Tag: 50s

Final of Fifties

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There are some times when I long for the partnership of a marriage, times when I am nostalgic and perhaps even a bit overly romantic about the whole idea of aging alongside someone whom you know well. And then there are times when I feel pretty lucky, and I enjoy things just as they are.

Things took a tremendous turn for me almost fifteen years ago, and ever since, I’ve had to readjust my expectations. Life has been a challenge during the past decade and a half, yet it’s yielded results beyond any I could have imagined. I did the Green Acres swap; I traded my tony urban life as a famous man’s wife for a life on the farm as just another single mother hustling to make it all work.

You couldn’t have convinced me of it during those first brutal years, but now I know it was the best of any possible scenarios. My child wouldn’t have turned out as he has, nor would I have learned all that I have, if my husband had not left me. So many treasured memories of our shared life here in this tiny cottage in the woods as mother and child would not have come to be, so many life-changing events would never have happened if things had worked out the way in which I had expected them to.

But I am getting older. My body isn’t able to do things it could only a year or two ago. It’s not a hunch anymore, it’s real. And there are moments when I panic. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Is it in my best interest to grow old all alone back here in the woods? Is it even safe?

Yesterday my car got a flat tire in the driveway. And, for the first time in my adult life, I could not change it myself. My bad back and arthritic hands just couldn’t come through for me. Man, did I feel vulnerable. And old. As I sat there in my car, wondering what to do next, it hit me. Maybe this wasn’t where I should be anymore. Maybe.

My house is covered in branches, decaying leaves and moss, the gutters full. There’s a gaping hole in my garage roof with a swath of soffit hanging down like a giant loose tooth. Downed trees and huge branches lay all across my now-growing lawn. The iron hand rails down my kitchen steps have corroded so badly that they’re only held on by two remaining bolts. I haven’t got the physical stamina to tackle any of it, certainly not enough money to have someone else take care of things. And it worries me. The older I get, the more it does. Ten years ago – even just five years ago, I would’ve thrown my back into it and done my best to patch the roof myself. I would’ve tied the trees to my car and dragged them to a great pile and burned them. I had the energy and strength to imagine a solution and employ it. Now my back just won’t let me, my fingers can’t clutch tools very well anymore, and I hesitate to even go up a ladder. A fall is a potential disaster at my age.

At 59, all of these things are becoming clear to me.

In a few weeks’ time The Studio will be on the market, and the wait will begin. Who will buy the place since all the local arts venues have passed on it? Likely it will become a private residence. And that is not something I ever truly considered. It kinda changes everything. The anchor gets lighter, the future less certain.

When I first began renovations on The Studio in the summer after dad died, a contractor had spoken to me from the place of a concerned father; was this really my dream? he had asked me. Or was I embarking on this huge undertaking out of guilt, or a feeling of obligation to my late father’s legacy? I had thanked him for his candid offerings but assured him that I knew what I was doing, that it was a vision that I alone held. He probably knew as well as I did that I was headed down a long and expensive road, and that I honestly had no idea what I was doing. And while I can say that The Studio did in fact produce hundreds of beautiful moments and brought pleasure and delight to many over the following ten years – I cannot say that it ever paid for itself. To the contrary, it’s been through the gifts of kind people, including my mom, that the place ever broke even. But I have no regrets. I’ve learned a lot, and many wonderful things were born of the place.

But it’s so hard to let it go.

In the end, what in hell does anything matter but the moments themselves? Memories are important, as too are goals, but they all culminate in the single witness to a moment. This is something I’ve pondered for ages. I’m still in futile pursuit of truly getting it, but at least these days I understand a little bit better. And it’s what helps me to have no regrets; I have gratefully born witness to every moment of my “new” life here in Greenfield, from farming to academic to professional endeavors. Even as I felt the suffocating effects of my despondency, poverty and loneliness – even then I knew enough to hold a deep appreciation for the idyllic place in which we lived, the gifts of experiences that we’d been given, and the treasured way in which my young son and I lived together in partnership and solidarity.

Now that era has ended. What exactly comes next? Judging from the way my older students hold firm the handrails as they descend my kitchen steps, what comes next does not seem all that appealing.

