Old And In The Way

Well, here I am basking in the glow of yesterday's trip and Miss Maybelle's incredible report, so much better than pictures because yes, that waitress had a violent slash of a mouth and that is exactly that.

And also, I am tending to things around the house that haven't gotten done in the past few days because I've been gone and it occurs to me that I have created a life where everything needs tending, just as it did when the children were little. The dogs and chickens have to be fed and taken care of, of course, and the dishes and the laundry (and how can two people create so much laundry? I think it has a lot to do with working outside so much) and the garden needs care. Unlike babies, gardens can wait but the longer you wait to get out there and work, the more work there is so you don't want it to get too far ahead of you.
I am a little OCD about the laundry and the kitchen. There is no possible way on earth I can start cooking a meal when there are dirty dishes. And I don't have a dishwasher so I can't just tuck them away and shut a door on them. No. They must be done.
And yet, I did this. I am the one who decided to have chickens and well, the dogs weren't exactly my fault but I have neither killed them or let them die yet so they are my responsibility for the most part. And the garden- who NEEDS a garden? I do, for my soul, far more than for my body. When anyone comes over to visit I insist that they need to see the garden and the chickens and whatever is blooming in the yard.
"Isn't that interesting?" I'll say, pointing at the sago cone.
"Oh yes," my polite visitors agree, wondering what stage of dotage I am in.
I hate to think that I'll be one of those grandmothers who goes around forcing pictures of her grandchildren onto everyone she comes in contact with. I don't WANT to be one. I swear. And yet, the way I go on about my CHICKENS makes me think there will be no escape.
Age is so weird. You do things you never thought you'd do. You start loving birds, you say things like, "You call this music? Hell. This isn't music! Now WE had music. Oh yeah."
Oh course, I don't really say that. I don't dis anyone's tribal music. I may scratch my head and wonder but I don't say it out loud.
But honestly- we had the Beatles. We had the Rolling Stones. We had Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchen and Janis Joplin. We had fucking MUSIC, MOTHERFUCKERS!
Okay.
Sorry.
And my body and my skin. Oh my. I have written about these things before- how your body begins to sag and stretch and get all marked up in ways you never imagined they would, because your own personal physic powers will NEVER ALLOW TO HAPPEN, ever, ever, ever. And then it does. I dreamed last night that I caught myself in the mirror by accident in an unflattering pose- you know, the way you sometimes do, and the skin of my neck and chin were like...Shar Pei-ish in the most extreme manner. This is probably how they really look, but so far, I have been able to deny that. And in my dream I thought to myself, "How can my husband look at me and still see the girl he fell in love with?"
I have been a bit depressed about that all morning. As much as I try to convince myself that it doesn't matter, that I'm over all of that, that I'm happy to look just as I look, my body wracked with the ravages of the life I've led, the work I've done, the babies, I've had, the smiles I've smiled, the tears I've cried- part of me still wants to look like Gwyneth Paltrow or Uma Thurman. Or at least Susan Serandon, that bitch. She's older than me!

And here's another thing- I am so old that people are mistaking me for WISE! Oh lord, what a mistake that is. Somehow I have managed to get myself into this practically perfect life (for me, anyway) with this practically perfect husband and children and a grandchild on the way and friends who are so special and so smart and loving and funny. And I've got these chickens and the garden and this blog where I can just paint my nipples until you think they're pink, and honey, believe me, I am so far from practically perfect. I am so far from wise. Mostly what I am is tolerant and not only tolerant, but attracted to people who dare to be who they are and tell the world to go take a flying fuck if they don't like it.
Anyone can be in a club. Garden, church, book, sewing, knitting. Anyone can pay the dues those sorts of clubs require. I am in love with the people who pay dues so steep we can't even imagine but who do it because that's the only way they can live with themselves, their true selves, to be in the club of I-Am-Who-I-Am. Those are the people I respect, I love, and want to hang out with.
So that makes me seem wise for some damn reason or it would appear that people think it makes me seem wise.
I don't have answers. I am only beginning to figure out a few of the answers for myself. My very own self. Sure, I have some recipes to pass on and I have some knowledge about childbirth and breastfeeding but so what? A lot of people do.
Well. There you go. That's what I'm thinking about today.
I should be hanging the clothes on the line or mucking out the chicken coop and I'm about to go do that.
But for some reason, I always feel like I have to tend my blog, too.
Because the secret of having this life that I constantly have to tend here in my old-middle age is that I love every bit of it. If it wasn't a joy, would I really be doing it?
Nah.
So I guess the bottom line is that despite the skin thing and the aching body thing and the incipient dotage thing, I am the luckiest woman I could ever imagine.
And I don't take it for granted and I write about it and here you are- I've done it again. Oops! As Britney would say. Did I spell that right this time?

I do not have super powers. I do not have ways of divining the future. I'm just someone who likes to talk out loud.
And paint her nipples pink.
Metaphorically, anyway. Not really.

But I did have another dream last night...
Wait. That would be way too much information.

Rambling. Another sign of old age.
Check, check, and check.

Got to go. That straw in the coop with all the poop in it isn't going to pick itself up and transfer itself out to the garden. Nope.
Guess I have to do it myself. My own old self.

Lucky me! (And you know I'm serious.)