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Aging and the Impulse to Love

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“If we age honestly, we become love.”
~ Jeff Brown

I recently ended a relationship. A sort-of relationship. It was really more of an exploration. A romance of sorts. A getting to know each other. But it was short-lived – six months from bow to stern.

I’ve been single for over five years. A long time. And in that time I’ve grown older, although I don’t really feel older. I’m in good shape. I love to exercise. I’m physically strong and agile. Yet, I am growing older. I am aging. I am aging honestly, as honestly as I can.

After five years of singledom, I noticed how I’ve changed. I don’t hold back like I used to. I tell the truth, as much as I am aware of it. Aging Honestly

I liked him.
I told him so.
I wanted more.
I told him so.
I let my love fly.
I let my desire run.
I allowed my heart to break.
Open.

And then it ended. And in the heartbreak, I’ve lingered in my memories of us together. I can still feel the sparks. I can still feel the warmth of his chest against my bare skin. I can still feel us. My time with him changed who I know myself to be. A great gift. Deep intimacy will do that.

And I see that what I felt as ‘us’ is also what I am as ‘me’. Great and beautiful longing, running hot, fluidly, sensually – a sublime connection that turned to love. Yes, over this time I came to love him. And, I sense this is partly so because I am older. I long to love deeply. I long to touch tenderly. I long to be with another, to connect intimately, to know the experience of being fully alive in this body.

As I age, I am becoming very aware of the incredible gift it is to be a human being. And how fleeting our time is here. And I am becoming aware of how we spend so much of our time worried, disconnected, stressed out, striving, and so little time being tender with each other, truly exploring the senses, opening to the delight available to us that can come out of trust and kindness.

I came to love him because I am love wanting to love. I can feel love wanting to love through me. But up until now, I think I thought that the intense longing, this intensity was indicating my desire for a man in my life.

I see now that I yearn to love. Yes, men. But more than that. That this love that continues to push me is to embrace life, to offer myself to it.

It is a yearning. A deep and lovely yearning. 

I miss being with him. I haven’t yet met another. But when I tune into this love, I don’t think it cares. It wants to love everywhere and everything.

If we age honestly, we become love. is the first line of a longer quote, but I love this first line just a tad more that the whole. It is short and to the point. It feels so poignant and true and like a powerful punch to the gut.

And this is the rest of Jeff’s wisdom…

If we age honestly, we become love. As the body weakens, love surges through us, longing to be released, longing to be lived. With no time left to not love, we seek authentic embrace everywhere. Our deft avoidance maneuvers convert into directness. Our armored hearts melt into pools of eternal longing. This is why we should look forward to aging. Finally, after all the masks and disguises fall away, we are left with love alone. God waits for us on the bridge between our hearts.

***

Those moments of life that stay with you. The first blush of my bare chest against the heat of his. Standing, so close, lips connected yet silently still as we lingered in this moment we’d hungered for. The impulse to move and arch and join together pulsing between us, but in this one moment something beautiful and holy was taking place. A silent communion where the meeting of flesh was like two hands pressed against a glass that stood between. So close. Two hearts reaching out past the shoreline of skin’s border. Oceans mingling. A momentary peace rising along the edge before the wave rose and crested, then broke between us.

How I loved lingering there. And while it could not be forever, love seared this moment into somewhere even more essential than marrow. And I taste it still.

 

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A Vivid Life. A Creative Life.

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A Vivid Life. A Creative Life.


“Don’t scorn your life just because it’s not dramatic, or it’s impoverished, or it looks dull, or it’s workaday. Don’t scorn it. It is where poetry is taking place if you’ve got the sensitivity to see it, if your eyes are open.” ~ Philip Levine (1928-2015)

 

Yesterday, just before sitting down to prepare my monthly newsletter, I made a great chicken, kale, and bok choy curry for lunch. As I was thinking about what to share in my newsletter, the colors of the curry stood out at me as truly beautiful. I was so aware of the colors and how the vibrant greens reflected the intense nutrition of the food. I was aware of the mix of flavors, of savoring my food, truly savoring it as I ate. And, then my mind went to how beautiful life is when we are sensitive to the richness of vivid experiences felt in the heart.

In the courses I teach on Creativity, I often do an exercise during the third week when I teach about how to observe life keenly. In the exercise, we use all of our senses, slowing each one down, to truly taste – usually chocolate. Each time I lead the class, this very simple exercise brings forth a sensitivity to see, feel, and taste life. In our world, with everything going so fast, and so much time spent with technology, to stop and take time to feel your life is often a gift we rush past, a gift we do not give ourselves (and often) nor our children.

As Philip Levine wrote so beautifully, our lives are where poetry is taking place IF we have the eyes to see it, the ears to hear it, and the sensitivity to really touch what is happening. Somehow, somewhere, someone decided the everyday qualities of earthly existence were non-important and that instead we should focus on the spiritual. But, there is no separation between matter and the sacred.

Everything here is alive, and it is that very aliveness that is the sacred.

For me, as long as I’ve looked for something to be better, to find something better, to hope for days when things would be a certain way, I’ve continued to miss the beauty right in front of my face. It is only here, right here, where we can know what it is to be truly alive, to know the poetry that is taking place before our eyes.

As if to punctuate this vividness for me, as I took a break from working on my newsletter, I stood up and looked outside and the most amazing sunset was breaking over San Francisco. I grabbed my phone, went down to the porch of the building I live in and walked into this magnificent sight – the moon appearing, surrounded by billowing pink clouds. It took my breath away.

It was poetry in the sky.

In April, I’m going to be a grandmother for the FIFTH time. I can always count on my grandchildren to bring me present to this vivid life. Every. Single. Time. They are so real. They remind me to stop, listen, and pay attention.

Take a look around you. Really look, listen, touch, feel. Everything you can encounter is alive with radiance. Pay beautiful attention to this world as if you were a child again. Imagine you’ve just landed on earth for the very first time. Sit down to a meal and use all of your senses as you eat each bite. Notice that you are taking in nourishment. Note that the food came out of the earth so that your body can continue to function. Notice if in doing so, you come more deeply into relationship with life.

This relationship with life is the same relationship you have to your creativity. Our capacity to take in life, to receive what life is offering, is the same capacity we have to bring forth our creativity. And it requires us to pay attention to what is here, to what is being offered and shown to us.

Life is reflecting your countenance back to you. What you see is the radiance you are. 

 

 

WritingRawPinSpring01The Spring Writing Raw circle begins on March 4th, and March 5th. Each week, for six weeks, we hold two calls, one on Wednesdays at 9:00 am PT and the second on Thursdays at 5:00 pm PT.

Here, in the circle, we listen for the poetry of life to express itself through us. We each go into our own inner temple and listen for the voice that has always been here, always waiting to be known.

We listen, we write, and we read.

A beautiful circle of women is gathering. If you feel the pull to join, please do. Writing Raw is a deeply transformational process. Writing Raw can wake you up to your own soul and what your soul is asking of you. Writing Raw offers the opportunity to know yourself, as you are, with acceptance and love.

Read more and register here.

 

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