SHADOWS

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READERS DISCRETION ADVISED—TOPIC: Aging

                                                               CONTENT: All kinds of yucky stuff.

                                                               LANGUAGE: Frightening

                                                               CHARACTERS: All of us                                                            

                                                             

I shall not be held responsible for the many sleepless nights that will follow you after you finish reading this.

I shall not be held responsible…………………………………

OK, I’m kind of pulling yourlegs here. Although I will state this with all honesty, that those of you that are weak of heart just move your cursor to the top right hand of the screen in front of you. Click on the little red and white X to make your quick exit because in fact we are going to talk about getting old, over the hill, into the autumn of your life , your rudder’s dragging or the tides of time are running out on you. And, if in fact, you feel you can’t handle it then I have only one thing to say. SUCK IT UP PRINCESS IT’S GOING TO GET US ALL IN THE END……

……and it does and it has. It’s come for me, my friends and my family. I was having a conversation with a couple of old friends from Facebook about aging. I made a comment that I was indeed getting old. A long time friend commented that I was only 51 and that he was 5 years older than I. He kind of left it hanging in mid sentence, I thought. Was he really saying he doesn’t consider himself to be old and where I was younger than him then how could I be old? Yes, I do believe that is what he meant. My thought on that is why are our views of aging are so different. Just what is it that makes our perceptions so different? I mean old is just plain old, isn’t it?

I mean if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck then, it must be a duck….right? I mean a wrinkle is a wrinkle. It is what it is!  What were once cute little crows feet around the eyes at 40 are now craters at 51. The laugh lines which would denote a person of pleasant personality are now ironically giving the illusion of a frown that frames the mouth.

The worst of all has to be gravity. We’ve all heard the old “She’s all goin south!” Or “I’m getting so old I’m tripping over my own body parts!” Where I live if you think gravity is bad, you should see what an outgoing tide can do to you.(That’s a joke)  The tide does indeed have its’ own pull, same as the moon. In actuality the moon has a push. If it actually had a pull it would have the opposite affect on us and we’d probably all be wearing smiles like Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman and wearing concrete blocks on our feet to keep us anchored to terra firma. Which leads me into wondering about water. Ever notice how buoyant certain body parts are in under water? Ahhhh now here is a concept I can entertain! We float in water. Water holds everything up! In a perfect world if we could live under water than nothing would ever sag! I wonder if the expression “Hope Floats” was built on that concept!

Then there are the vocal changes. We can’t even remember when that started. When we have to bend over to pick  something up, a  sound escapes that starts somewhere in our midriffs and works it way up through the diaphragm, hits the top of the throat and escapes as a high pitched wheeze and ends with a long held grunt until they run out of air and it sounds like their last breath every time. Then there is the getting up out of a chair, grunts followed by sighs of relief that we made it to standing position. What’s more frightening are the creaks and cracks. How does that happen?

That all these things are signs of aging and alarming enough on their own there are things more frightening and disturbing than falling and not being able to get back up. We realize that everyone and everything as we’ve known it is aging as well, our parents, our children, our bothers and sisters and cousins and even our friends. Our own parents have somehow lost the spark they once had, they no longer try to tell us how to raise our children anymore nor tell us how if we can’t pay cash then we have no business buying it. No more lectures of “When I was raising you I never did it that way! Who in the hell ever taught you that?” and “You’re too young to be that tired well, when I was your age I worked 5 jobs AND raised 6 kids and ran a household on a tight budget and still had money left over!” When living all of that, you think that you will never hear the end of it. Well, rest assured the day does come you don’t hear it anymore and you may find yourself wishing you could…just one more time. 

When we look at our friends we see the subtle changes from the softening of their features, to the light graying of their hair. The carriage that once carried them tall and strong is now turning soft and rested. You see their children growing tall and living their lives more independently, which in turn, makes you look at your own children by comparison. That is when it really hits home. And you do have that moment of sobering reality that your children are no longer ‘kids’. That they no longer need you the way they’ve needed you for every single day for the last 20 years. How is it that they don’t need you anymore but, you feel you still need them, maybe more than ever before? Where is the balance? Maybe it is what nature intended?

 We have the memories of our children’s lives. From the very moment of birth to the very young adults they’ve become today. We have their whole lives imbedded in our lives.  They in turn, are still learning of us. They are in the process of  creating their memories yet. They are still getting to know us as real people and not just their parents anymore. To say that it is a reversal of each others relation to the other would be true but, there is more going on here, something much more complex and deeper that we can only try to grasp at understanding it. Yet we know that somewhere in this reversal process that nature is once again doing a balancing act.

