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Archive for the ‘On getting older’ Category

Gnomes, men and Daisy Duke … the last in the series

Posted in Children, Expat Living, Friends, Fun, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Older women, On getting older, Seychelles, WTF?, Younger men, tagged , , , on November 11, 2008| 3 Comments »

This is, I promise, the last post on what should have been the mundane job of leveling the road that leads to my house in the bush, but ended up providing blog fodder for days.

That’s the thing about island life; you just never know the entertainment value of a day until you’ve lived it since so much can go wrong or HiLarryUS or climb to the pinnacle of WTF without one whit of warning.

You’ve already read about the Magnar in my life and how handy he is when a girl needs a Norwegian nag … or road work … and seen the photos of the work. You’ve also read of my preference in lawn ornamentation.

So what can possibly be left to this tale? My utter and complete humiliation, of course.

You see, although I didn’t have to fork out any cash for the amazing amount of work done resulting in my drive now being flat and negotiable, rather than a rutted goat track that caused any car not an SUV to bottom out numerous times on the way up and on the way down to my house, there was a price to pay: I had to dress up in stilettos and hot pants … a la Daisy Duke … and drive the bloody excavator.

To be fair, I really did want to swing that big sucka around a bit, fondle the knobs and feel the power of a huge hunk of MAN STUFF at my fingertips, but in yellow polka dot 4-inch heels and with my skinny legs dangling?

Not what I had in mind.

Unfortunately for me, that was EXACTLY the picture that came immediately to Magnar’s mind … I should’ve predicted such an image dawning, knowing him as well as I do .

So, for all you readers who are needing a good chuckle today, here are some photos. (There’s a video on my facebook page if you really want a laugh … ) Please, be kind in your comments. (Remember, I do moderate … )

(By the way, the kids are with Mark this week, so not subject to the trauma of seeing their mother being so incredibly silly. They won’t read this blog for a while, so I’m hoping they’ll be prepared by the time they do.)

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Big Shoes

Posted in Family, Fun, Island life, Older women, On getting older, Seychelles, Younger men, tagged , on August 10, 2008| 5 Comments »

No, I’m not writing about empty places in my life that need filling, but rather a pair of strappy sandals with a three-and-a-half inch heel that was delivered on Friday.

One thing possibly not noticeable in the many photos posted of my husband and me together is the fact that I am 5’9″ and he is a touch over 5’7″. Not that that ever made any difference that I was aware of … although I suspect his new girlfriend, much shorter than he is, does add to how he now considers his stature … as I’d been married to a tall guy who made my life miserable, so a short, kind and loving man was fine by me.

Now that the “kind and loving” bits are hard to find, Mark’s smallness has become a feature I am more aware of, and the fact that I’ve spent the last 15 years in flats tweaks a tiny resentment.

Of course, living where I do, flip-flops are de rigeur. Thanks primarily to my mother I have quite the collection of fancy ones that fit most occasions, and I will continue to sport over-spangled, fancy beach shoes for years to come.

I have, however, missed the dressier, snazzier, sexier footwear that comes with extra inches. No more. This weekend, I strapped ’em on and went out.

I had forgotten how different the world looks from six-feet-plus up, and also the impression I make walking into a room at full height in full glory … dressed to the nines, makeup accentuating my positives and a head above the crowd.

Yep. Apparently, I still have something of myself left that catches eyes and compliments, and how much do I need that at this point in my life? One hell of a lot.

Little did I know how far those extra 6 inches (three per foot) would take my self-image, my confidence and self respect. It was quite a pump, and one I fully intend to take advantage of as often as possible.

Hooray for sexy shoes and the benefits of. They’ve taken me more than a few steps forward in the process of healing, and felt very good while doing so.

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Consuming Grief

Posted in Family, Older women, On getting older, tagged , on May 25, 2008| 19 Comments »

 

 

It isn’t simply that I am eating misery, and little else, for breakfast, lunch and dinner these days, but also that it is eating me.

 

From the moment I gain consciousness in the morning, the awareness that the fact that the life I had been living so happily is over, gone for good, forces itself down my neck and I snack on that revolting bile in a day-long venture in hell. I keep waiting for it to slack off, but that hasn’t started happening yet, and although somedays are less densely packed with anguish and anxiety, many come with the full force of the first minutes.

 

I am more able to see the weak links in my husband that led to his total and complete betrayal, but remain baffled by the turnaround, its speed and its cruelty, and my lack of understanding may be part of what is blocking my healing.

 

The “How could he do this to me and our family?” question haunts on a minute-to-minute basis, and although on some level I realize that his horrid choices and worse behavior have nothing to do with me, it’s seems only womanly to attempt to find some blame to carry on my shoulders.

