A Woman of a Certain Age

There’s a sculpture I like to look at when I walk to Whole Foods or to my health club. It’s right in front of the Chicago Center for Photography. The artist, Jennifer Dickson, calls it Being There/There Being. I call it Lady in a Keyhole. It’s actually composed of three separate pieces arranged on a small triangular patch of grass. The iron pieces, set on round pads of concrete, I believe, were arranged to suggest the dynamic nature of time and space. Certainly, one gets a very different feeling of the work depending on their vantage point.

But something almost magical happens when I look, straight on, at this feminine shape through the not quite meshing jaws of the two other pieces staggered in front. I identify with the figure, this woman at the end of the tunnel or keyhole. I actually imagine I am in her place, that I am not focusing on a simple figure at the end of a restricted field, but that I am looking out from beyond these giant metal incisors… at the world. When I look at the Lady in a Keyhole, and think of myself as the Lady in the keyhole, I feel more like the “seer” than the “seen,” the observer and not the object. And this makes me think about how differently I feel about myself as a woman in my fifties than I did as a woman in my twenties.

My very Italian friend, Angela, used to invoke the resigned curse of her grandmother when describing aging. Anziani è brutto. Getting older is ugly. Or is it something else?

Last week, I went to a cosmetics store. I don’t start my day “putting on a face,” but I decided I should augment my soap and water routine with some sort of high-powered anti-aging cream.

“I want to get rid of these fine lines,” I sighed to the skincare specialist. "I have a very expressive face, and I have creases above my eyebrows and here,” I pointed. “On the sides of my eyes.” I remember looking up at the forty-something year-old woman with highlighted, well-coiffed, hair. She was wearing a long-sleeved smock cum lab coat that made her look like a scientific artist or artistic scientist.

She said. “Get rid of your fine lines? We can firm things up a bit, but you can’t get rid of them. Why would you want to? You’ve EARNED them.”

Well that was a funny thought, I considered. Then I contemplated how I had become the lady in the keyhole looking outward, a woman of wisdom and compassion, dedicated to being of service without being anyone’s mother or martyr, curious and discerning, simultaneously open to new experiences and deeply appreciative of what was in front of me. I had become someone more concerned with how I saw the world than with how the world saw me.

When I was young, I wanted to be thin enough, smart enough (although not too smart), adventurous and reserved in proper proportions, according to some other defined guide – whatever it would take to be liked, to be desired. I wanted to be wanted. And now, I mostly want to experience life through my own eyes, my own ears and my own skin (even if I have a few fine lines on my forehead). I want to look out at the world from my own perspective and look back through the keyhole at myself and know I am standing tall. I can stand firm and I can move on my own volition.

Loving a woman of a certain age, especially when that woman is YOU, is no small thing.

Making Friends...One Stranger at a Time

I pulled up to the Enterprise Rent-A-Car on Western near Grace Tuesday morning at around 7:15. My contract said that I needed to get the car back by 7:30. Not wanting to run the risk of paying for more than the two days I budgeted for driving my niece up to music camp in Egg Harbor, I made sure I got my orange red little Kia refueled and parked back on the lot before the office opened. A slightly built, Hispanic man with receding hair line, was standing only inches in front of the glass door. He was reading and re-reading the information about hours.

“I see someone in the office, but no one has unlocked the door yet,” he reported as I walked towards the spot where he had positioned himself, no doubt to be first in line. “They should be open soon,” he added, sounding more intent on reassuring himself than anything else.

I don’t know why, but the actual thoughts that were running through my head just poured out. We were sort of in the same position.

“I just came back from Door County,” I announced. “I was driving my niece up to music camp. She plays the violin. I have a car, a Honda Civic, but it’s over fifteen years old, and I wanted her to be comfortable. It’s almost a five hour drive,” I said before getting to the biggest concern on my mind. “I wanted to make sure I got the car back early so they wouldn’t charge extra.”