 Where over the years from birth to the horrible teen years there have been many moments of annoyance, of frustration, of heartbreak, of laughter, of joy, of love. Suddenly it is us that annoy them now. It is us that frustrate them to no end. And it is us that will cause them heartbreak when the time comes for us to leave them. And their memories? They’ll remember the laughter, the joy, and the warm memories of being loved, unconditionally. It will be these memories that sooth their broken hearts and will ease their grief. And when the clouds begin to clear for them once again and they walk through their lives they will realize that they are following a trail of footsteps that will take them down  the very same walk their parents made long before they were born. In the end…they will become us.  The aging process will start once again.  And eventually they become the children to their very own children, the same in turn, as we did them.

In conclusion I believe that the aging process is much more than wrinkles, bat wings and sagging knees. It’s about being old enough to have left some kind of legacy behind. To leave our imprint on every shadow that passed our way in our lifetime. And for that shadow, our shadow, to imprint itself, immortally into the future shadows yet to come. That brings us to another question. Does some part of us live on forever? Does that in essence make us immortal, even to a small degree?  I think the answer to that is in another whole subject……another time maybe.

Remember. We are all connected in some way, shape or form. Our shadows pass through each other skimming along the edges of our lives, along for the ride. Once we have looked each other in the eyes….we are never the same but….we are forever connected. Like the waves that ride along the swells of the tides, they crash on shore exploding in a spray of a powerful frenzied life force. You feel that life force. This is the very essence of Mother Nature in all her glory. And when the tide retreats, the waves are pulled back with her, unresisting. Her shadow crosses ours, and we are never the same.

Until the next high tide.......

Natalie

Thank you to my husband Eric who contributed all the 'old' expressions that pertaine to age. What would I know about any of that? lol

AND a special thanks to Greg Lenihan, a very dear life long friend who was my inspiration for this piece. "See what you started?" lol Thanks Greg.

                                                              

Ride The Waves

Today's posting is based on a comment made by an old friend on my first posting here on Time and Tide. He wrote...

 "You're able to take us there Nat." That was a moment for me. It moved me to be honest and it didn't expand my ego, quite the opposite, it humbled me. The reason being is that I don't take any kind of credit for what I create because when I'm in that creative zone it always feels to me that the Zen of the moment comes from somewhere outside of me. The part that comes from me is how much work and effort do I physically want to put into it.

The magic though definately comes from somewhere else. I think you could ask any artist of any genre from painters to musicians and they would tell you that there is indeed a zone they open themselves up to. Most might go so far as to say that a fever comes over them when they enter the zone. It's like a runner running themselves head on into a runners high. They feel like they can fly and never tire or run out of wind. There's a feeling of expansion and freedom and of breaking all the chains and shackles to the order of anything! And when the fever reaches its peak there is only one thing you are aware of, and that is the feeling of utter joy. It seeps into every pore and slides into the deepest darkest parts of our awareness and lights up even the darkest corners of our souls and fills them with it's purity and light. When a person finds their very essence cocooned in the purity of true joy....anything becomes possible. The person can create any moment that their heart desires. THAT is the gift of magic that comes from somewhere else...somewhere outside ourselves, something far larger than us. For whatever it is we have created..when the fever cools and we stand back and look at the creation we know we were not alone in this... we know we can't accept the full credit and that is when we feel humbled.

We also feel something else too. It's called fear. We also know that this zone or fever is so far removed from us and so far beyond our own control that we fear that someday we could sit and wait for it and it might never come back. Like a love affair gone bad we might find ourselves one day at the mercy of this lover, waiting and left wondering if it will ever return and engulf us once again in that burning need and the pure intoxication of true joy. We know we need to feel that fever in order to create. Without it we will fall flat. That our creations will only be merely two dimensional. These are the things that humble the true artist. If there was a secret  door that leads us to that fever then I think it would begin where it ends...in the purity and honesty of our intentions.
 
Are we writing, singing, painting and creating for the sake of the art itself? Or for the recognition, the adoration or the what I like to call 'the lookie me syndrome'.. the vanity. If our intentions are true and pure then we must sing for the sake of singing. If we intend to write we must write for the sake of writing because of the need to tell a story. Feel the need to paint..the need to act! The old saying as we all know it is "If you want to be a writer, then write!" Time will tell if you are any good. And the recognition? If it comes...that's bonus.

May I always be able to ride the waves and take you along for the trip!

That's all she wrote!

Until next time.....Natalie

Special thanks to Mark Gough for being my inspiration today for this posting!

