I am Aging and at the beginning I ran as fast as I could to keep aging at bay. Of course, it did not work and I exhausted myself as my poor body just could not keep it up any more. I have to learn to take life slower, to do things in bits and pieces, and to overcome the “busy hands against the devil’s work” mentality that I was conditioned with.
Coping with change has always been an issue with me, and yet, I have always, at times, taken a leap of faith and dove into it, willing to battle the angst, anger and exhilaration of something ‘new’. But I am more leery now. There are many losses happening now; physically, intellectually, and emotionally, and I understand it and still fight it off, but it comes, nonetheless. I am, now, always reinventing myself to meet and surpass the limitations that my body is enforcing…and that means I am doing battle with my intellectual and emotional self.
One dare not look to the future. I have seen my genetics, way back, now, through ancestry dot com’s DNA surprises and know that my maternal line had elderly, into late 90s, women who had Alzheimer’s or dementia long before their body gave up. My paternal/maternal line aged into their late 90s and did not lose their sensibilities. I keep hoping I have inherited my paternal line in this.
Reinventing self means to find new ways to do old things that used to be a breeze and now are curtailed by loss of energy and pain that comes from expecting the body to keep up. I have to stay physically active as much as possible so, I joined a lapidary club where we go on field trips until first deep freeze. Then I have to find another way to do some activities outside in nature, and what that is going to be is still under body debate. I have set up and gathered new hobbies to try. I have collected moose hair for moose hair tufting. A dear friend in Big Stone taught me how and gave me some tips to do this traditional art. I began some projects before I moved and now I have collected some moose hair and am going to give it a go this winter.
I have been cleaning and polishing stones and rocks for making jewelry and I am going to try to do some rain chains of rocks that will have me using wire to hang rocks from.
I have collected gourds and am going to do some sculpted faces on to gourds.
I have collected long pine needles and I am going to attempt to make pine needle baskets.
I am sure I will be doing more new crafts and art projects, and art lessons, because I do have to keep busy at something. ‘Something’ helps the fear of ‘what next?” at bay. And, of course, I will be blogging and sharing as I go. It does not mean working faster, it means keeping a steady pace as I do what I can do when I can do it.
What have you planned to do during our winter months, when outdoors is a luxury?
©Carol Desjarlais 10.20.19
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