Turning Points- Life Is Full Of Them!
Sometimes bitterness creeps into my poetry the way a tear escapes even when you don’t want to cry. While many of my poems deal with vulnerability and pain, I usually express these with words of sadness and not bitterness. There is nothing noble about acrimony.
(The bag lady feeding pigeons in the park is an old pastel of mine.)
Today, I had to provide a journalist with some information about myself. Strange, but photographs and articles about me have appeared in newspapers at least a dozen times. I say strange because I am not famous.
The first time an article about me appeared in the newspaper was in the Washington Post on Monday, November 17, 1969. My beau and I eloped to North Carolina and married on November 15, 1969. His family lived in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C.
On the day that we married, there was an anti-war demonstration in D.C., and the next day, remnants of the 250,000 from the previous day’s demonstrations held a second rally at the Three Sisters Bridge- right en route to my young husband’s grandmother’s house. My new sister-in-law and her three-year-old son were in the car with us. We were locked in traffic; the police mistook us for demonstrators, gassed us, reached into our car with their clubs, left us with a few bruises, and broke my husband’s glasses. To a young reporter from the Washington Post, we were prime examples of police brutality in that long ago era of anti-establishment sentimentality.
Ok, that was an instance of wrong place, wrong time, but the subsequent times that articles about me appeared in the paper, it was for personal or professional accomplishments. This particular article is also about an accomplishment albeit a small one. Truth is, all of my accomplishments are newspaper ‘filler’, not headlines. This time, the Coast Guard Fine Art Program accepted one of my paintings for which I received a Public Service Award.
Getting back to today’s questions, after telling him about my military service (Army Air Defense 1974-1977) he remarked that I lead an interesting life. Was it interesting? Is that the right word? I have certainly had some unusual experiences. I had my share of triumphs and tragedies, but how does one live to be 60 years old and not be able to say that?
I failed in my first attempt at writing this blog about life after 60. According to Carl Jung, I am in the afternoon of life where my major developmental tasks are to integrate the conscious and unconscious parts of myself. He must be right. My dreams have taken strange twists and turns, and with many of them, I am not too pleased. I wake up wondering about my thoughts and attitudes, and yes, my feelings.
Whether I choose this direction or it chose me, I am on this path. I am integrating.
I’m quite surprised to find myself
At this place once again.
The last time that I chanced this way,
The trees threw gray shrouds over me,
Sounds of creatures frightened me,
And I ran off.
I thought I’d never lose my way
And end up here again.
Yet, now I’m here ‘neath these same trees.
I remembered them as darker, grayer, deeper,
The hoots and brays more malevolent.
I walk,
Casting glances back at where I’ve been.
I think that now I understand:
That will I, or will I not,
I will be this way once again.
A crisis is a defining moment. If one shrinks it is fearsome. If one choses a new path, it is a turning point.
Note: The painting is one of my few abstracts titled “Defining Moment.”
I turned sixty years old this month and the sunset of my life looms ahead of me. It is not all bad. For a woman, sixty years old can be liberating. Age alone gives us a certain amount of credibility. Sociability and charm is no longer interpreted as ‘sexually provocative’ conduct, and personal success is no longer ascribed to taking advantage of our feminine wiles. We are finally accepted for our talents, our achievements and our character! My sympathies go out to all of the young, beautiful women out there who are also incredibly gifted, intelligent and successful. I know the slurs they suffer and it is so unfair, but I am off point already.
I just turned sixty and I am experiencing a crisis of sorts. The beauty that I took for granted as a young woman has faded, I no longer have a waistline and health issues are rearing their ugly head. I have far fewer years in front of me than I have behind, and I am once again conscious of all of the things I put off for ‘someday’ and never found the time to do. I have learned that a crisis can be a turning point- if I am willing to make changes.
In the past, I was willing and able to make those changes. This is not the first time I have been in this place. I faced a similar crisis when I was thirty and realized that I had achieved none of my life’s goals. I had married young, given birth to two sons, divorced, and found myself a single parent with all of my childhood dreams and goals so far from my grasp that I thought I would never achieve them. Over the next ten years, I earned both my Bachelors and Masters Degrees, moved to Florida, and bought a home. (Oh yes, I remarried too, but that relationship proved just another costly and painful mistake.)
I had a similar crisis at the age of forty. I was trapped in a marriage where I found myself constantly enabling an abuser. I also realized that I had achieved all of the goals that I had set for myself years ago and had nothing left to look forward to, no goals left to work towards. Where at thirty I had been frightened, at forty, I was depressed. It took a lot of courage, but I divorced, bought a new house and started a new job, all within a few short years. I experienced a similar crisis at fifty, which is when I started to write and paint.
Here I am at sixty, another turning point. Once again, I must make changes in my life and set new goals, but that is another post. This, I thought, might help explain what this blog is all about. I will explore new goals and chart my progress. I hope some of you will follow me as I once again reinvent myself after sixty.
dottieriley 