Today I have found a divot in my verbiage.
I am apparently at the age which has become “the new forty” but I am sceptical. However vibrant sixty is – and it is – it will never have the juice of forty, ovaries have thankfully ceased to be a challenge although their loss was mourned for a while, and I am finding a few other things melt away on the weary climb to the pinnacle of decrepitude before falling off the other side. Slower on the stairs; tins are more of a challenge, inexplicably; bearing four live children and a few who did not survive has left some scars literal and otherwise; when I stop moving not all of me does. Nothing I had not expected. But.
Words. My main hobby and place of work. Worshipping at their altar and making a living manipulating them perhaps I began to take them for granted and they are making their presence, or absence, felt simply as a reminder. I take a shade longer to identify the best word for a sentence or description, it takes a mite longer to recall names, running up against white noise instead of the expected tumble of potential sentences is shocking and unexpected. I do not think it is a clinical issue but having noticed it, it matters to me. I can sort-of bear the loss of sinew, suppleness and strength and there are compensations: as an old lady I can be less careful and more legitimately honest – although that was never really a problem – and can walk away from crap more easily, if a little stiffly; I do not feel any pressure at all to dress appropriately; knowing more stuff means I can reflect more effectively and that is a blessing and a curse. Grateful to have reached an age at which I have become a closer approximation of who I am and have learned about a variety of things, I am also burdened with that learning, the realisation of things. Understanding is often over-rated. Comprehension can be crushing.
My usually lush and well watered verbiage that has grown and thickened over the years is becoming a little pock marked and faded around the margins. It takes a little longer to grow – still lush, still a pleasure to walk on, still fragrant and opulent but with signs of fatigue and some of those heavier footprints take longer to disappear, the turf breathing just that bit harder when forced to restore itself. And that divot, ah that divot…….for now I will walk around it and stand on the abundance that all but covers it. Because who knows if it will heal itself, or the lawn wither and die anyway, or if it will simply sit as a divot and behave itself with grace as a reminder that am just lucky to be here, now, at all.
Poetry will continue, my life as a storyteller will continue. My colours may simply be a slightly different shade and bleed into one another a little more.
