young children to teach them. 

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Hope for PA; Listen with the possibility of being changed (Update)

We were all young once …