MY 60th BIRTHDAY

(I wrote this two years ago)

Today is my 60th birthday. It startles me to even say that I have been here, on this planet for such a length of time. I still, in many ways, feel like I’m 24----only much, much wiser, aware I have so much more to learn.

I’m writing this from one of my favorite places to get away and write---Hilton Head Island, SC. It’s a soft, quiet this morning. It certainly wasn’t this quiet on the day I was born. I’m sure I cried, louder even than the gulls I hear in the distance. The shimmering, reflective man-made pond outside my window is slowly pulsing awake. A graceful white crane lifts a fragile looking leg to move forward. Like a ballerina working on her hands she gingerly strolls the shore, head alternately bowed and proud. She reminds me that I have spent my life both humbled and accomplished. Head lowered in humility, then head held high, chest out, strutting and proud.

An industrious spider has woven me a web just outside the window for my birthday. She hangs in the middle of her divinely inspired silken artwork patiently waiting for something edible to find her net. I too have woven many webs---some intentional some because I couldn’t see the easy solution hanging there in front of me. I’ve fashioned webs to catch a man in my life, webs to capture my dreams, and webs made of the sticky fibers of longing, stretched across improbable distances, vulnerable to cutting winds. What can of web will I weave for my future days? Perhaps it is time to become part of the evolving sacred web into which we are all woven.

When I made up my mind I was going to write another book for women and the continuing journey through life’s second stages, I decided the best focus for it would be something to do with evolving. Growing up is optional and we’re all aging---but are we evolving?. Everyday approximately 8,000 Baby Boomers turn age 60. Although time can be a sneaky thief it can most certainly give back innumerable gifts in return. We may not be able to control the passing of time, but we do have control over how we age and whether or not we’re going to continue growing and evolving. For the first time in history we have the opportunity to not only live longer than most women ever did, but to initiate and shape a new form of personal and spiritual growth that will greatly enhance our additional years.

A major evolution is taking place. The “graying” of America promises change in every aspect of our lives beginning with our culture’s perception of older women. We’ve begun to move from a deficit approach that emphasizes losses, to an asset approach that validates our achievements, our strengths and our potential. With increased longevity more stages have been added to our psychological and spiritual development. Can a woman grow older without evolving? Absolutely. You can rage against the effects of time; you can live a fearful life or you can choose to evolve.

“Evolved” is a destination that has to do with deeper change than what takes place at a cellular level. Evolving has to do with the fertile empty spaces in between the cells where, if we have the courage to explore, spirit takes hold to adapt and present us with treasures to sustain us for the next step. Evolving is about growing whole rather than old.

Someone once said, “you write to find out what you think.” And so I wrote this book to find out what I think about turning 60 and to ask myself what I think about this evolving time---what treasures and challenges does this next chapter hold? I asked myself this question a few years back as I sat on the soft sandy beach of Montauk Point, Long Island watching the sage green waves laced with foam scrubbing at the shoreline.

As I sit on my little yellow towel, I hear the deep throated rhythmical sound of the waves moving in and out, over and over, depositing treasures---large broken shells, scattered colorful stones edges worn round. I am riding the wave of time back into the past sixty years---then I rush forward into the present moment depositing the treasures I’ve found. Then I scroll back out to sea for more. Tide in, tide out, I am smoothing the stones of my life, marveling at the beauty of my imperfect shell filling with the water of life and the ebbing crystalline sands of time.

I pull my small spiral bound travel journal from my backpack (I never go anywhere without it these days). I flip to the page where I’ve copied out a passage from something I read by Valerie H. Manticon where she said, “It is time, at this life-passage, to birth ourselves out from the depths of the shadow, into the light. It is time to unfold the power of the long-missing, long-gestating ‘wing’ of our feminine knowledge and heritage. Our children are watching. What visions might they see, through us? We are the windows to their future.”

Sun-baked, half-clothed children scour the warm sands looking for empty crabs shells abandoned by their owners and the sea or cracked open by hungry gulls. Broken ocean detritus fills their buckets to the brim. I’m thinking they don’t know it yet, but if they are wise they will learn from the “bucket” of reclaimed deep sea treasures that I hold within. I want them to know that the day will come in their lives when thoughts and memories will ebb and flow from shore to horizon, then back into the present moment where the real treasure abides.

