Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Reinventing Myself

Hi Boomers,
I haven't written in such a long time.  I feel guilty.  I've been struggling with my book about turning 60.  The good news is that I have an agent.   I decided not to self-publish.  I've taken a leap of faith and held out for a publisher who may see value in my musings.  The bad news is that my agent thinks I need to change my title to better reflect the contents of the book.  I'm open to new ideas.  I hope we, the royal we, come up with something we all like.  

I thought about it all weekend while I was on a tango weekend, a festival in Denver where some very good tango dancers show  up and we get high on tango for 3 days over Memorial Day.  It is always great fun even though some of the usual suspects didn't show.  Was it the economy, stupid, or was it that the festival is getting stale.  Stale and tango do not belong in the same sentence.

Meanwhile life takes twists and turns as in my sons are no longer speaking to each other.   Don't they realize that each have only one brother in life.  There are no more brothers to have in their lives.  It's such a cliche in life that brothers/sisters don't talk to each other.  It seems that siblings are harder on each other than just plain friends.  They see each other are perfect in some ways, flawed in others and the good/bad characteristics are magnified tenfold.  I hope in time that my sons, these once terrific friends, will mend the fences and forgive.  Meanwhile, I've experienced intense emotional pain that I have almost lifted during the last three weeks.  

My trip is coming up - to Southern Spain and Morocco.  I just realized that I will be getting home July 5 at 11 pm and I have to teaching the next morning at 7 am.  Boy, will I be tired.  I'm using Advantage miles and I can't change anything.  I'm going to die spending 17 hours in Heathrow.  Most of the time, I'll be sleeping, but the next morning will be brutal.  I knew this when I made the reservations, but I forgot - thought I was arriving on July 4th late.  I'm hoping that something will happen and a seat will open up earlier to Los Angeles.   

I feel naked because I don't have a book to write.  Maybe I'll blog more.  Maybe I'll meditate more.  Maybe I'll write more poetry.  Maybe I'll actually take a yoga class.  Maybe I'll rest.

Namaste
Joan

Monday, May 4, 2009

Slogging Through 60

Dear Boomers,

  I haven't blogged since April 26th.  I feel a bit remiss but not necessarily guilty...until now.
I've been in a general malaise outside of my yoga teaching.  Oh, I love my work and am grateful every day for my students, my private clients and my friends.  

I guess it has to do with adult children this week and the end of the old lover comeback.  Let me start with the old lover comeback:  there wasn't one; it was a non-started, a fake and phony attempt to reconnect with heart or devotion and with a dedication to carelessness;  Moving on (although I didn't move on all week), the other issues revolve around my sons and their inattention.  I guess it's great not to have sons that have a mother complex - the tiny voice inside of a man that says to a woman - No! No! don't come any closer to my heart because I really cannot love you with my total being.  That's the inner mother.  The outer mother is a symbol of the inner mother.  Too complicated, huh?

Anyway, whenever I try to connect to one or the other of my sons, I get, "Mom, didn't I tell you not to call my home phone," or "Mom, I'm on my way to work, getting Starbucks, call you later."  No call later. One is chewing me out while the other just ignores.  What's the brain process here.  We live in different cities.  I try to come into Vegas once a month to see everyone, be with my grandchildren, be available, yada, yada, yada.  

What is family connection, anyway?  What does it mean to be connected to family?  Family asks after you, as in, are you happy, feeling good, depressed, or are you doing all right with finances, work, dating.  Sometimes I think a mother/grandmother should just take off for Tibet for six months and let everyone wonder what happened to "Mom."  She used to be around a lot and now she just doesn't care about us anymore.

I won't leave.  It's just not in my nature to leave my family.  I almost did once in Buenos Aires when I could have had a job teaching English as a second language.  I thought long and hard about it.  I'd dance tango all night at the milongas and then I'd get home about 3 am and get up at 7 and teach English to those peacock Argentine men in their high rise buildings.  I'd last about one week.  I wonder if women who are a couple feel this kind of lonelinessor is it because I am single that I sometimes excess being ignored.  

Anyway, I had a great weekend despite kissing off the old lover with an epic Beowolf poem exhaustedly, meticulously composed over a three day marathon.  I was obsessed to get it perfectly written, and, if I do say so myself, it was a masterpiece of irony.  And I already know the old lover won't even get it, let alone read it.  But it doesn't matter because I feel fabulous today at 65.  Oh, but you see, I also had a marvelous date with a much younger man this Sunday and all went right with the world.  After the walk on the Venice boardwalk, which resulted in my buying T-shirts for my grandsons (oh, yes, I don't hide much), we went to an exquisite move called "Examined Life - Philosophy is in the Streets."  Age didn't seem to matter much.

The day and my date reminded me of the best of times in Berkeley in the 60's at the beatnik coffee houses along Broadway and Columbus Avenue with jazz puncturing the cold night air.  WOW!  I felt like 19 again.

Namaste
     Joan