The man smiled. He understood.

“All my children came to Chicago this weekend for Father’s Day. Two from San Juan, one from Virginia, and Estefania came in from LA. They made me rent a van so we could go everywhere together. They bought me a Kindle,” he added with an unabashed outpouring of enthusiasm then sighed. “It was the best Father’s Day I ever had.”

While we waited for the office to open, he told me about the first books he downloaded with his new Kindle, about how much he loves to read, especially since his retirement only six months earlier. He gushed about how much he loved his family. I found out that he was in a hurry to get through processing of his rental return. He had to get home and drive his eldest son, Braulio, to the airport for a 9:30 flight. “Don’t worry,“ I told him, “Where do you live? Humboldt Park? That’s not that far. I’ll drive you.”

When the office opened and he handed in his car key, he asked if someone from the agency could drive him home. Since they only offered transportation to an el station or bus stop, he decided to take me up on my offer. We both knew driving to O’Hare on the Kennedy during rush hour was a crapshoot, and the faster we could get him home, the better his chances would be to help his son make his flight.

We continued our conversation in my car. We talked about the current debate about making Puerto Rico a state. “What’s up with that?” I asked. “What do the people in your neighborhood think?” I told him about my trip to Door County with my fifteen year-old niece. I had been looking forward to having some bonding time with her, but she was exhausted from worrying about the competition at Birch Creek and slept practically the whole time we were together. “She knows you were there for her,” my passenger reminded me.

I decided I could tell him about my other activity in Door Country, visiting my friend Chris who was in hospice at a nursing home in Sturgeon Bay. I had spent most of the previous day with him, developing my skills at packing his wheel chair into the tiny Kia trunk and going on small excursions – to a local diner for lunch and to a sporting goods store where we got him a baseball cap so he could cheer on his beloved Brewers in style.

“He has cancer?” my new friend asked. “My son-in-law had cancer. I was with my daughter when he passed. It happened so quickly from when he was told he was sick. He was the best man you would ever want to know,” his voice waivered, recollections refreshed. “A pastor. Only fifty-two. The church arranged for grief counseling for the whole family. That was very good, I think,“ he nodded, noticing we were approaching the great metal sculpture of the Puerto Rican flag that undulates across Division Street. He pointed out his house.

He asked if he could pay me something for driving him home. It wasn’t necessary I told him. Moments after he swung the door open, before he stepped out, he turned towards me and extended his hand. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Deborah. What’s yours?” “Hector,” he said and smiled, adding his thanks.

In the ten minutes it took to get from the rent-a-car office on Western to Hector’s house, a relatively short distance, it seemed like we covered a lot of territory. We talked about love and family, politics and grief. We became fully fleshed out human beings to each other. And to think, it all started at Enterprise, waiting for the office to open.

Making friends, one stranger at a time, should be a primary enterprise of everyone. When you can sense the personhood of someone, even someone who you will never see again – it’s no small thing.

The Day Rumi Fell Off His Horse

Last weekend, I attended Celebrate Your Life, an annual conference featuring top speakers on matters of mind, body, and spirit. Actually, following the great experience I had volunteering last year, I offered my services a second time. My assignment was to support Andrew Harvey, one of the conference speakers, for the weekend.

Beyond an impressive career writing and teaching on spirituality and mysticism, Andrew Harvey’s recent work has focused on what he calls Sacred Activism. Sacred Activism is a global movement that emphasizes the necessity for people to marry their quest to experience their indwelling divinity with their responsibility, as aware human beings, to be a force of compassion in action; to help heal our planet and our collective lives. At some intuitive level, the concept makes a lot of sense to me. The time has come to be genuinely loving stewards of our natural world and do the necessary inner work to heal our own souls.

My duties as Mr. Harvey’s assistant for the weekend involved getting him to conference venues on time, helping him with book signings, and making sure he had everything he needed in the room where he was speaking. As a perk, I got to listen to both of his talks.

