I’m going to my 20th college reunion tomorrow, so the beginning of the chapter called ‘Becoming Older (with Faith and Hope')’ in Collisions of Earth and Sky is on my mind.
Here are some things that remind me I’m getting older: My 20th high school and college reunions. Wrinkles on my forehead that are always there, even when I’m not trying to scrunch up my face. Realizing I’ve known my spouse for over 50% of my life. Being in a group at work for the “seasoned” employees who discuss things like rotary phones and tape decks. The desire to never wear uncomfortable clothes again because it’s just not worth it. The absence of any desire to “go out” for the evening in any form other than to dinner or into the garden. And so on.
A few weeks before I turned 40, I had just started reading Parker Palmer’s book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old.1 I don’t usually give much energy to contemplating my age, but that year aging and all that comes with it was on my mind. Early on he writes, “…how we travel the arc between our own sunrise and sundown is ours to choose: Will it be denial, defiance, or collaboration?”
Obviously, at 40-something I am nowhere near being an elder in an era when people regularly live into their 90s. But something about entering into a new decade reminded me to be sure to collaborate with each passing year, rather than trying to hold onto the things of youth that so often are sold to us as important, or questioning the details of my life that are different from what we are taught to strive for.
Reader, I’m not usually a joiner of events like institution-organized reunions, but the college bookshop invited me to do an alumni signing, so off I go to take in the beautiful bluff country of northern Iowa. It should be beautiful there this time of year, and I’m looking forward to spending a few days out of the usual routine.
There are a lot of things these days that remind me that I’m getting older, inching closer to the “winter” of my life. But there are also a lot of things these days that invite celebration: Celebration that becoming older is a gift — one that’s worth the effort it takes to slow down and notice what is under the wrapping. If life is an arc between sunrise and sunset, embodying the speeds that allow us to savor the colors as they grow, evolve, and eventually fade are an essential part of the unfolding.
Here’s to savoring the colors. It’s nearly peak autumn color in my part of the world, so I’ll be doing a lot of that in the week to come as the leaves show us their brilliance and then tumble to the ground.2
Happenings and Book News:
I’ll be in the Luther college bookshop from 11am to 1pm Saturday, Oct. 8th to sign copies of 12 Tiny Things and Slouching toward Radiance. I don’t plan on attending the football game that starts at 1, because I don’t think I ever attended a homecoming game as an actual enrolled student, but if that’s important to you, you can visit me AND make it to the game. Go Norse.
Rach the Bookseller of Valley Bookseller offered up the very first early review of Collisions, so I’ll paste it here! Be sure to preorder your copy from them so you get a signed copy.
Author Heidi Barr has done something very special here. Part autobiography, part manifesto on how connectedness to nature: offers us solace; encourages us to self-reflect and stay in the moment; helps us to know and honor our forebears, and to rectify inherited wrongs; warns us against striving for the impossible; reinforces that there’s power in introversion, too; encourages us to sit non judgmentally with our emotions; heals us and directs us; connects us to our higher power; reminds us that beauty is present; makes us better humans; and encourages us to be fully alive.
Beautiful, poetic writing. And if you take only one thing away from this book, have it be this-not only does the author give land acknowledgment, she’s also donating 50% of author royalties to Indigenous-run organizations. She’s walking the walk. Mad respect for you, Heidi Barr! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Palmer, Parker J. On the Brink of Everything: Grace; Gravity; and Getting Old. Berrett-Koehler, 2018.
“Brilliant with dyin’” is a lyric in a song by folk duo Storyhill.