44

“be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Live the questions now. Perhaps over all there is a great motherhood, as common longing.” -Rilke

When I hit 40, a strange anomaly took place. I began to measure my age in relation to where my mom was at my age in relation to me. If that is as confusing as I think it is, I’ll try to clarify.

The day I turned 40, I found myself thinking, “I am the same age as my mom was when she gave birth to me!” I imagined myself as her. I imagined the vitality of a life within me. Somehow this made me feel younger.

Today, as I near 44, (it’s just two days away) I am thinking, “I am the same age as my mom was when I was four years old.” Again, I imagine myself as her. I imagine dealing with a four year old. I imagine going insane. Somehow this makes me feel older.

My friend Bryan recently handed me a memoir to read. It’s about a woman who gets pregnant at age 44. He thought I might enjoy it.  I am thinking he might enjoy a memoir for his birthday; the one about the man who loses his penis at age 36. It’s the least I can do for a friend.

However, I did read the book. Consumed it really. I imagined myself as her. I imagined myself pregnant at 44. I imagined not being able to go through with it. I imagined not being able to not go through with it. Somehow this makes me feel neither young nor old, but perhaps a bit wiser.

There’s something strangely paradoxical about putting myself in my mother’s shoes though. It’s both selfless and selfish. Aware and oblivious. Spiritual and temporal. It’s all about her, but it’s all about me. I am her. She is me.

But what of us?

We are not solely defined by our ability to procreate yet procreating is the definitive answer to our existence. The absolute. Without it, we are nothing. I am nothing. No “Happy Birthday to you!”, or even “Average Birthday to you!”

Everyone is born.

Everyone dies.

The question is… how will we choose to live?

When Doves Cry

I stand with arms buried deep in the heat of freshly laundered cotton.

Snap.  Fold.  Stack.

Drumming a domestic rhythm against the long strains of winter; my soliloquy to spring.  A soft coo from outside the laundry room window slips into this cadence; accent on the upbeat.  It fits the morning ensemble the way things long-anticipated and then forgotten often do.

Understated.  Delicate.  Orderly.

I’ve been waiting a long time for this.

Relatively speaking.

dig if u will the picture...

February 14th, 2011 - My husband and I put up a platform bird-feeder.  I want to draw in doves.  I want to absorb their haunting cry.  I try to imagine it.  Almost crave it.  I wonder what it sounds like.

February 23rd, 2011 - I trudge through snow to the middle of the yard and refill what only finches have consumed.  I peer at the trees.  At the sky.  A song is in my head.  “How can u just leave me standing, alone in a world that’s so cold? Maybe I’m just 2 demanding…”  

“Maybe I’m just like my father but doves_ will_ come, damn-it-anyway!” I scream.

Is this what it sounds like?

It's been a long winter.

February 28th, 2011 -  I notice a pair of doves perched in the oak at the edge of the yard, striking curious poses.  They do this for about an hour and finally fly away.  This is the last I see of them.  Maybe they heard me screaming.  (Even doves have pride.)

I give up.

Until this morning.

Perhaps they feel the heat between me and laundry and rhythm and forgetting.  Perhaps they sense the heat of the tears that burn at the edge of my vision at the sudden awareness to their cry.

"Darling don't cry."

But there they are on the platform, as if they have always belonged to this place, eating their fill.

Lyrics (used throughout) from “When Doves Cry” by Prince