In which I turn 39 in company of my 16-yr old self, wooed by a Great Horned Owl
"Why is it that I often feel like I'm going to explode out of my little cocoon people have made for me?. . .Why do I feel content tonight? Consistency is certainly not one of my strongest points. . .Didn't I tell you things are more complicated now than they used to be?!" --me, April 17, 1994
It's official. I am thirty-nine, as of twenty minutes ago.
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| Cannon Beach, OR, two days ago |
Tonight on my way to bed I detoured into my tiny office, selected a few hardback books, and flipped through them. My cursive, sometimes flowery, sometimes rigid and jerky with passion, covered the pages. High school journals. It's taken me many moons to be able to read them without cringing--but tonight as read my earnest sixteen-year old words, I smiled. Mostly I wrote about boys or God, and sometimes--often--I wrote about both in the same page.
In some ways, reading my own reflections from when I was about the age Merry is now surprised me--because as I read my juvenile reflections with compassion, I suddenly realized: I've changed so little in twenty-five years. The same things frustrate me, delight me; beautiful things still make me ache inside and then I use too many words trying to describe why; I'm still praying (or should be) for many of the same things (more patience, clarity, steadfastness).
Yet I've grown up. My life has boiled at a slow simmer and sometimes when the steam clears, I see that what is left at the bottom of the pot--a few Essentials. But what essentials! Family, community, hope, wonder, love, faith.
Importantly it has taken me twenty-five years to learn that I need solitude in order to make sense of my life. Well, but maybe I was already figuring this out as I scribbled furiously in my journal every night as a teenager. Maybe the seeds of knowing (the Essentials at the bottom of the pot) were already there even at sixteen-gifts from my imaginative, just, compassionate parents. So what's changed? I've suffered more and also received incalculable gifts, and I feel that if I spent my whole life (or the second half, now) saying thank you, I still wouldn't have enough time to pour out my gratitude. My cup runs over.
Maybe I laugh at myself more. And think about myself less. That is the hope, anyway.
A few more thoughts from 1994:
"I've felt lately like living in a fantasy, in a movie world, because with each year that passes I find new aspects that make life less like a fairytale. I wish I could just live, without being bothered by all the complexities of my own strange soul."
and
"Why do people have to get old, and their bodies worried?"and
"Mommy says there are time in life where we must reconcile ourselves to muddling through each day, no matter how confusing the mere minutes may seem. . .she is right; there are times when all I can possibly do is try to wade through one dark wave to the calm water on the other side. . .Yet there are moments which are crystal clear and amazingly beautiful."
and
"C is supposed to tell me very soon about what her first kiss was like. I've complied a long list of very thorough questions."
There it is. Proof that I was indeed sixteen.
But, hark! What is that? To ring in my thirty-ninth birthday (and Beatrix's ninth birthday), a Great Horned Owl just filled the night with a long, hooting cry punctuated by a sweet, flutey flourish at the end. I just jumped up on my bed, threw open the window, and hooted back. An auspicious sign.
After all, if fifteen-year old Merry is right, I've only lived just half my life. And what a good life it has already been!
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