The longer one waits, the more difficult it gets. It’s been half a year since I’ve written anything here. Since our visit to Scotland and Sweden this past spring, our lives have been dense with activity. Elihu has been immersed in his final year of college, and I have been busy writing music and working with a new band.

Moments of clarity and inspiration have come and gone… In a flash, I’ll know just how to approach an essay; there will be a certain insight, a certain story that calls out to go first, but then I’ll get pulled away by a domestic task or the bell of a notification on my phone, and my attention immediately spins in another direction.

And then there are the larger distractions, too… A tree falls across my driveway. My hot water heater craps out. The zoning board denies my application. My keyboard won’t power on. My tire keeps going flat. I forget passwords and waste an afternoon resetting them yet again. The inboxes of my too-many email accounts are hundreds of messages deep and need tending, and I almost always have music to shed for an upcoming rehearsal or gig. Never mind. If it was such a clever idea, it’ll come back.

Um, not likely. A fickle memory has become my new normal.

These days my ongoing mantra is WRITE IT DOWN – no matter what it is. Interesting thought? Song idea? Lyric? Errand? Write it down. In a mere two seconds it will disappear forever… I don’t really understand how or when this all happened – but something has changed. My logical mind searches for landmarks or easily recognized turning points, single events which might help me quantify the process – but no distinct evidence emerges. It’s taken me the past six months to understand that the me who exists today is not the same woman who existed one year ago. It appears I have undergone a change. I believe I have become old. And if my flimsy short-term memory is not enough to convince me, the crepey skin sure is.

Before you protest, please know I am simply being factual. I wish it were OK in this culture to declare oneself old, and have it be accepted. Euphemistic phrases like “such-and-such years young” and “age is only a number” loudly convey our denial about being legitimately old. And it drives me nuts. I am old. It’s not my favorite thing to say out loud, but the markers are here. As a woman who has derived a good bit of pleasure from looking sharp, put-together and, well, young, this is not an easy admission to make. But who ever said life was easy?

I have really bad osteoarthritis in my hands too, and it’s gotten noticeably worse over the past half year. Over the past two months even. It’s tempting to feel sorry for myself – what a lousy fate for a musician! I was wise to make a little video a few years ago of me playing my tenor uke – cuz I can’t come close to pushing a string down on a neck. I feel ironically fortunate that my instrument requires only open-handed, lateral movement. It’s becoming a bit harder to navigate some fingerings, but for the most part I’m doing OK. And these days I don’t take this stuff for granted.

Elihu is doing very well in college, and is finishing strong. I look on him in utter amazement. He is not only academically successful, but he is a thoughtful observer of life. He has a clever sense of humor and a compassionate heart. The eye of an artist and the rigor of an engineer. Too much? Meh. Indulge me… My son has maintained an A average in his studies of aeronautical engineering, he has started some clubs on campus (indoor aeromodelers, philosophy, international language group) as well as served in a group of Chinese language mentors, and he is also in student government, requiring late nights of administrative tasks and budget allocations. He’s now fluent and literate in five languages, and conversational in several more. He also plays tuba in the symphony and a variety of wind ensembles – plus he gets all over town on public transit with his tuba in tow, sporting his favorite porkpie hat, sitting in with funk and jazz bands. Proud much? Maybe a little.

In spite of feeling the mortal clock ticking faster these days, I am in a very nice spot right now. I’ve lost some weight, gotten quite a bit stronger (I racewalk 2-3 miles a day and spend about an hour weight training) and – this is the biggee for me – I am writing songs regularly. Year before last I wrote my first song, and I’ve been writing ever since. Sometimes a month will go by and I’m too busy to sit down and listen for ideas and I panic, thinking surely I must have written my last song. How in hell do ‘real’ songwriters do this? Come up with albums and albums of material? And yet, I’m beginning to get it. Kind of. I now have many more songs than I could ever hope to record, and even choosing ten out of the lot is difficult. But now I must choose just five songs for an EP that I’ll be recording in the new year. Not easy. I’ve ended up sending out my homemade demos to a number of friends in search of their input – informal marketing research of sorts. But it has not yielded the consensus I’d hoped for; my tallies show almost all songs getting equal votes. Not a bad problem to have though.

One year ago I made a decision to play anywhere and everwhere I could. Performing my songs was still a new thing and I wasn’t as in control of my performances as I wanted to be. Tempos weren’t locked in, my focus was easily thrown off, and being in the spotlight as a solo artist was new and I felt a bit unsure of how I needed to present myself. The only way to get better was to be persistent. I find open mics to be grueling affairs, but they are also a great resource. Between those and a good number of solo shows, I’ve learned a lot this past year; it’s been surprisingly fruitful.

The exciting thing is – it’s not over, in fact, it’s kinda just beginning. I’m in pursuit of some future I do not yet see very clearly, but one I am trying my best to create. It’s a little scary sometimes to think I’m starting something new at this age – but isn’t that what we humans do? We move, we pursue. And as Elihu launches himself into the world this year (he will most likely be attending grad school in Stockholm, so his absence from my life will be profound) I too will be entering a new chapter.

It seems we will both be graduating soon.