October Bits and Pieces
I was on a zoom book launch the other day. It was a book about midlife (Navigating the Messy Middle by Ann Douglas), which I have not yet read (I've ordered it) so I cannot comment on the book. However, the topic, women in midlife, is one that interests me greatly.
The host made a comment on midlife that struck me. She said midlife was more about what there is to be revealed than about what is disappearing. She likened it to trees in the fall when the vibrant colours are revealed. The vibrancy is not something that is suddenly created. It was always there, but the loss of the green now reveals these wonderful hues.
That is what midlife is all about, isn’t it? It is not about bemoaning the loss of green. It is about revealing the layers and depths that have built up over the years. Society tries to pigeon-hole us and have us believe that we are losing: our youth, our looks, our importance, our place in the world, our relevance. But that’s just not true. We have accumulated much over the years. We understand ourselves and others better. We have a lot to offer. We are no longer ‘green’ but we are vibrant shades of red, orange, magenta, crimson that can only come with maturity and having lived. You cannot attain the brilliance of the red if you haven’t been through the green.
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I love reading memoirs. Not celebrity ones, but the lives of people like you and me, who may have been through some shit and learned a few things along the way; who may have had a few
adventures and mishaps; who may have struggled and persevered. Through their stories we see parts of ourselves.
I recently finished “All the Way to the Tigers” by Mary Morris. When I saw that it was a story of her solo travel, I knew it would be a book I would enjoy. Her trip though is much more adventurous than any I’ve taken. She travels alone to India where she hires a driver and guide and goes on a quest to spot the elusive tiger in the wild.
The short chapters in the book weave effortlessly back and forth between her India sojourn and her past, all the way back to her childhood, revealing of course that her solo trip is not just about finding a tiger, but finding herself.
I loved that the book also gave us snippets of information about tigers. “The tiger’s solitude is legend.” “...the tiger, once grown, except when mating, is always alone.”
Many, many years ago, I was in an art store and saw a huge print of a tiger with mesmerizing eyes. I fell in love with it but, at $800 it was more than I could spend. But I thought about that picture and the tiger’s eyes for a long time and regretted not buying it. Morris’ book reminded me of that episode when I’d been so drawn to that tiger.
Morris herself has been fascinated with tigers for a long time and as we understand more about her, the reader can see why she is drawn to this mysterious, magnificent, solitary creature, whose only enemy is man.
Morris questions her reasons for going on this trip. In the book she quotes Pico Iyer, “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves, and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes...And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again—to slow time down, get taken in and fall in love once more.”
That’s the best description I’ve read for the reasons we travel, for the reason I travel. And somehow, it fits with moving into and through midlife - to slow time down, get taken in, to open our hearts and eyes.
Of writing, Morris says, “Recently I realized that silent is an anagram for listen. It is the voice that comes from the silence that the writer or artist must listen to.”
You can understand why I enjoyed this book: a woman travelling solo, questioning herself, a writer, appreciating and understanding the solitude of tigers, a hunt for that glimpse of elusive magnificence, travelling to lose herself, understand herself, take in everything.
And this: SILENT is an anagram for LISTEN!
A silent and reflective but vibrant October. I wish that for myself and for you.
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