Well, I guess I'm going to start a new blog...
I joined Facebook and MySpace today. I also had my first colonoscopy. Turning 50 is sort of confusing and freeing at the same time.
Ted said the other day that he's realizing that life after 50 really is too short for some things; like being defensive in relationships, or grumpy about the commercialization of the upcoming holiday season. I liked that idea, that there is conscious choice that seems clearer and clearer as age comes on. That we can focus on and enjoy the spirit of the season, and not get bah humbugged about the rest.
"Life is short". I've heard that particular idiom all my life. Funny that now it has more of a punch to it than I had noticed before. I spent last weekend with some of my family; my father and daughter in particular help me to reckon with my place in this life.
I don't really know why I'm focusing on my age, other than 50 feels like a true milestone. For the most part I feel really good about where and who I am in my life. I feel a deep sense of gratitude, contentment, and ease. I am fortunate to love and be loved in a way that breaks my heart open on a regular basis. I have no unmet needs, and few unmet wants, at least about my own life. The world at large is another matter.
I think about death, in an abstract way I'm sure. I think that to really contemplate my own death fully, I'd have to relax some self deception that would be quite hard to manage. But I do consider it on a more frequent basis than I imagine most others do. My clearest understanding of what will become of me after I die is what my friend Alice refers to as "recycling into the particle pool". I like that image. My most basic and essential parts; my elements, molecules, compounds; all of which burst forth from the origin of the universe 13.7 billion years ago. That's right, I am stardust...
Science has shared that incontrovertible evidence, and I buy it. In Yellowstone, I believe I was living out of a spiritual experience of ultimate connectedness. I got it that I was the bison and the elk and the wolf. I was the coyote and the long meadow grasses, the timberline and the alpenglow. That all the elements, the hydrogen, the helium, the oxygen, the carbon, elementally we are all made of the same stuff. And that we do carry forth the history of the star that first spewed forth this sustenance of substance… It was powerful and simple, immense and tiny, all at once…
I also know that while my elemental nature is all of that, my particularly human nature is designed to create and/or find meaning. That is the soul work of this lifetime, my mission, my charge. Meaning to find, to create, to recreate, expand and deepen throughout my days on this earth... Maybe these thoughts should be part of my Facebook profile? Maybe not, maybe just here in my privately public online blog...