 

What it is about us, the females of our species, that needs to claim faults not ours, to apologize for foibles merely human, to gather guilt over the fact that humans age and occasionally lose focus and are sometimes not in the chipperest of mind sets? Where does it come into our consciousness that it is our responsibility to keep the ship afloat, to be ever-vigilant, to anticipate every reaction to any action; then to look inwards for our failure when our men decide that all their thinking will be done with their little heads, not their big heads, and that nothing else matters in any case?

 

Because Mark was so good at giving the impression that he was the happiest married man on earth, wedded to his best friend, continually conversing on every topic … except, of course, the one that was mattering the most to him at the time; how to keep his girlfriend happy … I am still reeling from the shock of my supposedly solid ground suddenly falling away.

 

Should I have seen this coming, even though he freely admits that he gave no hints, no clues, no reason for suspicion? Or is this just another way I beat myself up?

 

I know that it’s grief I’m dealing with and that there is no short road away from it. Getting on with my life, moving along, adjusting, are all goals, but it is consuming, from the hole in my heart, to the steady diet of regrets, to the loss of so much hope and so many dreams, I can’t yet see what will be left of me.

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Empathy can be positive, too

Posted in Family, Island life, On getting older, tagged on May 8, 2008| 7 Comments »

 

While I’ve been spending the past two months in the Mark-induced horror of betrayal and deceit, others in my life have been experiencing such wonderful wonders of life, and although they are deeply sympathetic, they are not, thankfully, having their happiness dented in any way by my misery.

 

My dear friend, George, who is actually the closest to a first foster child Mark and I took in … he was 18 at the time, just out of school, with no parental supervision and an open bar tab at his absent father’s hotel and was well on his way to spending the next 20 years or so not moving beyond the bar … now holds a Masters Degree, is close to 30, married, and just witnessed the birth of his first child, a son.

 

Martin and Caroline, those of one of the homes that put me up on my recent trip to the UK that was so meant to give me focus and support, are moving to Fiji after Martin had secured “the perfect job”. He’s a marine biologist and was unhappily back in England for five years after a stint here working in a far too political job to actually accomplish any of his goals and was almost as depressed as I was when I arrived. In the time I was trying my healing, he was offered the job of a lifetime, and they are now preparing for a whole new life in a place they’re so looking forward to living and working in.

 

Others, of course, have also been hitting high points, and although all have been excellent at boosting me where I need boosting and helping me through this miserable time in my life, it is so good to know that ups and downs don’t happen to everyone at the same time, and that friends are there for the highs and the lows.

 

My thanks to all who have given so much of themselves to me lately, and I very much look forward to celebrating all joys that may be coming to others. Someday again, the joys will be mine, and knowing that I have such a broad and fantastic foundation of friends makes life worth living.

 

I am a very lucky woman, and even in the depths of despair my friends don’t let me forget that. 

 

 

 

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Mourning John Lennon

Posted in Celebrities, Celebs, On getting older on December 8, 2007| 4 Comments »

The day the music died may have been in 1959, but twenty-seven years ago today the world lost not only one of the most brilliant and creative musical minds in modern history, but a bit of its soul and a lot of its conscience.

220px-johnlennon1.jpgDecember 8, 1980 was the day Mark Chapman shot and killed John Lennon outside the Dakota building in Manhattan as he and his wife made their way home.

For more on this, check out:
A Tribute to John Lennon (October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980)

Photo credit: Wiki commons

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Who lies about their age?

Posted in NaBloPoMo, Older women, On getting older on November 17, 2007| 2 Comments »

I don’t know if it’s a Boomer thing, an island thing, or just a thing with people I choose to have conversations with, but I don’t know anyone who lies about their age.

Okay, I don’t know any ADULTS who lie about their age. That is more accurate because I do occasionally run into the four-year-old claiming to be five and the eight-year-old who so longs for puberty that “I’m nine” pops out almost without thinking, prompting the issuance of an involuntary groan from somewhere near the please-don’t-rush-it area of my brain.

But grownups declaring a false age? Nope. I’ve not even heard a dodge in a long time, nor a “How old do you THINK I am?” recipe for disaster. When the subject comes up, as it does, real numbers pop out.

Being 56 … see what I mean? … I’m old enough to remember TV episodes in which Lucy or Donna or June clearly made the point that asking a lady’s age was a sin punishable by glares and accusations of totally inappropriate rudeness and that lying about how may rings were on one’s tree was not only a right, but a responsibility to womanhood in general.

People were expected to chronologically constipate at 29, or at the very outer limit of 39, and stay that way until sometime around 80 when they could relax enough to unclench and own their age.

Trying to pass as younger has never made much sense to me. It seems preferable to be seen as a semi-ravishing 50-year-old who appeals to some tastes than a tired 39 who looks to have been rode hard and put away wet way too often.

I mean, really! Who do people think they’re fooling?