I’ve joined the Y; I’ve had my first interactions with people other than students and store clerks since before the pandemic, and that restores hope in my heart. And over the past few months I’ve written around two dozen songs – something I’d never done until this year of my life. I am in possession of a Dot card and ready for networking; the links to my material are all easy to find. I’ve begun the hustle to get some work this summer. I’m still without a duo partner, but as with everything else in my life, it seems I’ll have to go that path alone. I also make myself attend open mics regularly – despite the drudgery that is inherent in that process – and so I get the opportunity to try out my new songs in front of people. It’s not a bad place to be in my life, if only perhaps a bit dull and without compensation.

My sixties await, and despite some genetic predisposition towards longevity in my family, Facebook and the virtual world beyond remind me that I could go any day; the prospect of dying feels close by and very real. I’m satisfied with my son and his future success, that storyline is resolved. And as soon as I can archive all my material in such a way that it can be accessed by folks after I’m gone, then I can rest easy. Resolution is what I’m after these days. (That, and a tiny, vain effort to remain present in this world in some form after I depart.)

Greenfield is a sweet place in which to live. Is not the name itself so very poetic?

Once, when driving back from the highway department where we’d helped ourselves to a bucket of free road salt, Elihu remarked through a laugh that he loved living in a town where a “five-gallon bucket was a unit of measure”. Elihu grew up knowing that the local good old boys would always come through to help us prime a pump or fix a fence; we always knew that our neighbors were our extended family. It was fundamental to the person my son has grown up to be. So I thank Greenfield, my neighbors – and my mother, too, for our success in this corner of the world.

Now the landscape here is different. The young children on our stretch of the road are quickly growing up; baby faces have matured through adolescence. No longer do tiny kids ride their bikes down the long gravel driveway to visit the big boy and his chickens. There is now a huge house in the field between us and the girls across the road. No longer do mother and child wander over a meadow to visit neighbors. There are hardly any meadows left. Even our dear woodcocks have moved away and taken up residence down the hill. Several new houses have been built, and ancient, historic homes have been razed. Greenfield looks so different now. I can see a suburb evolving. I can even imagine stoplights taking the place of lazy, country intersections.

Greenfield is changing swiftly, and I feel myself to be changing along with it. A new landscape is emerging for us both.

Post Script:

Elihu will turn 20 on April 28th, and I will turn 60 on May 7th. On my birthday I will drive my son to JFK airport, where he will embark on a three-month adventure living in Tianjin, China. He is now fluent and literate in four languages, conversant in three more, and he wishes to refine and improve his Mandarin as can only be done through an immersive experience. He has a huge adventure yet before him; he will be navigating through a country where all signs are in Chinese characters – no Roman letters to assist. There will be no safety net. And he’s a person of low vision, so that factors in, too. But I don’t worry. In fact, I’m thrilled and excited for all that awaits him.

Who knew that life in a tiny, country cottage would produce such a brave and adventurous young man? Who knew that this unexpected change in our life path would turn out so beautifully? To quote a line from a Richard Scarry book that I said to my son throughout his childhood: “This was the best mistake ever.” Truly, it was.

Visit Elizabeth’s website here. Visit Elizabeth’s Instagram here.

Visit Elihu’s personal Instagram here. Visit Elihu’s tuba Instagram here.

Growing On

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We are put upon this earth without our consent. We are launched into a life incarnate without our choosing and by the time we’ve finally gotten our wits about us, many of us may come to realize that we might not have signed on for the experience if we’d been given an option at the outset.

This may sound deeply cynical, I know. But please understand that although I may often feel as if I don’t wish to be here, it’s not to say that I do not bear profound witness to the unfathomable marvel of this planet and the mortal life we share. Daily I am astounded by the complexities around me in the natural world. Daily I am fairly tortured by my desire to know more about my fellow humans and what motivates them to move through their lives and into their futures. Who among us is enthusiastically participating in life? Who among us is caring principally about advancement, who is working simply to avoid the pain, and who is altogether unaware that his or her own existence even merits examination?