His first talk of the weekend was directly about Sacred Activism. As he spoke, he would wring his hands at times, almost pleading people to hear the wake-up call, as he had, for a radical transformation in consciousness, He paced the length of the room like a tiger sporting non-camouflaging stripes. He wanted to be seen…and heard. An experienced speaker under the influence of his own highest calling, he channeled his love and fury into every phrase rather than present talking points of information.

His second talk, delivered the following day, was on Rumi. I had been a fan of Rumi’s poetry for many years, mostly his “love poetry,” which I felt could be interpreted equally as being about romantic union or union with God. I was secretly hoping to hear Harvey recite some of my favorite lines.

“I don’t do Rosebud Rumi,” he announced. His talk on Rumi, it turned out, was also about Sacred Activism. Rumi’s life and words were to act as a sort of summer thunderstorm to flash drench the seeds of our passions, to motivate everyone to understand the immense possibilities, the duty and joy, in knowing our own divinity and stepping up to be part of the transformation the world needs. Everyone in the room could not help but be moved as he invoked the words of the master.

The grapes of my body can only become wine
After the winemaker tramples me.
I surrender my spirit like grapes to his trampling
So my inmost heart can blaze and dance with joy….

Early in his talk, Harvey told a story about how Jelaluddin Rumi met his spiritual guide and teacher Shams Tabrizi, a nomadic holy man. Both had been yearning for what the other had to offer, Shams yearned for someone to whom he could impart his rare wisdom and Rumi longed to go beyond the book knowledge on theology that he had mastered and actually experience the ecstasy of divine love.

Harvey described the unlikely and mysterious circumstances of their first meeting, building up to the simple fact of the event, telling us that on November 29th 1244, as each man recognized they were looking at what they most longed for, Rumi fell off his horse. Very clearly, his life was completely changed. By meeting and then developing the most unique bonds of creativity and mystical understanding, Rumi was re-born. Following this incident, he shed his persona as a conventional scholar and became an impassioned seeker and messenger of sacred union.

I shuddered when I heard this story. Initially, I allowed myself to get intoxicated when I heard this date. My birthday is November 29th. Wow, I thought to myself. I was born the day Rumi fell off his horse.

Then I thought about the greater magnificence of what it means to be re-born to yourself; to be re-born to your most authentic purpose and passion. I watched Andrew Harvey shake his hands towards the ceiling. His voice was near cracking. His glasses were slipping down his nose and his forehead was beaded with sweat. The world is waiting, he reminded us, for each of us to be re-born to ourselves, and if enough of us are willing to be mother and midwife, we could give birth to a genuinely new way of living that is more fully integrated and aligned with our best selves as human beings.

I know Harvey’s talk will stay with me. I am not yet sure how his message will continue in its unfolding.

Being reminded of your power to be born again, for your own sense of fulfillment but also because the world needs what you have to give, is no small thing.

Medium Rare

Over the past few weeks, I have found myself enjoying the beginnings of new relationship. Since first setting my intention to have a life partner about a year ago, I have allowed myself to be vulnerable and have exercised a willingness to start new conversations. I met John innocently enough through some banter over an online match site. To the over-used question embedded in his profile, “Name six things you can’t live without,” John invoked the lyrics of an old Ian Dury and the Blockheads song. His answer: “Sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll…and three other things.” I thought this was pretty funny and decided to introduce myself.

A pleasant first date at an art fair and dinner date for a second act at a popular Lincoln Avenue restaurant was followed by a dinner he made for me at his place. He bought succulent rib eyes from the Paulina Market, a treasure of an old-world butcher shop that I patronize myself for special occasions. He greeted me affectionately at the door then offered the first of what was to be many choices I’d have during the evening.

“Are you hungry now or would you like a drink first?”

Other options followed. They rolled out so naturally, I didn’t think much about them at first.

