My Prerogative, Part 2

 

As we speak, bread is rising, spaghetti meat and vegetables are cooking waiting on seasoning and tomatoes and sauce, kidney beans are soaking to be canned tomorrow (hopefully) and my mind is awhirl with Fall cleaning plans for September.  I've just got a brain full of things!

But my current thoughts are centered on my post from yesterday.  While writing about a discovery season in my life during which I learned a great deal about myself, I recalled that there were some formative book and movies that hit me like a ton of bricks and really made me stop to think about that future ideal life.  I thought I'd carry on in that line of thought.

I'm sure there were a LOT of books and movies that fired my imagination and dreams in that season, but these listed below are stand outs even twenty-five years or so later.  So, I thought I'd share them and try to explain why they were so pivotal.   I'd happily add music I'd listened to as well, but I've always listened to such a variety of artists and genres that I couldn't possibly tell you who I discovered at that time period.

One of the books that stood out was Tracey McBride's book, Frugal Luxuries.  I was at that point in time all about saving money and getting by and had been through a rather rough mental and financial season in my life.  I'd had to return to work to help our straining ends meet and I took the book to read on my lunch break each day in the car outside the office.

Tracey helped me to see that a life of frugality could be rich and varied. She shared pivotal quotes, and books and just talked in a way that made me forget I'd bought her book for the sole purpose of learning to be more frugal.  Her book was less about how to overcome the lack and more to do with creating a rich intellectual life, gratitude for seasonal abundance, making memories and adding beauty and refinement to life, while managing a budget.  

I've put it in my stack to read in September to refresh my spirit and my vision for the new season ahead.  

Another book I found powerful was Sarah ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance.  I enjoyed the book so much that we bought the audio tape and listened to it when we were on a road trip.   Sarah layered music, the abundance of living seasonally, embracing the powerfulness of homemaking, with growing as an individual.  

This book is meant to be read as a daily book with thought provoking essays and writings about many things, each section focusing on a different aspect of a woman's routine daily life.  I plan to add this one into September's book stack as well.  

Although I've yet to read it and have owned it no less than twice, ban Breathnach highly recommends Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way.  More recently author Joy Clarkson and a fellow writer did a collaboration on the book as they worked their way through the book and exercises.  I think it's high time I dug that book out of the nether regions of whatever box I put it in and read it, too.  

For movies, there were three I found especially pivotal.  I had already fallen in love with all things Merchant Ivory, but his version of "A Room with a View" just blew me away.  The questioning of why we choose what we do and how we can live a life with passion moved me deeply.  By passion I don't just mean passionate love but with a passionate outlook for life itself.

"Enchanted April" is somewhat similar in that we follow two women, both repressed for various reasons, who go on holiday in Italy and how they discover themselves.  One thaws and then blooms and the other, who always had a feeling of being out of step in the world in which she lives, has a natural quirky loveliness of nature that is revealed to others who come to love and appreciate her for who she is.  Quite incidentally, both women's husbands come to fall in love with their wives all over again as they discover the real woman behind the curtain of reserve and lack of confidence that hid them from view.

And the third film was "Renaissance Man" with Danny DeVito in the lead role.  DeVito portrays a failed businessman who takes on a teaching job at an army base, teaching recruits who are struggling.  As the movie goes on the teacher and the group of inductees inspire one another to 'be more' in ways they'd none of them ever dreamed possible.  DeVito, who was a lackluster businessman discovers that he is inspiring as a teacher.  It's another self-discovery journey, much like the first two films. 

And that's where I feel I have come once more.  I am on a new journey of discovering who I am.   Only this time I think of it more as an archaeology dig.  I'm unearthing things I'd buried and recalling who I am and why I feel I exist.

I'd told you yesterday that one of the writing exercises we had to do was to write out a day in our ideal life.  Do you know, I've not done another ideal life vision in the last three major seasons of life?  Not as an empty nester, not as a menopausal woman and not as a 'retiree', a term I use very loosely as I truly have no idea what it is to be 'retired'.  But that is three very different life stages through which I've just been floating along going wherever the wind chooses to blow me.  

I think I need to do that exercise once more, this time with a vision of what my life as a mature woman will be like.  I said I was too old to be ambitious, and I am. I'm not looking for success or fame or fortune at this stage.   I'm not too old though to dream what life might be for me at this stage of life.  I want to do some of the things I've been wanting to do for ages: garden, growing vegetables and flowers.  Let my creative side bloom more fully.  I want to do those little day trips I thought we might go on since we haven't money for big travel plans.  I want to return to the me who felt authentic and excited to be alive.

I don't want to work so very hard anymore that I have no time for myself or those things I find bring me joy in life.  I want to be more mindful of what I'm feeding my mind and soul.  I want to take care of myself better.  Once upon a time, back in those discovery season days, I decided to tend to my broken, aching body.  I pampered myself a bit with long soaks and moisturizing lotions and taking time to tend to the body that carries me through this life.  I began to focus on being grateful to this bag of bones and muscle; to lavish with tender care the aching ankles and knees and sore feet and I found my resentment over the pain decreased.  And as my attitude changed, I experienced less pain.

Well now that I am beginning to grow older, I need to be tending to this body once more.  To love what hurts and what doesn't. The wrinkles and the laugh lines and the thinning hair are all part of who I am.  I don't need to look like a 30 year old.  I've always thought keeping up that sort of look would be totally exhausting.  But I do want to remember that I am a walking miracle, a wonder, a creation of God despite what age and ails might do to me.

As I explore style and self-care, I want to continue to grow and bloom.  Granny always said the two secrets to staying young were to spend time around younger people and to keep learning things.   My final season may well be 30 years in my future.  I'm only just beginning this portion of life.  I don't want to waste the time ahead, sitting on my hands, just waiting to die, you know?  I want to continue to grow and be a vital personality.  I want to continue to create a full life however different it might look from the years when I was parenting or as a wife working to make a home.  The home is 'made', so to speak.  Now it's time to live in it!

I've been collecting a variety of journal and creative art prompts to use to help me tap into the inner woman once more. I plan to start implementing that next month as well.   You can see that I'm really thinking of September now even as I finish up August.

I have to admit that I am more than a little surprised at where I'm ending up this summer of my 66th year.  I hadn't thought about this at all in years and then suddenly I found myself wanting to renew my acquaintance with someone I once knew quite well: myself.

Now I am off to go tend to the kiddos at the Manor House.  Their bus will be arriving shortly, and I like to be there when they come in from school.  

Currently Reading: Stephen Hines' A Prairie Girl's Faith

The Book of Romans

Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

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