From my privileged seat in a commercial airplane I can see vast tracts of land below me, all organized into human-sized portions. Suburban grids by day, cobwebs of light by dark, our handprint is ubiquitous. While I know there’s plenty of magic taking place here, I can’t help but feel the collateral despair. I imagine all of the strife, all of the heartbreak and loss. All of the fear, shame and regret. Perhaps it’s this way of thinking which has motivated me to live a more colorful life than some of my peers. I wish to avoid undue toil and discomfort in favor of the more pleasurable experiences. I am interested in reaching people and connecting. I am attracted to candor and insight. My goal is to bring comfort and witness to people. You can count on me to be the ice-breaker at a party, or the one who gets the silent old man in the corner to smile.

But sometimes, none of this is what’s appropriate or necessary. Today I learned that lesson again, and it has me stopped for a moment of reflection.

As I look out at the disheveled property that surrounds me, it cries out for me to surrender. This is the summer when it seems I will have to relinquish any illusion of control and simply let everything go….

The lawn is already up to my knees, the downed trees are becoming overtaken with vines, the retaining rock walls are tumbling down the hill, and my perennial garden looks to be nothing more than stinging nettles and goldenrod. The many hours of labor I spent tending to the garden last year appear to have been in vain. My arthritic hands hurt and my once-broken neck is becoming more of an issue each day; I just don’t see how I can wrestle the patch back into shape the way I’m feeling now. I honestly don’t think I have it in me anymore. And with a recent surprise turn of personal and professional events, my energy reserves feel even more depleted. As some might say, “I haven’t got the bandwidth” for it all. Truly, I don’t.

This will also be the final year for me at the helm of the Studio. It will conclude a decade of my hard and unpaid work. Work that was, at its core, a Sisyphean task. That’s not to say that it was a waste of time and resources – to the contrary, it was the birthplace of many great works and memories. Audiences leapt to their feet in applause at inspired performances, people of all ages danced, sang, acted and played music. Artists painted, writers finished novels, dance troupes worked out choreography, yoga teachers held workshops, kids enjoyed summer camps, elders convened to talk about death, people were married and neighbors drew into a circle to play drums together. There was even a workshop in which participants (of which I was one) walked barefoot over hot coals. Truly, a wide net was cast. I cannot say that it was not a success. In many ways it was an astounding success. But that era is over now, and I need to find something which better suits my waning energy and stamina.

I have to wrap while I can still feel the afterglow of the good things that happened there. If I stay at this too long, I’ll resent it. Time to stand aside now. Time to let things be.

What will come next is truly unknown to me. There will be music, there will be new gigs, new jobs. I know this. Just not sure where, or with whom. Not entirely sure I’ll even stay here at the Hillhouse. For now it’s where my piano is, so it’s where I am. But like the Studio, this place may have served its function in my life. Not sure. Much is yet uncertain.

The only thing of which I can be sure is that with or without me, the grass will continue to grow.

Star Shooting

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My thick, arthritic fingers give me away first. Next come my crepey neck skin and disappearing jawline. Then there’s the thinning hair. Seriously. Did the universe not receive the directive? I was supposed to get a moment of glory after the kid launched, right? Understanding more fully the unforgiving nature of aging, and learning in some bright new way that I’ve not been given any pass on account of merit – I have taken to saying “yes” to opportunities these days, cuz who knows how many more lie ahead?

That little word has opened a lot of doors lately. I would’ve said no to a few invitations but for that ticking clock in my head and the agreement I’d more or less made with myself that I would dive headfirst into life while I still had the physical ability to do so. “Want to come to Vegas with me?” Yes. “Want to record something today?” Yes. “Want to come on stage and sing with us?” Yes. “Remember that comment you’d made about wanting to play in the band? Were you serious?” Yes.

Add to that list taking a zipline above the rooftops of old Las Vegas, driving cross-country (panic attacks took that off the table for a number of years) and flirting with men as if I were twenty years younger – and you’ve got a little thumbnail of the way I’ve spent the past couple of months.

