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I find this quite astonishing. No, I really do. My mother at 98 told me that in her mind she was still 30-something and she would get surprised when she couldn't do simple tasks that once came easily. I get this now.
This monrning at 69, since I am not yet 70 and will not accept this number until the actual day of my birth, I find myself looking at my hands. My hands. I tell people, "I have my mothers hands" because the arthritis has done a good job on knobbing the joints of these digits, making them stiff and malformed. Much like my mother's hands were. Much like my olders sisters hands are now too.
It is this part of my body I am looking closer at this morning. On these hands there are the "age spots", "liver spots", sun damaged spots ... so many different terms these brown spots. On these hands the skin looks thinner, the veins bluer and wrinkles form regardless of the amount of moisturizing lotion I apply.
I remember as a small girl sitting on my grandmothers lap and starring at her hands, which now I realize looked a lot like mine do now! I would reach out and caress her hands, they were always so soft and smelled of the lotions she used. I have a distinct memory of gently pinching the skin on the dorsal side of her hand. It would pull away easily and then, when I let go, it would remain standing like a mountain ridge for a second or two. This amazed me so I did it again and again. She never said anything about this fascination of mine. She just
continued watching TV or doing whatever she was doing with no notice of my being enthralled with her hands.
A friend told me when she goes on long hot summer hikes she will pinch the skin on her hands to test for her hydration. If the ridge forms and stays she drinks more water. But I challenge any young person to do this and see if it actually works ... I bet it takes an older hand, with a thinning of the skin, to offer this kind of benchmark.
It is this 69 year old body that surprises my 30-something mind. I used to say that I planned to age gracefully. But now? I find being graceful a tad difficult. As much as I want to embrace my disappearing waist, my getting shorter (soon my ribs are going to rest on my hip bones!), the crepey skin on my shins and the deepening laugh lines on my face it's not always easy to rejoice in all these changes.
And then I remind myself that I am still here! This is truly an accomplishment! This needs to be embraced! Not only do I remain on this planet but I am healthy and in good shape. I can still hike these hills for 4-5 miles in all seasons (though bug season tends to have me frantic and heading for home). I still bike ride, on an ebike, but this simply means that I know I can get up over the next hill without falling over! And I still love to go canoe camping into the remote Maine northwoods with my husband. We may sleep on camping cots and have a tent we can walk into vs crawl into now, this allows us to keep loving it all.
I love to gather with my amazing women friends who are all of this same age ... 30-something ... strong women who retain their sense of adventure too. We love deeply, circle the wagons when someone is in need or if one of us, or a spouse, begins to succumb the far more difficult aspects of aging; illness. And many of us share in the joys of grandchildren, who brighten our days and remind us to walk through the puddles, not around them.
I guess, maybe, I am doing these twilight years gracefully. I am grabbing for the deeper understanding of what this life means: loving fully, being there for others, living authentically and emersing myself into the glorious aspects of this wild and precious world.
