Watercolor Bedroom

When I was a child, I studied the faces of women I knew.  I saw them as young or old. "Young" meant unmarried and free, but it didn't seem particularly fun-loving or adventurous.  "Old" meant alone and close to death, wearing the ravages of disease and deterioration with varying degrees of dignity.  It never seemed wise or peaceful.

"Middle-aged" was a nondescript, pejorative term. "The bloom is off the magnolia," I heard someone say when I was a girl.  No one had to explain the meaning.  To cling to the "bloom" was a woman's only (albeit fragile and temporary) hope.  To relinquish the dewy-eyed freshness of youth was to step straight into the jaws of decline and despair. 

Women tried to be flippant as they voiced their fears.  "At my age. . ." the line began.  What followed was always something self- disparaging.   "You're not getting older...you're getting better" sang a commercial for hair dye, preying on collective fears:  Were we really doomed to that ultimate and horrible fate... just getting old?  Was there a way to fight it?  How could we exist without a fresh ingénue face to make us appealing to the world?

I now understand what I was seeking as a child when I searched the faces of those women.  I was looking for a face that was filled with something other than anxiety about itself.  I was looking for a face that reflected something about fully belonging--about knowing its own wisdom, about exuding a sense of graciousness in a world that is fraught with adolescent dramas and power struggles.  I was looking for a face that would share its secrets with other women.  I was looking for the face of midlife.

I didn't plan on wearing that face.  I secretly held the hope that my spiritual quest would camouflage my fears and insulate me from a world that was bewildering in its competitiveness and cruelty.  But three things happened as I slogged through school and embarked on a career as a psychotherapist:  One, I fell madly in love with the words of the poets who had transcended the wounds of time and ordinariness that seemed to doom my own young life.  Two, as I listened to the stories I heard during the psychotherapy hour, I realized that the wisdom of the poet and the prophet often comes disguised in the words of ordinary people.  And three,as I grew older, I continued searching the faces of women...now the faces of my peers.  A they aged, some got resigned and bitter, or overly attached to that perpetual girlishness that borders on desperation.   But in many of my women friends of all different ages, I saw glimpses of what I came to think of as Grandmother God.

Grandmother God for me embodied a timeless divine femininity...able to embrace both joy and sorrow, to be on the planet for her own sake alone, to be fierce without apology, and to love others fully because she has taken the perilous and courageous path of self-love.  Grandmother God was generous for the sheer pleasure of it.  I experienced her as I shared birthdays and wedding celebrations and births and deaths with my friends.   I recognized her in the moment when one companion said, "You should buy that sweater.  It's delicious against the color of your skin," and I heard her voice when another friend said, "Stop.  Listen to yourself.  This dream is telling you something."   I felt her presence, too, in long solitary walks in the woods and on the beach...a presence at once encouraging and challenging, who could whisper words like, "You don't have to get it right all the time, honey," and at the same time not let me settle for anything less than the most authentic life I could live.  

    Grandmother God, too, could laugh at herself.  She could see her own inner inconsistencies and view the foibles of others without judgment or criticism.  In short, Grandmother God could have a good time.  She could dance the dance of one who lives in a less-than-perfect body and sing her songs in a less-than-perfect-voice.  And because she was less than perfect, she could invite others to sing and dance along with her...with the abandonment and sparkle that can only be shared by ordinary people in ordinary moments.  

The truth, of course, is that we either despair or we become the images we long for.  While I know I don't fully inhabit the world of Grandmother God, I know I am onto something because she inhabits my world.  While I don’t fully know how to get from "young" to "old" in a way that invites life and wisdom and peace, I know that midlife is a time, not only of transition, but of initiation into something rich and real.