Twilight

Post 40’s, post small kiddos, pre-emergence

On the audiobook version of “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose” Eckhart Tolle gently explains many grounding and enlightening concepts for me. He calls himself a spiritual teacher and seems to awaken common sense thoughts that a person should just seem to know already. Just listening to his melodic and sonorous voice as I ride along in my car, to this place or that, is so soothing and makes so much sense (especially when I feel like I need to hear his words more). Essentially, we are not our thoughts. Our thoughts pass through us and grab hold of us, but mostly they are the ego feeding us a bunch of malarchy regarding various situations in our lives. Thoughts come in handy when we need to recount a memory to someone else or perhaps what to get at the grocery store if you don’t have a list, but thoughts also come with way too many judgements. As I see various people throughout my day, thoughts just seem to rise automatically about people or situations. “She really needs to get her teeth fixed”, “WHY does he think he is even remotely interesting, this guy?” And it’s as if this critic is perched there and just speaks into my head when I’m really not asking for it. Between judgements or condemnations of others or myself, thoughts can be pesky fleas that hang around to only get in the way of clarity, optimism or proactive thinking. The other thought that comes to me regarding thoughts (ha!) is why the negative or divisive come full on like a stream and yet the positive need a goading or a more conscious switch that requires more purposeful focus. But what Eckhart Tolle doesn’t seem to take into account is the many moods that a woman (especially in her late 40s/early 50s) goes through even in one particular day (Yet I do believe that men have their own hormones or various elements that contribute to mood too). Without any circumstances coming into play, there is most definitely a lightness or a darkness that surrounds my mood for no apparent reason. I am thankful and elated when the light is just there without question, but when the darkness is there it is just like a weight on my shoulders that eventually leaves but cannot be coaxed or beaten into a happy submission. I can also say thankfully that I am not a depressed person and my “dark” isn’t what others might be. Yet it is as palpable as if a painter took a brush, dunked it in color and painted it on my skin. Horrid weather definitely contributes to darker moods, yet the other day it was perfectly clear and wondrous outside, and there were shades of that dark feeling nontheless. It is good to unearth this and give it light though! We all walk around with all of the details of our lives to attend to every day and by giving a tip of the hat to the ole yin/yang, maybe we can look upon it as a feast for the eyes, like the picture above. And to be able to trudge through the darkness, knowing from past experience that the light will soon come and show us the way again.

“I want to ride my bicycle…I want to ride my bike. Bicycle…Bicycle…” This Queen song comes to mind when I think about the glorious freedom I feel when I ride my bike. Lately I ride it up Broadway and am able to enter through the gates that are temporarily shut to cars to Nyack Beach Park (there are parts of the wall going down the road that are under construction). It is a span of amazing real estate that blessedly is owned by NY state and we can all call it our home if we choose to. I feel like a bit of a renegade because I am riding without a helmet lately (oooh…WHAT is she doing?! Sakes alive…she must be crazy OR European!). The wind goes through the top of my head and I feel full- throttle Evil Knievel. My European or European-minded friends agree and I feel like my chance of running into a MAC truck or an opening car door are put to rest on the winding dirt path with just rocks, ambling folk or other bikers. Now other bikers, that’s a funny thing. Some of them feel as if it’s their duty to make a gesture of a helmet or give a sneer or a comment. I gladly do not belong to that sect of bikers and they can disown me if it pleases them. When I haul my body up one of the many hills to reach its top, my legs are stretched out straight, my body is off of the bike and I truly feel like my seven year old self again when I was first discovering how a body felt on a bike. I daresay that this is why people are foolish enough to ride motorcycles because it’s the freedom that you feel on a manual bike, amplified! I rode on a motorcycle for just a bit many years ago and if my brain didn’t step in to immediately note the dangers (annoying thoughts, there you went again) I might have become a Harley girl. Well, maybe.

Now we are officially past the halfway mark of June. People, including myself, are always saying how fast time goes by. Time is a very bizarre concept and has in fact gone by faster since I’ve gotten older (like everyone has always said). The passing of this last school year denotes my youngest daughter Ava leaving our beloved elementary school that she has attended for the last 6 years to go on to the middle school. When you think about it, 6 years in one school is the longest amount of time that you will be in any one school, right? My older daughter Grace, Ava and myself have gotten to know it like a well-worn glove. You give big hellos to teachers from past years, but I also would say hello to all of the other friendly faces that I’ve come to know in the last 6 years. You all become threaded together by the various class parties, presentations, concerts, achievements, fairs, contests…it goes on and on. The school also was the backdrop to my learning process of becoming a parent. You go from not knowing what the hell you’re doing to thinking you may know what you’re doing, to not caring and what you’re doing just becomes easier. Eleven years ago, when I had a toddler and was pushing a six month old in the stroller, I would go by the school on a nice day (Scene: birds chirping everywhere, beautiful sun blaring down, wind blowing on the gorgeous trees) and think we are blessed to live in this town. THIS was the Disney of schools and I just wanted my children to be in it! Well I blink and they are both out. Ava is eleven and Grace just turned thirteen. And although they hate when I limit them to this term, when I refer to them as this casually in conversation to others, they are a pre-teen and a teenager now. Yesterday I was told by Grace in the span of an hour that when I walk, my feet go out and I look duck-like. And then she said that I resemble a relative in how he leans on his fat belly sometimes when he’s in conversation. I have had to get used to being under somewhat of a microscope that was never broken out for the likes of little ones. Their brains just don’t go there! Bah. There now will be no more PTA events. According to them, I am not a cool parent if I become involved that way in middle school. I will sneak an event in here and there but it will never compare to how I willingly and so very happily, gave of my time to my children in their various grades in elementary school. This is sad! But it’s poignant passing is yet another closing of yet another chapter. We cannot stop time, nor would we want to. Yet I would be amiss if I didn’t say that my children’s growing up is like a little death all the time. They will never be the people that they were the year before, and I sometimes desperately miss those wee people who were all about innocence, trust and an incomparable love that was a lovely place for a parent to bury their nose in.

The favorite thing that I watched this week was the CNN interview with Anderson Cooper interviewing Howard Stern. Howard, once raw and somewhat brutal, has softened a bit and waxes with Anderson tit for tat. Nice.

——Again, I would GREATLY APPRECIATE any comments or criticisms about this blog. Thank you, dear reader, for reading.——–