The Pits and Pieces

  As the year comes to a close, we undoubtedly find ourselves sorting and sifting through the events of the past twelve months. What worked, what didn’t? What brought us joy, sadness, laughter, happiness? What do we want to take with us into the new year and what do we want to leave behind? Sometimes what we want to take with us or leave behind . . . are people. In my last online writing zoom group, we were reading our pieces and discussing friendships. I have a few that go back over 50 years. That is quite something and to be treasured. Women’s friendships are precious, especially as we get older, and, as I wrote for my group: “Society puts a lot of emphasis on romantic relationships and family ties, and much less on the friendships between women, often reducing them to girls’ nights out. But it is these friendships that quietly sustain and nourish us, humming along as a connecting thread in our lives, and we do ourselves a disservice if we don’t see them as a vital part of our ...

  Yes, I’ve been painting again, because I’m at a stage in my life when I can happily ignore chores and the approaching festive season and indulge myself in what I want to do. I wanted to paint, and so I did.  I marvel at how much less ‘guilt’ I feel now when I ignore the ‘shoulds’. And I think yes, it’s partly because of the age and stage of life I’m in, and the realization that I know myself so much better now and can acknowledge that I’ve never been really good at any of the traditional domestic-related tasks and I’m okay with that. It’s not who I am. I’ve worked for many (many!) years, pay my taxes, raised my child, try to be a good citizen, and now I find I want to spend my time writing, creating art, playing, connecting with people who inspire and ignite my curiosity, and ... keep on learning. I’ve signed up for a series of watercolour painting classes next month. One might think – you really should first try and master acrylic painting, but, no, why wait until I ‘mast...

Well, here I am, back from two weeks spent travelling with my daughter in Portugal. I rarely, if ever, return to places I’ve visited before, unless it’s a day or two in a city that I need to fly into or out from. But this time I visited two cities that I’ve been to before: Porto and Lisbon. I was last in Porto in 2015, alone, for a couple of days before starting my Portuguese Camino, and then again at the end of it, before flying home. I was last in Lisbon in 2006 for five nights, exploring the city with my then-boyfriend. Two cities re-visited, one nine years later, one over eighteen years later! What happens when you return to a place, having accumulated more life experience? Are you different? (The answer is yes). Is the place different? My daughter and I have taken three trips together in recent years (since 2019), and we’re similar in that we like to explore together but also like our space. For that reason, we book a place with two bedrooms (the apartment in Lisbon even had...

  Okay, I must get my anger and disappointment out on the page. Who are the people who re-elected Trump? Do they not care that he is a serial rapist, a racist, a misogynist, a felon, a man completely devoid of integrity? None of those things are deal breakers? I do not understand. I do not understand. Will I, ever? Should I try to? Yesterday, I went into Toronto for a medical appointment (nothing major). On the train in, I found myself looking at everyone with suspicion: Are you a Trump supporter? Are you? Are you happy about the US elections outcome? Do you align yourself with him? I have lost my faith in my fellow human beings. After the appointment, I headed over to the Art Gallery of Ontario. There are some days you have to take yourself to look at art. I forgot I was hungry. I looked at art. The classics, the landscapes, the portraits, the still-lifes. And then . . . a marvelous collection of wild colour and beauty – the huge quilted canvases by Pacita Abad, a Philippine-b...

In one of the recent online sessions with Ageless Possibilities , we were asked to ponder the question: “ Who is the person staring back at us from the mirror as the decades roll by?” – Grace Paley . Pondering is my middle name. I live to ponder! I wrote a bit more than what is below, but you get the drift – the mirror lies (unless we choose to look deeper), aging is a bitch, but also – “Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life—it has given me me” – Anne Lamott. Whether we like to admit it or not, aging is a trade-off. I look in the mirror and who do I see? That woman is me. But she couldn’t possibly be the same woman she was at 35, 45, 55. Because so much life has happened since then, and life inevitably changes you, as it should.  The realization there are so many less years ahead of me than behind hits like a punch to the gut. But who wants to think about diminishings and endings, when blossomings and beginnings hold so much more allure? Yet, aging giveth...

This week I shutdown my work laptop for good. Hung up my work hat. Became a ‘ jubilada ’ (I wrote in a previous post about Jubilación , which is the Spanish word for retirement). I look upon this as the In Between, the time when I’ve just exited one phase of life and am about to enter another. I’m on a bridge, crossing from one landscape of life into another. I know, for a short while, I may feel unmoored, unstructured, and as much as we like to think of spontaneity as being cool, the reality is we all need and thrive on some kind of structure to our lives, as any parent of young children knows. I trust I will find my footing, because I always have, and I’ve laid the groundwork. The world wants to label you so that others know in which hole to peg you. But the word ‘retiree’ doesn’t sit well with me. I may have retired from the paid workforce, but I have not retired from life.   Indeed, inside I feel 35, and yet, not the same as when I was 35. Because who remains the same person ...