At 61

Yup, it happened earlier this month. When I started this blog, I was in my 50's, and a mere year and a half later I am well into my sixties. It's very surreal, like so many other things these days. Most of the time I don't believe it, until I think of the clothing, cars, and architecture of the 1950's American world I was brought up in and I have to be honest with myself.

I've just decided what will make this post-60 river eminently worth floating down, and it is surprising new experiences. (And I'm not talking about the news!) Yesterday, I waited for the bus to my job in the 15-degree cold. It was 8:00 AM, I was facing (roughly) northwest and the sun was just starting to come up behind me, in the southeast. I suddenly realized that my right cheek (facing north) was warm, very warm, as if I was standing by a heater (which I was not). I looked around, and couldn't figure out the source of the warmth. It persisted. I finally realized that the rising sun was hitting the second-story bay window across the street, and the glass was reflecting it onto my cheek, creating an intense spot of heat. (It reminded me of being a little girl and taking my mom's magnifying glass out onto the driveway, and holding it over a dry leaf until it burned. I wasn't interested in creating fire, to this day my least "favorite" element, just in understanding the sun's power. I don't think anyone took a photograph of me at that moment, but my mind's eye sees a black-and-white image of me in cat's eye-framed glasses, plaid kilt and saddle shoes, scrunched over in concentration.) As the bus arrived, I thought, I've never felt the warmth of the sun reflected in a window across the street before. A small thing, but the kind of "first" that I need to cultivate.

Another "thank you" nod to the heavens came upon reading something posted by writer Anne Lamott: "Love is sovereign here, all evidence to the contrary, I promise you. The current fever dream has no chance against the forces of love..." Thank you Anne. The only thing I would add to her lovely words, which ended with a reference to love "winning," is my thought -- to follow up on what I said yesterday -- that part of this whole shift is finding a new language that helps us to express a world beyond all conflict, all "winning vs. losing." All competition. All fighting. I mean, that is the problem, how hard it is to speak or conceptualize outside our confrontational norms. Maybe I just need to think of yesterday. The sun didn't "win" over the cold blue sky, or its warmth over the ice. It just touched my face second-hand and felt nice. Strangely simple.