Anyone with eyes notices hair color that comes from a bottle and spots neck wrinkles and liver spots even post-botox, so the charade seems to be a game of one. Does anyone really think that the generation of your mother’s hands at the end of your arms is an invisible phenomenon?

In my crowd, thinning skin and too-frequent urges to pee are nothing to be denied …. What would possibly be the use of that? … but commiserated and comfortingly compared.

For the most part, people in my world are okay with the aging thing. We can name it, we can claim it, and we won’t be shamed into lying … the capital of the State of Denial … because there is no shame in the neighborhood. We may creak and crack and come in handy as visual aids in lectures on gravity, but we hold our heads up high on these scrawny necks of ours, happy enough to be whatever age we are.

After all, we are well aware of the alternative, and that is NOT dewy youth no matter how hard one tries to make it so.

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Blah, blah, blahg

Posted in Adoption, Adoption Advocacy, Angelina Jolie, International Adoption, Island life, NaBloPoMo, Older women, On getting older, Younger men on November 15, 2007| 2 Comments »

There are topics arrayed before me like so many tubs of ice cream at a Ben & Jerry’s, some even looking as potentially tasty as Chunky Monkey, but I haven’t the energy to dip.

You see, I’ve already written almost 2000 bloggity blog words … 1,811 to be precise… on three blogs, and although I do this most days AND manage to plop something here since it’s NaBloPoMo, today it’s simply not in me to wax on again about the fact that today is Mark’s birthday or the very interesting “All Things Considered” piece on race in America or the new blather on Angelina Jolie’s adoption issues.

If you’re interested in what I’ve written, you can check out the News Blog, the Older Parent Blog, or the International Adoption Blog.

I’m going to go for a nice, long shower and get myself smelling sweet, brushed and tidy so I can welcome my Birthday Man home in an hour. Once clean and dressed, I’m going to sit down and read to my kids until Daddy’s truck pulls up and we all run to greet him with smiles on our faces and joy in our hearts.

Oh, one thing …

This morning, Mark asked Sam if he had any presents for him. Sam answered, “Of course I do, but you don’t get anything until tonight!”

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Granny marries youngster … but is that the story?

Posted in Adoption, Older women, On getting older, Writing for a living, WTF?, Younger men on July 11, 2007| 5 Comments »

If you don’t already know this, I’ll share that one of the pro blogs I write is on the topic of adopting as an older parent.

Since I’m about to turn fifty-six and have a 4.75-year-old and a 2-year-old, I’m qualified to write about being a geezer mom. I try very hard not to make that blog all about ‘Oy, my achin’ this and that‘ to keep an encouraging tone for others considering heading their walkers down that path (That’s a “Zimmer frame” to British readers … which I apparently have now.), and in hopes of giving my kids something to look back on and be fooled into thinking I was hip and groovy well into my dotage.

In my daily perusal of newsal … trawling for blog fodder … I found a story that grabbed my attention, then held it long enough for me to spend some time wondering about someone else’s life and choices.

You see, I’m not just an older mom, I’m an older woman with a younger husband … not exactly a cradle robber, since Mark was 26 when we met at my 42nd birthday party — more like a bike thief in a ‘You-can-forget-about-ever-buying-a-motorcycle-now-Mister’ sort of way.

But back to the morning’s news …

Bopping around my usual haunts, I found this story coming out of the UK about a 51-year-old grandmother and her new husband, a mere slip of a lad of 27.

Ack! You might say. That certainly does warrant a news headline or two. After all, there’s almost a quarter of a century of long, hard years between that woman and her Toy Boy. Aside from the sex, what could they possibly have in common?

And well you might ask. Since her husband isn’t allowed into Britain, sex isn’t much of an issue, and they most certainly come from different backgrounds.

She’s a five-times married granny and respected parish councillor who lives in the village of Moulton in Oxfordshire.

He? Well, he was raised in Afghanistan and now runs a scrap metal business in the Saudi city of Jedda.

Although they are legally married after the blossoming of the holiday romance in Egypt, she continues to go by her previous married name Mrs. Jane Felix-Brown. Perhaps some day she’ll change it to match her husband’s, and officially become Mrs. Omar bin Laden.

Osama’s her father-in-law.

And to think some people are all het up about the age difference!

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It was 40 years ago today …

Posted in American thoughts, Celebs, On getting older on June 6, 2007| 6 Comments »

Sgt. PepperI can remember where I was the first time I saw and heard Sgt. Pepper. I’m not going into any detail about stances … neither circum nor sub … but I’ll admit to a drummer named Charlie and some really pretty colors that drifted around as “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” premiered in my head FORTY years ago this month.

Excuse me? Can that be right?

Well, of course it can.

It was June, 1967, and I was just about to turn sixteen. I’d recently been relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area to a hell of a Hooterville in Northern California called Red Bluff.