Just to keep things real, however, I will add that when I’m left to my own, and without an agenda or a goal, I tend toward the same old familiar depression. But with these new recent experiences afresh in my mind I have learned that there are some things I can actively do to prevent the slide back down into hopelessness. (I’m grateful that my situation is not as intolerable as it is for many; I’m lucky, and I realize this.) There have still been short stretches of time in which I’ve felt the despair begin to take me over, and it’s then that I force myself to take some sort of action. Write, play the piano, learn a song, take a walk. Something, anything. Any sort of activity… simple, home-bound and doable.

And then there’s the complicated, far-flung and seemingly impossible stuff. That’s fair game too.

When I took my recent trip to the Midwest to visit friends (which happened after my initial week’s adventure out west, a nod of appreciation going out to the minor rock god), the entire experience flowed like pure magic. I kept marveling over it, hour by hour, as the serendipity continued without pause. Wasn’t the other shoe going to drop sometime soon? No! Why the hell should it? I’d tell myself, somehow actually believing it. The ‘old’ me would’ve prepared for mishap at every turn.

But not this new me, apparently. And friends, let me tell you, during my three weeks of travel and adventure I did not once succumb to such thoughts – and it was to my great surprise, I assure you! Just who was this woman? This lucky, lucky woman? Surely it was not Elizabeth! How could this be? Feted by friends, appearing places at just the right moment, having my tab picked up by a stranger, finding a parking space right in front of the club. I’m not a believer in instant karma (not sure anymore how I even feel about long-term karma, to be truly candid), and while it’s tempting to chalk it up to a happy reimbursement from the universe for the many years of good, solid and solo parenting – I don’t think it was so. Rather, it was my happiness, my exuberance – these things paved the way.

I can’t account for the flawless timing of things – but I’m still a believer in the magnetism of energy, the attraction of like with like. I dunno. On paper it seems to go well with a belief in karma, but the jury is out on all of this stuff. All I know is that I felt powerful and engaged with everyone I met. I was of course on cloud nine to finally be amongst my brethren, but it was more than that. As I’ve said before, it really was magic.

Aside from the many memories I now have and treasure, I came away from the trip – and the past couple of months, too – with a new sort of awareness. I’ve always fancied myself an observant and somewhat contemplative type, but I also know myself to be an overwhelming energy in the room; I am an interrupter, a talking-over-the-other-person person; I am often insensitive to people even when I like to think I’m anything but. And I’ve been wishing to change this, so I made an effort to visit with friends in person (I put hundreds of miles on the car in side trips) even when I’d had online communication with them. And the more I met with folks, the more I realized the insight that in-person contact provided. I felt I began to understand my friends in deeper ways. Some may say this is simply a post-covid response, but I know it not to be. I will say however that being sequestered in the country and having no peers or creative life to speak of over the past fourteen years has probably contributed to my appetite for connection.

But it’s more than that. I’m gonna take a guess and posit that perhaps, in some way, I am finally growing up. Maybe. At the very least, I’m living with a keener sense of mortality.

Time tells me that I can’t fuck around anymore. If I’m gonna do something, if I’m gonna learn something or have a new experience, it’s going to take effort. It’s going to take being brave, taking a leap and saying “yes”.

When I visited my hometown, I stopped by the Baha’i temple near the house where I grew up. It was nighttime, and the enormous, dome-shaped building was brightly lit and simply majestic against the black sky. I stood there for a long time taking it in. After a while I glanced at the clock in my car, it was 11:22. Hm. That was my old address in Chicago. I’d gone back there to visit too, and had been happily received by my old neighbors. In every way things had continued to line up on this trip.

My eyes returned to the view, and I noticed an amber glow in the sky to the west of the dome. My first thought, of course, was that it was a plane. My second thought was that I wished my son was here to see it with me. The glowing light traveled above the temple in a path toward the lake to the east. It appeared to break up shortly after it passed over the dome, and then, silently, it disappeared. I stood there, amazed. My linear mind wrestled with the details; it was amber, not white. There were no red and green lights on the sides. It was silent, it didn’t look like fireworks…. But in the end, my magical mind let it go. I had witnessed something lovely, something breathtaking. It simply couldn’t matter what it was. It was now another part of my stunning journey.

