another year

I turn on the computer quickly, try to catch the last moments of daylight, the sky painted grays and blues and golds, a quick steal.  Tomorrow I turn 42.  I like it already.  I'm settling into all that I am, forgiving the haste and letting things mellow.  Over the weekend I dug into sulfuric earth, the heat rising from the hot springs, dirt beneath my nails.  My hearing aids were dead and I sank into the quiet world I was born into, all mossy, wet beards of spring evergreens, swathes of ice and thick, dark mud.

It had been harder than usual for me to settle into being away from my crew.  We've been extra tight lately, bound by basketball games and homework folders, loud dinners and opening hikes on Bear Trail.  One of my best bits of each day is slipping into bed next to my man, my body finally clean from the evening shower, the children finally quiet.  We watch our Mad Men and look at houses in Mexico, the flannel sheets mixed with the Tiger Balm on my knee, all aging and comforts melded into one.  I certainly have settled into this role of mother of two, wife of one, believer in many in my old age.

I finally had my knee looked at and after the xrays came back okay (like I knew they would), I felt a lift, a lightness that I haven't had since all this began in October.  I am aging.  I am healing.  My legs still carry me over hills and down snowy trails, connect me to my core, hold my gratitude.  Last night I led my class through jumps for joy.  My boyfriend Michael Franti sang, "I'm alive!" and we jumped and jumped, arms pushed towards the sky.  We wrote about our most loveable through-line qualities, the things that we can hang onto when all else fails.  I identified my creativity, my kindness, my optimism and thanked them all for serving me so well over the years.  I don't want to live darkly.  I don't want to be slow and scared, hurt and afraid.  I want to celebrate each moment of each day, the children and the man, the mom and the dad, the students and sisters and girlfriends.  Time is moving so swiftly yet so much stays the same.  And nothing too.  The beauteous juxtaposition.  Eliana and I writing poetry by candlelight on my yoga mat last night, Tina Malia spilling from my little speaker, tarot cards splayed on the hardwood floor.  The roller rink and "Let's Hear it for the Boy" pulsing in the weak speakers, my boy and I holding hands as he takes his wheels around the loop again.  Laughter with my girls on the xxski trail, the way we can laugh so hard at ourselves, our foibles, our ridiculous and raw selves.  Jeff and I trying to figure out what to talk about on our first date in months, how we feel so aimless without the kids in the car -- by the time we settle into the evening, it's time to return home.

So for 42 I say, let's go!  Each day there is light and music and words and honest faces and big hearts.  There is no reason to hold back, no reason to hold too tight.  This is our great blessing and the time is right about now.