“I don't know why people are so obsessed with age anyway. I mean, 90 is the new 70 70 is the new 50 and 50 is the new 40 so the whole act-your-age thing? Only up to a point.”
- Joan Collins

He turned 70 last week and as I will follow suite in just a mere six months. I have been spending some time thinking about how age is different than growing older. I mentioned a few posts ago how I was finding it easier to accept the changes that growing older brings with it, after all, I have been growing older since the day I was born. But grasping that number 70, and the preconceptions I have about it when it comes to age, rattled me a bit. So, I did a little research, and it seems 70 is the new 60, some even say it is the new 50. It just comes with a few more doctor appointments, (along with some new screenings,)new glasses every year, and a couple of daily pills to keep you going.

Luckily I can live with those things without too much stress.

We spend the morning making Valentines, talking about the people we love, and how love makes us feel. After lunch I get out my mom’s old button box and I let him play. We sort them by color, working together side by side, talking. Sometimes he holds one up, asking what it came off of, and I do my best to remember. I tell him the button box is a symbol of love for me, a way I remember my mother, wondering how I explain love to a four year old? But he doesn’t question this and seems to understand. Later, after he has gone home, I think about how I am building memories for him. I wonder what he will remember about a table full of cut out hearts, purple glue-sticks and stickers. I wonder if he will remember the button box. I wonder what he will remember about me.

“One thing is certain, and I have always known it—the joys of my life have nothing to do with age.
They do not change. Flowers, the morning and evening light, music, poetry, silence, the goldfinches darting about …”

― May Sarton, At Seventy: A Journal

We are back door people, so imagine my joy when I discover the hellebore blooms under last year’s foliage out front. I immediately drop to my knees and gently tug on the dead leaves, pulling them out of the ground making way for the deep pink of the flower. I do a bit of cleanup around the plants, reveling more blooms getting ready to emerge from the soil. Later in the day, as the sun pours through sliding doors, I find Baker asleep, basking in warm rays. I remind myself that the earth does not sleep, and it is up to me to watch for signs and get the plants ready for warmer weather. I head into the garage and gather my tools from where they were dropped last fall. I bring some inside to clean up and place the others in my garden basket. After all, I want to be ready when she lets me know the time is right.

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”

― Rabindranath Tagore

The last few days have felt like spring. I wake to the sounds of new birds out the window, wondering if the weather confuses them as it does me. The gardener in me wants to get out a new pair of garden gloves and dig in, but I have lived long enough to know that February is after all, still winter.

One evening I stand gazing out the kitchen window as the sky turns pink, watching as the vibrant colors find their way into our yard and our home. The colors are so vibrant even he notices, joining me in the kitchen to comment. I think about the week or so of winter weather we had a few weeks back and wonder if that was it. Our seasons are shifting and our weather patterns have no other choice but to modify.

Today we are gathering with our kids to celebrate his 70th birthday, which is coming up soon. There will be pizza and yummy chocolate cake, baked by me, just for him. Something I have not done in years. Lately I feel myself relaxing into this next season of our lives with less animosity. Finding it easier to adapt to the changes growing older brings with it, and looking instead at the privilege of it all.

Wishing you beautiful sunsets, no matter what the weather.

Just write, the experts say; write by hand,
 let the words flow, don’t edit, just write, 
get a beautiful journal and find the perfect pen,
 and write. . .  


I reach a point where writing by hand is physically painful, the flow of the words 
slow and labored.

I start a journal on my computer
 but wonder. . . 
is it the Hamburger Helper of writing? 
So I keep at the beautiful cloth journal, but the entries are 
scattered and brief.

Sporadically I open the pages 
on my computer and write, and watch as the words flow 
openly and free across the white pages. Unlearning and learning, I keep at it.

“The timeline of your life is not a straight line, after all; it is a series of ebbs and flows, backs and forths, heres and theres. You are nowhere and everywhere all at once, and that means that most of the time, the best you can do is be present to the moment, be open to the unlearning and the learning, and trust that you’re doing the work of Love.”

― Kaitlin B. Curtice, Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day