September 17, 2005

• “the times they are a changin’…”

  
  

  I like change, which is fortunate because not much stays the same for me.  When I was 20 I was engaged and living on my own. My fiance was away at school, and it was the first time I’d supported myself or lived alone.  I remember shopping a lot and listening to Joni Mitchell.

  
  

  Once I married and moved to be with my husband, we listened to his music that first year.  In my 20s we seemed to move a lot because of his job.  I had odd jobs and met people I’d call acquaintances but mostly I hung with my first dog, Emily.  I especially remember the winter I spent in the fog, at the beach with no car.  I read and did puzzles, listened to the Allman Brothers, and drank red wine after long walks to the jetty.

  
  

  We moved back to Portland and had children in our 30s.  My husband worked in Seattle but I was back with our family and a few friends I’d kept in touch with.  Mostly I entertained my children’s friends.  No more pot but large gin and tonics before dinner, sitting in the living room amidst a sea of stuffed animals, I watched children’s TV.  The only music I remember listening to was the car radio.  Those years were rich, though we felt poor.

  
  

  That changed overnight, with an inheritance.  We bought a big house and new cars and had another baby.  Our 40s were frought with change, but we went in different directions.  All that rich food and gin probably had something to do with my gall bladder being removed.  I started eating healthy, quit drinking, took up belly dance and switched to Eastern medicine.  I listened to Middle Eastern music, and my family thought I was nuts.  I went back to school to be a court reporter so I could support myself.

  
  

  About the time I left, I got cancer and had to do chemo.  I had just turned 50 so I sought to embrace the crone years.   Having been used to the admiring looks of strangers, I had a hard time accepting their pity.  But it toughened me up.  I listened to a lot of Mozart; it cheered me up.  The rest of my 50s have been nothing but change.  I had to put my 14 year-old Brittany down this summer and am trying to live with a new puppy.  I am trying my hand at fixing up houses while I live in them.  I tried out enough relationships to know I don’t care for one just now.  And with each new man and each new house I seemed to take on a slightly different identity.

  
  

  I filled in for a woman last week and this was posted above her desk:

  
  

  “I’ve learned how to not be broken from life’s unwanted things by watching a willow in the wild wind tossing and bending rather than pushing back against the storm.”  –Joyce Rupp in “The Cosmic Dance”

  
  

  I just bought the same Joni Mitchell CDs I used to listen to all those years ago, in that apartment every morning.  And, today, listening to her over breakfast, I was surprised to discover not much has changed. I may not look the same but I feel the same.

  
  

   

  • 8:49 pm
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