There was no doubt that I was too cool for school, and was even the subject of a call-in radio show on KBLF (K-bluff? Perfect … ), where hick parents accused me of wearing tights to ‘hide the needle marks in my legs’ … yes, that’s how much they knew about drug use — morons … and worried that I was out to corrupt the heck out of their drunken, redneck, brawling, screwing darlings with my peacenick ways and long-haired friends from out of town.

Yes, I had, thankfully managed to locate some hippies after my own heart in the bigger town up I-5 — Redding.

Days in the upper Central Valley in June are hot, and the heat lingers long after the sun takes its 9 pm dive over the horizon. It was an expanse of grass in someone’s front yard that seemed the ideal place to stretch out with Charlie and listen to the brand new Beatle’s album.

It was magic … total, complete, compelling, enthralling magic. Every track amazed in new ways, and with a little help from my friends who popped out with a new doobie every few minutes, Charlie and I were swimming in harmony, beat, notes, riffs and lyrics.

Who now doesn’t know all the words to “When I’m Sixty-four”, end any mention of “It was 20 years ago today … ” with anything other than, “Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play”, and hasn’t woken up more than once with the special refrain of “Good Morning Good Morning”, a la the Fab Four running through the brain along with a bit of chicken talkin’?

Back then, however, it was all new, and it was breathtaking.

Paul McCartney is almost more than sixty-four now, and though I doubt he got many Valentines this year … being in the throes of a messy divorce and all … he does still have hair.

Heck, John Lennon has been dead for twenty-seven-and-a-half years, a thought that still makes me so very sad at the loss the world suffered on the 8th of December in 1980.

I’m weeks away from hitting the downhill slide from 55.

June 2007. Forty years after Sgt. Pepper. Wow.

And here’s a thought … it’s almost half way to 2008 already.

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“Harold and Maude”: In love again

Posted in On getting older on May 9, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Harold and Maude
I’ve been accused of being Maude-like in a “Harold and Maude” sort of way, given my proclivity for younger men and a grab-the-brass-ring tendency to jettison stuff and security when something wonderful floats by, but in reality I can only dream of emulating the late, great Ruth Gordon’s rendition of the tiny larger-than-life character that is Marjorie Chardin, aka Maude. (To be honest, the comparisons aren’t meant kindly, but I take them that way, nonetheless.)

Should I ever reach the venerable age of ‘eighty on Saturday’ I can only hope that I’ll have it in me to wear kimonos, sing, dance, stick daisies in my hair and pose nude for artists. (In deference to my darling husband, I won’t wax all lyrical-like about snuggling for sunsets with a 22-year-old … and so on … but I have to admit the scene brings a pang.)

I watched the movie last night for the first time in years and fell in love with it, and them, all over again.

When I saw it in 1971 it was a movie about youth and yearning and learning that made me laugh. Funny how it’s morphed into an over-the-shoulder glance toward acceptance and contentment that I now find comforting.

The nostalgia it prompted kept me awake most of the night. So much of it was shot where my childhood played out … places I haven’t seen in many, many years … and those locations overlaid with the texture of the times in the costumes, the Cat Stevens music, and the 70s qualities of the images, so very ‘of its time’, set off a thrumming as the film resonates on so many levels.

One reverberation has to do with how different the 2007 world is from the 1971 … not in the sense of what’s been added, but what’s been taken away.

Seeing the art constructions on the mud flats off I-80 near Emeryville transported me to the back seat of my parent’s Ford when my brothers and I … all kids under 10 … couldn’t wait until we passed, craning our necks for a good look at what was new in that ever-changing outdoor exhibit of creativity and political opinion. They were removed from the scene before I was, and I have no idea what there is to look at from that stetch of freeway these days.

And the old Dumbarton Bridge! I understand it was replaced in the 80s, but it’s been thirty years or so since I was needing to get across to visit Aunt Mary.

The scene mentioned above, the one I refrain from allowing myself to place a future version of me in should a quarter century still find me here, when Harold notices the concentration camp tattoo on Maude’s inner arm, for example. The shot lasts a second or two, so short that a young viewer now would miss it completely … yes, and the Dreyfuss quote will pass over many heads, too. In 1971 the world had many people wearing the nazi brand … their memories were alive and walking around. That doesn’t happen much now, if at all. My generation is the last that will see numbers on an arm flash by and react from the gut. That time is finished, we’ve moved on, and history is swallowing much of what I was taught to believe was as permanent a scar on the soul of humanity as anything could ever be.

Not so. It’s all an eye blink.

My father, Aunt Mary, Ruth Gordon … all dead now, and for some reason ‘Harold and Maud’ has me missing them and wishing I’d lived a little bit more every day of 1971 and since.

I lost a ring in the sea here 14 years ago, and I find myself looking for it every time I snorkel. Not any more. From now on, I’ve decided, “I’ll always know where it is”.

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