Undiluted

riding

Cyn in 7th grade

In the course of this week I walked through grass rippled by the wind and inhaled fragrance of orange blossom and lilac. I gazed upon fields of wildflowers – lupine, poppies, baby blue eyes, Indian paintbrush and hummingbird sage. I listened to brooks still singing from last month’s rain, caught the melodious trill of a yellow meadowlark perched on a branch at a friend’s ranch, and heard the words of a great poet, Dan Gerber, as he read from his work in the upstairs room of the Book Loft.  

These things may not be my only reality, but they are real indeed, and when they are happening, I choose to pay attention.

But oh, I have my lapses. Case in point, I was riding my bicycle along Refugio Road with Monte a few days ago, pedaling towards the mountains, past vineyards and pastures, across a wooden bridge and several crossings of mossy stone and clear water, and the air was mild and fresh, with all the newness of spring washing over us, and I started thinking about people who in this very moment are suffering. So the conversation went something like this:

Me: I’m kind of worried about what’s happening in the Ivory Coast.

Monte: For God’s sake, get a grip.

Me: Well, it’s just that here we are having a glorious day and there are so many terrible things happening, even to children.

Monte: What is WRONG with you? Can’t you control your urges? Don’t you have any kind of filter?

Me: I guess I'll listen to my iPod.

Monte: Then put on some music, would you please? You don't need to hear another discussion right now about Ivory Coast. Or nuclear disaster in Japan, war in Libya, bombings in the Gaza strip, or even the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Okay? We're here riding our bikes.

It isn’t that Monte doesn’t care about others. In fact, he is far more generous than I am, in so many quiet ways, and he does work that will have impacts on the world that are far-reaching and positive. But when he is pedaling along on his bicycle and granted the gift of a very fine day, he has the good sense to stay focused on that.

He knows, too, that these on-the-run attempts to siphon off my own irrational guilt through gratuitous verbal hand wringing are more self-indulgent than useful.

Anyway, you do what you can within reason, but also accept and enjoy whatever grace and beauty presents itself…unless you are running for sainthood…and even then…

But it has occurred to me lately that being sixty means you are only more fully yourself, and the truest version of myself was probably the girl I was somewhere between the ages of  ten and fourteen, and lately I am her again in spades. (Okay, obviously not as cute, but you get the point.)

That girl in the photo above was both clear-eyed and starry-eyed, well-meaning and idealistic, surprised by the world and sometimes frightened, but earnest and curious and playful. Mighty forces would soon enough come to bear upon her and turn her into a grown-up being, and she would take on many roles, mostly in relation to other people, sometimes losing her way, but she would morph again and again into complicated incarnations, and there were so many layers and distractions it was easy to lose sight of the original core of whatever it was she was. 

And now has come a season that allows that core self to again emerge. It's interesting, and I've decided to embrace it.

So here I am, taking on the day with childish pleasure punctuated by old Sunday school pangs and sensibilities. I know I am ridiculous and contradictory, but this feels simply honest. I am censoring myself less, saying yes and no based on real feelings, being both silly and intense in a pre-adolescent way.

And I'm still trying to figure it out, but I always was…wasn’t I?

So maybe being sixty means being immature again? (Even this blog post is juvenile…don’t you think?) It is a regression that feels right and real to me, though; I am Cynthia undiluted, or something like that.

I begin to see what William Stafford meant: "You will disappear someday like that/ being more real, more true, at the last."

I am hoping for at least two or three more decades before the disappearance, but I believe this is my season of being real and true, whether I like it or not. Meanwhile, the world is dazzling me and breaking my heart, all in the same moment, and that’s the way it is and always was.