“Would you like me to put on some music?” “Would you like a lemon or lime in your club soda?” “Would you like to eat in the dining room or the kitchen?” “Do you like walnuts in your salad?”

His manner was not patronizing or approval-seeking. He was simply soliciting my preferences and doing what he could to satisfy them. He only offered choices that he was able to supply.

Maybe the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but the way to this woman’s heart is through her sense of choice. Given choices and exercising my prerogative, on even small things, makes me feel like I am really being listened to, like my opinion matters. It shows me a sort of respect for my sovereignty, an understanding that I know what I want better than anyone else can assume.

“How do you like your steak cooked?” John asked, lowering his head and raising his glance to examine my expression.

“Medium rare,” I declared.

“Oh good, I hoped you would say that,” he said, acknowledging this latest discovery of one more thing we had in common. We both laughed.

Being sincerely asked your preference by someone committed to delivering it is no small thing.

Something New

Sunday, I went to the Hyde Park Art Fair, or 57th Street Art Fair as their tee shirts proclaim. The humidity we had the day before seemed to have broken with a late afternoon thunderstorm, and it seemed to be a perfect early summer day for wandering down a street lined with 10’ x 10’ white square canopies covering artists, artisans, and a sampling of their work.

You usually won’t see high end gallery art at such a fair, even at a juried one, but it’s a wonderful place to get new ideas or feed off an artist’s excitement about his or her creative play. Even though I am more of a tourist than a shopper at these things, I also enjoy feeding my dreams about what kind of hand-thrown crockery I would like to have in the incredible beach house I’ll build after I win the lottery.

My fellow sojourner and I wandered past displays of hand-dyed silk scarves and wraps – wearable art, quilts sporting colorful combinations of batiks and definitely not-from-the-farmhouse looks, and bins of photos that seemed to have been taken after the next World War. (After talking with the artist, we found out that many of his shots were actually taken from abandoned buildings in Detroit.) It’s such a great thing about art; how no matter how bleak the subject matter, the act of communicating a feeling in art can only be life-affirming.

Then we heard this music. Very pure and unadorned notes vibrated in the air. It sounded a little like an African finger piano only fuller. Someone was definitely playing some sort of instrument. The sounds wafting between the contentedly slow strides of people on 57th Street were not random notes, but were being deliberately strung together.

We walked closer to the source of the music. A ruddy complected retiree from Arizona was striking mallets against a box of carved wood, making the most delightful sounds.

“What is this?” I exhaled, astonished that, music aficionado that I am, I had never seen such an instrument before.

The artisan and business owner stopped demonstrating long enough to explain that he was playing a hardwood drum; a hand-built percussion instrument constructed of different types of fine woods, carved to get different tones. Skillfully hollowed out boxes, perhaps 10” by 18” by 8” deep, they could be played with mallets or with your fingers. With pride he added that Paul Simon and other popular musicians who used such an instrument in their productions probably got them from him.

My friend, a musician himself, asked some questions about harmonics and the instrument’s range then placed his hands on the tabletop where the hardwood drum rested while the master craftsman started playing again. He wanted to feel the vibrations of the song. A small crowd now began forming behind us.

They were selling these beautiful boxes, these hardwood drums of various sizes and types of wood. Each had their own unique sound. I looked behind the simple box collection towards two beautiful coffee tables. They were also made of exotic woods. The low tables, of different designs, featured a wide edge built around a rectangular drum. Like the box drums, they could be played with mallets or with your fingers.

Wow! An actual functional table. (Okay, if I would decide to rest a drink on it, I would be sure to use a coaster.) If I was delighted by the drums, I was dazzled by the coffee table with built-in drum. Musical furniture. What a great idea!

I left 57th Street and Hyde Park with a new goal. One day, I wanted to have a musical coffee table.

Sunday, I saw something new. Something that was probably ancient, but new for me. It surprised and delighted me…and that’s no small thing.