Some Troublous Birth

 

Some seed in me,

Some troublous birth,

Like an awkward awakening,

Stirs into life.

 

Terrible and instinctive

It touches my guts.

 

I fear and resist it.

 

I don't know its nature.

I have no term for it.

I cannot see its shape.

 

But, there, inscrutable,

Just underground,

Is the long-avoided latency.

 

What I fear and desire

Pokes up its head.

                             Seed by William Everson

 

For many a year I’ve been trying to identify something I’ve had an intuition about. But, I’ve failed, until now. 

 

I had the feeling there was something unique and special about old age. I just couldn’t identify it. Then, this morning, it came to me. I’ve carried the poem that opens this piece since 1985, and didn’t realize, it carried my answer. Later life involves a kind of experience like none other, an inside-out development that is largely unknown, yet wildly persistent. Out of within comes a troublous birth.

 

I first gained a whiff of this experience in the aftermath of my stroke. I was torn physically apart, losing physical functioning, and the life I’d known up until then. With marriage, family, home, career, and health gone, I was reduced to a trembling mass of uncertainty. I survived, in part, because I turned to what remained. Unbeknownst to me, I turned toward the long-avoided latency within me. In a desire to live beyond the stripping, I turned to the only life that remained, the inner dimension of my being. 

 

It is there from which this troublous birth emanates.

 

Being disabled isn’t easy. There are a lot of misconceptions, prejudices, and insensitivities. Living through all of this strange love opens one up. If the bitterness doesn’t get one, then there is a possibility of coming to appreciate the rare ability that disability brings. For me, it was the recognition of the gifts of loss. Aging, I found out later, is a time when these gifts render we humans particularly available for the troublous birth. The poet refers to it, and now I recognize the unique, and special aspect, of later human life. My intuition has taken a surprising turn.

 

There is a birth that accompanies, and sometimes precedes, death. It is a miracle of Nature’s — the evolution of a species — and the fulfillment of a creative spark in the Universe. I think of it as troublesome for several reasons. Birth with death is so unexpected, fraught with societal baggage, superstition, and spiritual apprehension. What is laden with so much potential, frequently causes the old ones to choke. Of course, Nature proceeds anyway.

 

There is some kind of new life coming through our elder years. Getting old looks bad — birth pangs are not pretty — but a new potency is being unleashed. Old people reel under the weight of this confusing unexpected pregnancy. Sometimes they shine with radiant potency. Society is typically cruel, judgmental and aloof, when it comes to the unexpected. It provides no midwife. 

Evolving isn’t easy. Especially when the future is coming from within.  

 

Old age contains a new form of pregnancy. It’s time for a new form of celebration to go with it. A joyful and troublesome shower.

 

 

 

 

 

Ring, Ring

I am sitting all alone on a Sunday. Ruminating with my computer, wondering what I will be writing about. Feeling my humanity, grasping for some kind of awareness — one that is freeing, that liberates my compassion, and confirms the incredible and hugely challenging nature of being human. It is a moment of poignant beauty and wonder. I am so Lucky, and so prone to illuminating uncertainty.

 

I find myself recalling a story a friend told me recently. It was about her elderly parents. It took place in the years before they both died. Her father, I believe he was 94 at the time, had just had a massive stroke, and was recovered enough so he could be at home. The story features her mother who, 90 at the time, had to help take care of him. She was tired, irritated, and old herself. She found it particularly difficult to clean-up the food crumbs he always left on the floor when he ate. One day, while complaining about this with her daughter, her off-spring (the woman telling me the story) suggested to her mother, that she consider each fallen crumb like an angel ringing a bell.

 

To make a long story short, this seemingly preposterous suggestion resulted in a total change in the mother’s attitude. After a while she was grateful for the experience with her husband. This story moved me so much for multiple reasons. My own disability means that I often make a mess on the floor when I eat. I am frequently embarrassed by the crumbs on the floor, and often angry with myself. I have no mercy for the poor disabled man who can’t help being messy. But, as the story suggests, I could. 

 

Do I need an angel, to be kind? Maybe, maybe not. But, certainly I needed the story to remind me, I have a choice about how I see, and respond to, the essence of my own humanity. I’ve been in this condition long enough, that I have had to learn, to love my own broken imperfect self. What I am discovering now, thanks in part to this story, is that another challenging aspect of self-loving is that it is a continuous process that is never accomplished once and forever. I need to keep re-discovering, and re-asserting love for myself as I go on living.

 

Just as the old woman found, with her daughter’s help, that she could re-discover the motivation to keep on loving — not as a chore, but as an opportunity. I, and all of us, could find within our own experiences, the motive to love our own, or another’s ever-changing humanity. To me, in my condition (entirely human), knowing this, is essential to my well-being. In my mind, it is essential to us all.

 

Remembering, or in this case, being reminded, that changes of proficiency and functioning require us to update our loving — making being human so much more complex and poignant.  It makes failing so much more plausible too. I can see how I can treat myself so much better, but will I? Will I overcome the many years of bad cultural advice, and more readily turn toward myself, or anyone, with a more compassionate gaze? I don’t really know now. Perhaps, I will see it coming from me in some future. If so, I hope I recognize it.

 

There is one other feature of this story that is heartening for me. Age. The old are seen as the most set in their ways, the least likely to change. But, as the story reveals, she (the mother) was able, at 90, to readily change how she behaved based upon a new take on things. That shows a rare kind of maturity, that isn’t considered available in old people. This story highlights another kind of aging, whereby, a greater flexibility is exposed. This too, is worth remembering. Getting older might mean a greater capacity to be flexible.

 

All in all, I most want to live in a world where I remember, and have the good friends that remind me, that love must grow with the complexity of the situation I’m part of. Maybe, I’ll get to age into it, ripening, like a seasoned wine, or a great cheese. 

 

In any case, that is the way my imagination runs today. I hope yours gets to run free for a little while, too.