Push of the Tide

So. Here I am writing my very first blog ever.  I am rather newly retired and at 51 years old and after raising 3 young boys to manhood I've been somewhat floating around as to what to do with the rest of my life. Several people have told me that I can have a way with words and ask why am I not writing. These are old friends of my childhood where we've all reunited on the infamous Face  Book. So I get on Face Book a half dozen times a day or so and every once in a while I feel inspired or moved and then share that in thought and words in my status  box. Some people like what I have to say..so they tell me. So here I am taking their advice and suggestions and for the first time in my life I'm going to spill my guts on lots of stuff and be as honest as I am capable of! I guess I'm giving it up to the push of the tide and going with it.

This blog may end up being all over the place in subject matter but, that is the way I am in my interests and opinions and the blog I'm sure willl reflect this. I'll also being trying my hand from time to time at some short stories based on true stories...that will come with time.

I'm not even sure if there will be daily entries or weekly or bi-weekly. To do more than I'm genuinely inclined to do would then make it feel like 'work', a very heavy chain around my neck. I guess what the real reason for all this is that I just want to remain productive in as many ways as I can in my early retirement during my middle years. I want to always remain honest and genuine and being real should be the easiest thing that we do. Second nature. So now a little more info on me.........................

I'm 51 and female. I am married to Eric and live with him, our dog Bear who has stories of his own and our cat Stewie Griffin. If his name means something to you then enough said.
We reside in Chance Harbour New Brunswick Canada. I was born in a very small town named Dodsland Saskatchewan Canada. When I was 3 years of age my Mother and I moved from Dodsland to Saint John New Brunswick. Saint John was to be my home for over 40 years.
Chance Harbour is a 30 minute drive from the city of Saint John. It is a beautiful little fishing village on the Bay of Fundy. We are new residents still as we've only been here a little over 4 months. We have been gradually fitting into the community and find the people so friendly that it's as if we've lived here our whole lives. Living on the bay is new and refreshing everyday. We live in a sweet little cottage with the bay about 150 yards from our door. Our cottage sits on a compound of 5 homes owned by a very nice american couple from the state of Maine. I've never lived on a compound before, don't know of anyone that has. We aren't gated off or anything but still the layout of the homes is that of a grouping.  A lovely long stretch of beach is part of the compound which is to say the least a BONUS.
Needless to say I spend a lot of time looking out over the beach and the bay contemplating many things. I'm so grateful to be able to do that. The inside of the cottage is very warm and inviting with pine planking or boarding all throughout on the walls and ceilings. We've made it our own with our modest furnishings and find we are very comfortable. Our favorite part of the house is the open concept living room and kitchen where we spend 98% of our time. The wall facing the bay is all windows so we have a view to die for. Crow Island is just off shore...in our back yard and holds a lot of facination for many people as it draws a lot of them in.

Chance Harbour is also very rich in history and has been here for 250-300 hundred years. There is even an old graveyard on a part of the upper beach where the very first grave was ever dug in Chance Harbour. It holds the remains of an unknown soldier. His story isn't much as much isn't known about him. Just that he washed up on this very beach and a local resident buried him. He was a British Officer and that is all that is known. I find myself thinking of this soldier often wondering where he came from, did he have a wife and children? How many looked and waited for his return home. Maybe some day we will know but for the meantime we live with the mystery.

I love the water. I love living on the water, watching the water, smelling the water and feeling the dewy spray of the water. My astrological sign is the crab, a native to the water. The sun is in my first house and the moon is my ruling planet.
From where I sit with my laptop at my kitchen table I can see the bay, the beach, sunrises and moonrise's. So it is with  little wonder why I feel a connection with the beautiful surroundings I find myself living in. And those are just the visual delights. The sounds are what brings it all alive. The daylight hours carry all the sounds of the birds from eagles and herons to goldfinches and chickadees.
In the evenings can be heard the howling and yippings of a traveling pack of coyotes, the chirpings of tiny bats swiftly swooping through the air snatching up mosquitoes and spiders and the soft soothing sounds of the crickets. And in the background of all that is the sound of the sea...the surf that rolls in with each heave and wave of the tides. It crashes on the beach and fills me with awe and a sense of how big the Atlantic is and it's overwhelming presence in the world. Somehow the enormity of that doesn't make me feel small but, leaves me feeling a part of it all. So when I walk along the beach I no longer feel like my steps are just impressions left behind in the sand but, like the push of the tides I too leave my mark in the bigger scheme of life.
From inside my modest little cottage when I sit at my kitchen table looking out over the bay I hope to continue to be pushed with each tide into inspiration so that I may too somehow leave my mark on you, the reader.

Until next time...........Natalie