Tag: Gretchen Staebler

Tiny Choices and Small Moments

“So, what are you plans for the day?” I asked Sig one morning last week, before he got too involved in monitoring our stocks.

“I haven’t decided,” he casually responded.

Heading upstairs to get ready for the day, with a stop in the kitchen to warm up my coffee, I thought how wonderful, how privileged even, to have the freedom to decide your day. Later on, I mentioned this to Sig, and he agreed, both of us recognizing the gift, the abundance, the richness of his statement and our lived reality.

old pine on the riverbank at sunrise

Yesterday, reading a couple of blogs from my writerly friends, both meandered around this insight. Helen, in Ageless Possibilities, opened her reflection inspired by a quote from novelist, Louise Penny, in which she describes life as being made up of the tiny choices we each make every day. Helen writes,“Years ago, I made a collage titled Someday, a visual dream of reading, gardening, lazing, yoga, friends, and family. I did not realize then that someday was quietly unfolding through my daily choices.”

Gretchen, author of the wise and bittersweet memoir, Mother Lode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver (IMHO, required reading for anyone navigating the care of elderly parents) wrote with spicy humor and a dash of irreverence, “One does not have to carpe the crap out of every single day.” Call it a gift to self as she described her recent 73rd birthday, shored up by others who echoed that it’s always the small moments of a life – being present to and curious about – that matter.

We’ve had a ridiculously cold start to summer with inches of heavy, wet snow falling in the foothills and highway whiteouts on Solstice. Last weekend, thunderstorm warnings resulted in hailstorms that shattered flowers and shredded hostas and the fragile spinach, arugula and lettuce seedlings. The local greenhouse warned that recovery might be tenuous, particularly for large-leaved vegetables and fragile tomatoes. In the scheme of things, we needed moisture. Still do, as I recalled a skillful gardener-friend saying a few years ago, after a similar dry winter and spring, that if we dug down, at best we’d see an inch or so of damp soil and then dry, sandy earth beneath. I make mention of this because I’d planned to spend time weeding and tending to those hail-struck pots and beds. But instead, I made the small, yet significant choice to visit a friend who I hadn’t seen since we celebrated my birthday. My friend is living with lethal cancer, and depending on the day, would probably say on borrowed time, where and when those tiny choices, and small moments, matter enormously.

The final post I read yesterday was written by Anne Lamott in response to the USA’s choice to bomb Iran yesterday. A choice with consequences too profound and potentially devastating to fathom.

“I have no answers but do know one last thing that is true: Figure it out is a bad slogan. We won’t be able to. Life is much wilder, complex, heartbreaking, weirder, richer, more insane, awful, beautiful and profound than we were prepared for as children, or that I am comfortable with. The paradox is that in the face of this, we discover that in the smallest moments of taking in beauty, in actively being people of goodness and mercy, we are saved.”

We are saved.

May it be so.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

Regardless of My Age

“baby, it’s cold outside”

It’s been mighty cold here in Alberta, and across Canada. A much-needed, honest-to-goodness winter with a snowpack forecasters say will lessen the impact of spring and summer forest fires. Temperatures well below zero, made colder with wind, killing off viruses and vermin. A restoration of balance that, while I appreciate, as I said to Sig as we layered to go out, I wish I wasn’t in. It’s been less than a month since celebrating his birthday in Huatulco, Mexico, but it feels like ages with this profound contrast.

And Walker, despite inheriting Annie’s insulated coat, and boots that he reluctantly wears, has found his first winter too cold to do much more outside than his business. And even that’s done fast, carefully perched on three legs, alternately the fourth to keep it from freezing. Last week, both of us bundled to play in the backyard, not a minute later and he was at the door. That night, he didn’t eat his dinner and slept all evening instead of his usual watching TV (I kid you not!) or playing with us. I sensed he was depressed and reflected to Sig we needed to move someplace more temperate, as both Walker and I need to walk…outside…in Nature…without freezing.

I’m going on about this because I’ve noticed with every passing year, I’m less inclined to brave winter’s elements and that troubles me. I used to ice skate…cross country and downhill ski…I haven’t walked with my Camino group since Christmas. Dog walking has become episodic. Reading my friend, Gretchen’s post this morning got me to thinking more about my own aging and how it’s showing up.

“Ageism is the last bastion of political incorrectness, and no one is going to fight it with us or for us. No one else cares, until they arrive there themselves…”

Gretchen Staebler, “You’re Doing Great…For Your Age”

I met Gretchen at a writing retreat years ago on Whidbey Island. Then, she was working on her – now published and highly recommended – moving, tender, and funny memoir, Motherlode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver. (For local readers, it’s available to borrow from my public library.) I love Gretchen’s fresh and candid take on life, and too, her big heart from which she responds to my recent posts about the harrowing state of our world. From her post which inspired my writing today:

“What do you see when you look in a mirror? Go ahead, look. Do you only see wrinkles and sagging skin? Yes, they are there, it’s a fact of the third act, it’s what the body does. And what else? What is reflected in your eyes, your smile?”

In this “third act,” what I’ve been calling “the eldering landscape,” my body is having its say, and I’m having to become more adept at listening. In this year, crossing the threshold into my eighth decade (mind-blowing what becoming seventy actually means!!!) I don’t know how I’ll celebrate. I do know I’ll continue to be enthralled, amazed, bewildered, curious, vulnerable, astonished, uncertain, afraid, grateful, courageous – the whole enchilada of words describing me being in love with the gift that is my life. Regardless of my age.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.
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