Commencing Countdown, Engines On

Crone? Wise woman? Lady of the Middle Ages? Halfway between here and there? Elder?

What are your names for crossing the half-century mark? I think we can get creative here . . . She-who-is-content-with-who-She-is . . . Wabi-Sabi Woman . . . or Our Lady of Perpetual Creakings?

In Howard Rheingold’s book They Have a Word for It,  the Navajo word hozh’q means “the beauty of life, as seen and created by a person”. The author further explains: “Quick- think about your wealth. You probably thought about your bank balance, stock portfolio, real estate, or other economic measures. If you were to ask the same question of a Navajo, you might discover that your informant’s reaction is to count the number of songs he or she knows, especially the ones self-created. Which of these answers is the more sophisticated? To the Navajo, beauty is not only a way of looking at life, but is in itself a way to live.”

And so . . . Threshold-Crossing Lesson Number One: Beauty is not measurements and mirrors, “beauty is in itself a way to live”.

Time Out for a Tribute: David Bowie

A Tribute to The Starman

David Bowie’s soul
floats like a giant orange nebula
across a creaking Cosmos,

luminous matter, morphing its way
past the scrape of starlight,

shocking rocky spheres of stellar
mass into sudden tufts of quiet stardust,

sending planets subtly, slowly
off their familiar tilts.

And a geomagnetic storm rages
somewhere now in the corner of
the Universe

and so does a voice,
ringing like
cosmic glass-

“there’s a starman waiting in the sky,
he’d like to come and meet us,
but he thinks he’d blow our minds . . . .”

Thank you, David Bowie

– Gina Marie Mammano

A Rite of Passage of My Own

I’m feeling the anticipation of crossing a midlife threshold. THE midlife threshold. I’m sure in my hopscotch days I imagined this birth year moment to be gilded with starched antique lace, and celebrated with hands that pass around ribbons of candy that stick together, petrified, at the bottom of a glass bowl. 50? That’s sooo old. I know  back then since I even considered 40 nigh to the grave, 50 was for sure beyond the pale.

But here I am. And glad of it! Really. I’ve anticipated this moment for years. Because it’s now time for my rite of passage. The threshold events that I’ve lovingly crafted for the adolescent and the young adult will finally be pivoted in my direction. I’m ready to metaphor and simile my soul into some turning-the-corner memories that hopefully will loving me launch me into elderhood. No, really, it’s a positive thing!

Won’t you come along with me?