Perhaps the biggest thing to happen in the last five days has been an important realization. The strange half-light of this new world that I am in certainly makes you see things differently.
As regular readers know, I seem to have reached age 62 with very little "to show for it," certainly from the standpoint of belongings, worldly accomplishments, relationships, and abundance. For a long time, I bought into the criticism of family and even "friends" that I have done "nothing worthwhile with my life." Even now, that belief is like a sludgy undertow, carrying me backward as I try to find my way forward in the stream of life.
Early Monday morning, I had a moment of grace. In the 4 AM silence, I thought, that is pure unadulterated rubbish! I have thrown myself into the "endeavor of life" with almost unprecedented, courageous vigor. I scanned my life from a different perspective, seeing not one, not two, but three post-high school degrees, two of them "cum laude." I felt the energy of my first job and apartment near Washington, DC, and my enthusiasm for my MMus year in England and travels in Europe. I thought with amazement of my subsequent move to frenetic New York City, nearly a decade of answering letters to the editor on world and international events (me, a music major!) and my volunteer singing and museum work. Even in the decades since then that have taken me to unlikely places and jobs, I have thrown myself into each adventure 150%, giving $10-an-hour jobs at least three times that much excellence, meeting new friends, caring for pets, sick people and lonely houses with compassion and conscientiousness. I've cooked for organic farmers, learned rowing, taught hundreds of students, painted hundreds of paintings (many of them given as gifts), loved big lakes as much as the streets of London, and faced even the hard things with relative aplomb. Re-aligning myself with English church music in "middle age" has brought me accomplishments and peak moments that I am hugely proud of, even if they are nearly invisible to other people ("I finally sang evensong at King's"); yes, at times it has been impossibly hard because I've made so little money, but all in all, mine has been a life of love, passion, and the pursuit of wisdom. On my best days, I still feel like a force of nature, brimming over with energy and the willingness to learn.
If there's anger, bafflement, and confusion, it's really focused on one thing; why am I measured/judged by what hasn't been reciprocated by our culture's economy, not by what I have done? Do you know what I mean? This is decidedly not about my "not having done anything worthwhile"; it is about someone, way back when, deciding that love, passion, creativity, beauty, and caring were worthless, so that even today, someone like me must fight daily for an iota of stability in her life and for a sense of pride. Indeed, millions of people from all walks of life are fighting for their lives and for a sense of pride. Something is very out of kilter here. Res ipsa loquitur. The thing speaks for itself, doesn't it? Doesn't it?
