Charlotte texted me this poem by Jayne Gumbel, and I wanted to share it with all my aging friends and family:
Cultivating the Joy of Aging
Some mornings now
I wake before the world
and sit quietly with my coffee
like an old woman
who has finally stopped arguing with the wind.
The body speaks differently these days.
Knees remembering storms.
Hands carrying the ache
of everyone they have tried to love.
Still!
Wendy, the willow waving no matter the weather!
The birds call my name from the trees -
as though nothing precious has been lost.
This delights me!
I was taught to fear becoming older.
As though aging were a narrowing.
As though beauty belonged only
to smooth skin and unbroken things.
But the heart!
the heart becomes enormous
through weather.
I have cried enough now
to recognize sorrow
in the eyes of strangers.
I have lost enough
to stop wasting time
pretending permanence.
And joy? true joy!
No longer arrives like fireworks.
It comes quietly now.
In painting, in poetry.
In a friend who still reaches for my hand.
In the courage to rest.
In forgiving the life I did not live.
In belonging to the earth
instead of trying to rise above it.
Aging is not a punishment.
It is an initiation.
A slow loosening
from performance, certainty, and speed.
A returning.
Not to youth -
but to something kinder.
Sometimes I think
the soul grows older on purpose
so we will finally learn
how to love everyone.
Even ourselves.
Especially ourselves.
And when my time comes
to leave this shimmering world,
I do not want to say
I stayed young.
I want to say:
I stayed astonished.
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