Childhood locket

 

These old keys unlock

A treasure of emotions

My heart beats awake.

Photo by Jason D on Unsplash

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)

Turning on the computer in the morning

My dreams sneak away
Music playing in my bones
Now I start to work.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)

After a long hard day at work

Brain power is gone
All that I can do is sit
Thoughts spill out slowly.

Photo by Ilja Nedilko on Unsplash 

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)

Looking out the window

The bronze Buddha head
Standing still by the window
Winter leaves gone brown.

Simple daily act of kindness

Nurturing my soul
Counting my tender mercies
Heart open, mind bright. 

Theme Year: Freedom (a reflection on inner biases)

Last year, I did a theme year on the topic of Freedom. Together with three other women, we explored our individual themes, all the while giving each other support. I must say that this experiment very much resonated with me.

I started by looking at how my inner prejudices and biases limit my freedom of thought. There are quite a few of them to work on. Yet, for the sake of this blog post let's look at just one. As you might know, I am a feminist. In my heart lives an aspiring radical feminist, but outwardly, especially in my work world, I am a diminished feminist. 

Forty years working in various misogynistic predominately-male work fields has wore me down. So, one of the mechanisms for dealing with this was to develop a silent "old white guy"  not-worth-the-effort response. When faced with blatant misogyny, this thought would come into my mind. No sense in addressing the statement. No sense in holding a mirror to the person who holds sexist or "frauenfeindlich" beliefs. He is just another old white guy who has no idea what a jerk he is.

What I do now, which is freeing, is I stopped swatting away the old white guy thoughts. Instead, I concentrate on how often I think this and question how much this biased thought limits my ability to react or respond accordingly. Not that I confront each and every statement or feel a need to hold the person accountable. Rather, to look at the person and acknowledge how their words puzzle/hurt/confuse/estranged/anger me. 

So, essentially, I start with myself by acknowledging my bias and end with myself when I speak up, even quietly, and say I am not comfortable with their statement. This strategy might not seem radical. Yet, it has helped me stop saying in my mind, "old white guy" and start saying out loud, "be careful in the words you speak in my company".

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)        

What we knew, but didn't know

The dress-up box was an old discarded ocean liner trunk our mother had re-purposed after years of travelling between Venezuela and Quebec. The trunk was covered with stickers from ports all over the Caribbean, South and North America. Its travels ended in a basement corner in our house on the West Island, a suburb of Montreal.

The trunk's insides were bursting with long discarded formal wear. There were old dresses our grandmothers had worn to Easter masses. Cocktail dresses our mother no longer fit in after bearing four children and hosting a decade of business dinners for our father and his visiting customers. 

We three girls loved to play dress up. We would create Tolstoy-like sagas of sordid suburban hues. We would act out scenes of unhappy marriages, unwanted pregnancies, and saucy women sitting on men's laps. We'd giggle and laugh and blush with the forbiddingness of out imaginations. We were wise. We were wicked. And, mostly, we were complete innocents.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)   

Acquired taste

A secret pleasure of mine is watching Hot Ones. The show is a slow burn... the conversation is fun to listen to. The concept grows on you. I will only recommend a few: Zoë Kravitz, CL, Trevor Noah, and Anthony Mackie. 

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)

Morning musing

Schubert sonata
Winter morning made joyful
When you, my friend, call.

Photo by Shaun Holloway on Unsplash

Faded memories

 

In my grandmother's generation
The summer sun shined upon 
The relentless, quiet occupation
Of women throughout the day.
The rays bleached the laundry
Hung out on washing days to dry.
At noon, it warmed the back 
Of their necks and massaged 
The kinks out of their resolve.
And so, they stopped and wiped 
The sweat off their brows, and
Wondered if they might slip away
And have a cup of tea and a biscuit. 

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)

The beauty of poetry

The Poetry Archive is one of my favourite sites over the last 10-15 years. There is something about listening to poets speak their poems that acts as a balm to my soul. I remember succinctly who convinced me of the chemistry of voice and written word. It was Jackie Kay. I have listened to her speaking her poems numerous times. My Country is a friend of mine.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)

Let them not say*

It is such an incidental slippery assumption, “you must have been a good mother” after someone meets one of my adult children. What nonsense. One of the wonders of age is realizing how good parenting does not necessarily equate with children growing into responsible kind adults. It is so much more complicated or nuanced a process than that.

No one is a Good Mother all the time. Given, there are some mothers who might be consider Terrible Mother most of the time. Instead, we mothers slide back and forth on the scale all the while. A day spent on the good end of the scale is considered a victory.
 
What I hope is that my children can remember me as being engaged and excited to have them in my life. It has been so from the moment they were born and continues to this very day. There is not one moment that I have not loved them deeply. There have been many moments though that I fell far short of being a Good Mother. For this I will continue to ask for forgiveness. For this I will try to live a life of a good actions, kind words, and humble aspirations.

 
This post was inspired by Jane Hirshfield’s poem, Let Them Not Say.

(This post is part of my "Growing Up & Growing Old" project.)