From my low beach chair with seaweed and sand as a back drop, I see a crushed soda can, a curled pile of thin green and white plastic line from a boat of some kind; a smoking cessation patch wrapper, a tiny blue bucket cracked on one side, and a bright yellow plastic shopping bag anchored at one edge by a small piece of driftwood. An oversized, buzzy black fly lands on my notebook page and I wag my purple gel pen at it.

I’m thinking the sun is enjoying its dance over my body, I feel the tiny fingers of wind against my reddening skin, soft breath of salt air, caressing me, gentle and cool, coming and going and coming back for more.

Today I notice that the horizon is absolutely, perfectly straight! How does it do that? The ocean is so full, so beautiful,. How can I keep from singing? I want to harmonize with the rounded guttural roar of the waves. I want to sing a hymn with the swooping gulls, join a kick line with the leggy crabs. I want to dance across the sun sparkled ocean to the tune of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, then lay on the heated sand, tide covering me with scrubbing bubbles until I am naked and clean. I am a treasure flung from the ocean---a single cell that evolved over millennia into a woman.

How do we evolve? There are various ways in which the human race evolves. On one level we evolve by what science has called natural selection. On another, we evolve by looking forward and back through time, and by asking questions of others and ourselves then contemplating and integrating the answers. Any book that tells you precisely what to think and how to respond to the world is not operating from the premise that a healthy relationship with another human being is based upon mutual respect and reciprocity. Therefore, this book is designed to help you evolve. Each question is meant to evoke a personal response that will enhance your continued growth and evolution.

You’re never to old to launch a journey of self-discovery. In this book you’ll begin to deepen your thoughts, dreams and ideas about life. You’ll discover what parts of yourself you want to leave behind and what parts of your authentic self you want to take on the journey. What interests and talents from your youth did you abandon along the way? What practical questions do you need to answer for yourself? There are no right or wrong responses. Even just considering the questions I pose should help you reset your compass for the journey.

Feminist author and campaigner for women’s rights, Marie Stopes once said, “You can take no credit for beauty at 16. But if you are beautiful at 60, it will be your soul’s doing.” So what is a woman at 60 and beyond? Is her body, mind and spirit a shriveled, useless mess, or is she a vital, contributing beautiful person? In the future will her children still need her? Will she need them? Will she physically fall apart in slow stages of diminishment? Or will she flourish---aches, pains, health challenges, wrinkles and all?

As we age, we’re clearly not going to be alone. In fact, women 85 and older are the most rapidly growing section of the U.S. population and will continue to be. Everyone must go through the transition from their younger years to a different phase of life. And if you don’t do this voluntarily, the world or your body will force you to. You’re compelled to shift gears and you won’t come out unchanged. Author, Sara Davidson writes, “How we deal with change is the deciding factor in whether we weep or laugh, suffer or have joy, in the years ahead. You can resist or roll with change, cling to the rocks and get thrashed by the current or let it carry you to sea.”

78 million Americans were born in the Baby Boom. We keep getting older and most still don’t want to. What are we afraid of? Maybe we don’t have enough information , maybe we just aren’t prepared. If you’re among the lucky ones you were prepared fairly well for your first day of school, for your first period, for college, for matrimony, for parenthood, even for middle age and maybe retirement. But we are less prepared for what living past 60 years might look and feel like.

What does it mean to grow old in a world that demonstrates considerable optimism about life extension, but fails to show people how to hold on to hope in the face of suffering, sickness, dying and death? Aging today occurs in a cultural environment of denial and fear. We need to accept the fundamental reality of change. This period of life can be described as a grace-filled time of both fulfillment and challenge. I hope I have created a book that will help guide you to search for and discover meaning in your life---to both challenge and comfort you. It was written for women who have a desire to discover and develop a creative life approach that has the potential to completely transform the way they look at life after 60---from the practical to the spiritual. I’ve oriented it toward hope instead of either naive optimism or stark pessimism in the face of aging.

According to Barbara Marx Hubbard, President of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, an Evolutionary Woman is: “One who is connected through the heart to the whole of life, attuned to the deeper intelligence of nature, called forth irresistibly by spirit to creatively express her gifts in the evolution of the self and the World.”

Your relationship with this book is about to begin. You are about to evolve to a higher level by being challenged to answer questions about your wisdom years as a woman. You are invited to prepare well for the road ahead. You are an evolving woman---welcome to the journey.