It felt as if I’d been given a wink from the cosmos. Something was telling me that I was on the right track. I was exactly where I was supposed to be, and I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

I was shooting for the stars.

One More

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Another year? Really? Do I have the energy for it?!

Fifty-six was something of a surprise. I mighta known stuff was coming down the pike, but somehow a lot of it threw me for a loop. I wasn’t the only one who had some challenges to face this past year; my son has also had a few life-changing events – some really good, and some hard and unfair. But we’ve learned from it all, and onward we go. Elihu turned 17 last week, and tomorrow I turn 57. Wait, fifty-seven? What?? Somehow to me that just plain sounds wrong. Liz Conant is 34, isn’t she? Most adults have a favorite age; family friend Martha always liked 42, and my mom touts her 50s as the best decade ever. But for me, my 40s and 50s were given over to single motherhood. It just hasn’t been about me for a while.

The ironic thing about this earthly existence is that those who grow old are regarded as the lucky ones. And yet growing old brings a list of unpleasant deficiencies (please hold your protestations) like diminishing physical abilities, crepey skin, strange new chin hairs, an inability to recall a particular word in real time, and most disappointing for me, a sagging neck and a second chin that no amount of scarves can obscure.

Lest it sound like I’m a vain, self-sorry sort (well, actually, in part I am), I will happily agree that I’ve had a wonderful life thus far – and I’ve been luckier and more privileged than a great majority of the world’s population. I’m aware of this and think on it often. I’m healthy, I’m housed, I’m loved. All is well, truly it is. But lately my neck has been making these very distressing popping and grinding noises from inside (my arthritis doctor may have made things worse by admitting that my neck Xray was “abnormal”. I try to play it off by remembering the “Abby Normal” scene in “Young Frankenstein”, but it doesn’t quite work), and I’ve begun to feel sensations in my limbs that are likely linked to my old injury. Also this confinement has just added to the extra pounds I carry around. And I’m not digging any of it. I’m just self-comforting with food and booze. Simple as that.

It seems I may also have some sort of low-grade depression playing in the background of my life, because for no real identifiable reason some days are just very hard. There are days when I don’t even know how to get out of bed – truly, I mean it. There are days when I don’t know where the hell it’s gonna come from today… How will I feed my kid, deal with the chickens, return the emails, teach the students, run the errands – if I can’t even get dressed? And I’m not just talking quarantine-related angst. It’s shit that’s been with me for years. Most pronounced in these past eleven years here at the Hillhouse. And yet – the flip side of that coin is that I’ve done more for myself this past decade than any other time in my life. I’ve raised my son, rediscovered how to make music (this time without a band – my worst fear, truly), I’ve learned about starting a business, about farming, about fixing things, making things work, making do… And it helps to remember that. Seeing it in print is a good reminder. I suppose we all need reminders. And second chances, third chances, fourth chances…

A birthday always seems to me like a secondary New Year; it’s that perfect opportunity to try again, to pull oneself up and hit that to-do list with new enthusiasm. This is my hope for tomorrow. Maybe it will prove to be a new seed, that new bit of inspiration that I so need now…

Perhaps I’ll end up reading this tomorrow, and in the light of a new day maybe I’ll think better about sharing all of this negative talk and decide to pull it. It does sound a little self-sorry for a woman who has her wits and her health about her. It shames me to voice any complaints at all – because I have some very dear friends who are suffering from some hugely challenging health issues, and their paths are so much harder than mine. And I suppose a birthday is a gift. If nothing else, it’s another chance to do good work and get things right.

This year will be a gift. It will be my last year with Elihu here by my side. In one year, by my next birthday, we will know where Elihu is going to college. By then we’ll be preparing for him to leave, and I will be preparing for my first year out of the only job I’ve known for the last 17 years! It’s a good thing I have a year to get ready. For as many changes as we’ve shared here through the years, this last major shift will be the biggest of all. And with that in mind, I intend to cherish every moment of my 57th year. The best gift of all is to have one more year with my son.

Ok. I’m on board again. One more year? Yes, please.