Every transition to a new beginning must start with an ending, and the ending can feel like loss. There is no good path to the future until the past has been acknowledged and released.
Release.
Tag: aging
Something about: Aging
At a party recently I met a lovely woman who did not want to be photographed. Gesturing with her hand to her face and body, she said: You don't know what this used to be because you didn't know me; but I know. I remember being young and pretty. She reminded me, this woman, of … Continue reading Something about: Aging
Sex, death, and middle age.
"I know you said you don't want any of this, but I think you'll actually want one thing," he said, dropping some folded papers on the kitchen table.
It was a letter, five pages in long-hand, from my mother to my father, a few months before they married. When we had gathered the belongings from my mother's garage years ago, the letter must have slipped from a box into an adjacent pile.
Ever green, and orange and black.
Memphis, once known as the hardwood capital of the world, was built on a bluff, the Chickasaw Bluff, along the eastern side of the Mississippi River. The soil on the bluff, according to my limited understanding of it, is an interesting mix of loess (windblown silt), glacial gravel and alluvial deposits, good for filtering water … Continue reading Ever green, and orange and black.
Not tedious, but brief.
For the past few weeks I've been in the good company of more than 200 million people around the world, all of us still hearing the lingering echoes of John B. McLemore and Brian Reed, seeing ghost images of clocks and sundials and tattoos, and a maze.... As you know either very well or not … Continue reading Not tedious, but brief.
The comfort of familiar things.
I've been thinking about getting a tattoo. If we know each other, in real life, then this revelation may be shocking. If we know each other very well, though, then it's possibly not unexpected. I have been thinking about it, a tattoo, though not terribly seriously, for longer than I'll admit, even here. Tattoos, like … Continue reading The comfort of familiar things.
Happy.
After her fifth or sixth miscarriage, my mother, resigned to the reality that a baby might not be in the cards, went with my father to the animal shelter and came home with a puppy. Without much debate they named the small, black-and-white ball of fur Happy, partly because the dog's mouth was shaped in … Continue reading Happy.
Life begins at 50.
The third thing she told me was that life begins at 50. She said this just to me, out of earshot from my traveling companion, as she was tucking me back into the driver's seat, right before she said, "I love you," which is what she always said at the end. We had been together … Continue reading Life begins at 50.
jenny's lark 