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34, 40, 42, 56 (for Aitch and others)
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Aitch said: [W]hen I was eight or nine, I had a dream that I wouldn't be really fulfilled in life or replete until I was 56. I lived alone in a big wood-frame house with cats, plants, and books, with a huge, dark trestle-table running from the kitchen to the living room. I had made it through the trying years and the jaded years, and was in a renaissance of my own design. It was great. The Elsified version of that is what I wish you for your birthday: less struggle, less restlessness, more love, more grace, more nest within, and perhaps some Quaaludes for your squad of squeaking squirrels.
Funny, when I was a kid, I had ideas about my age. The biggest impact occurred when I would think about how old I would be in the year 2000. In the 1970s, the year 2000 had mystical significance; it was such a round number, a new millenium (not really, but it was in popular opinion), and given even more weight by the novel and film for 2001: A Space Odyssey (thank you Arthur, thank you Stanley).
In 2000, I was going to be - whoa - 34. THIRTY FOUR, it reverberated in my brain like the pronouncements of Mrs. Which in A Wrinkle in Time. Wow, 34 was, like, Old. At least it was Very Grown Up. What would I be doing when I was 34? I had no idea. It was just so inevitably Adult. I knew I'd be out on my own, but couldn't see what my profession or interests might be at that point. I had no concept what 34-year-olds might find interesting or necessary.
When I actually turned 34, I was just done with graduate school, starting my first teaching job, married to Timothy, and living on Vashon. It seemed fairly normal and not remarkable in the least. I do recall staying up for New Year's Eve that year, uncharacteristically. Though skeptical that any of the hype about the turn of the (ersatz, assumed) millenium was true, I did breathe a sigh of relief when the world didn't flood, burn, or blow up.
Our society puts lots of emphasis on 40, either by worrying us about the hazards of losing our youth and the long, painful, sick slide toward middle age, or by heralding 40 as the new 30 (for me, frankly, it was the new 28). Forty was a blessing. I felt it was a turning point, though of what importance I couldn't determine. I did know I felt young, impossibly young to be 40, and happy that it didn't mean the decline of my body or the tendency of people to mistake me for 30.
Forty two. Where I am now. I put up the Douglas Adams entry mostly for fun; I don't feel any different about 42 than any other age. It's been a hard year, an educational year, and a blessing year.
Fifty-six, for Aitch, will be "a renaissance of [her] own design". I love her vision. I just want a cabin near her, just a short woodland trail away, near the river and the sky. There will be books, oh yes, and warm blankets and music and lovers and "fire[s] at midnight, when the dogs have all been fed".
Funny, when I was a kid, I had ideas about my age. The biggest impact occurred when I would think about how old I would be in the year 2000. In the 1970s, the year 2000 had mystical significance; it was such a round number, a new millenium (not really, but it was in popular opinion), and given even more weight by the novel and film for 2001: A Space Odyssey (thank you Arthur, thank you Stanley).
In 2000, I was going to be - whoa - 34. THIRTY FOUR, it reverberated in my brain like the pronouncements of Mrs. Which in A Wrinkle in Time. Wow, 34 was, like, Old. At least it was Very Grown Up. What would I be doing when I was 34? I had no idea. It was just so inevitably Adult. I knew I'd be out on my own, but couldn't see what my profession or interests might be at that point. I had no concept what 34-year-olds might find interesting or necessary.
When I actually turned 34, I was just done with graduate school, starting my first teaching job, married to Timothy, and living on Vashon. It seemed fairly normal and not remarkable in the least. I do recall staying up for New Year's Eve that year, uncharacteristically. Though skeptical that any of the hype about the turn of the (ersatz, assumed) millenium was true, I did breathe a sigh of relief when the world didn't flood, burn, or blow up.
Our society puts lots of emphasis on 40, either by worrying us about the hazards of losing our youth and the long, painful, sick slide toward middle age, or by heralding 40 as the new 30 (for me, frankly, it was the new 28). Forty was a blessing. I felt it was a turning point, though of what importance I couldn't determine. I did know I felt young, impossibly young to be 40, and happy that it didn't mean the decline of my body or the tendency of people to mistake me for 30.
Forty two. Where I am now. I put up the Douglas Adams entry mostly for fun; I don't feel any different about 42 than any other age. It's been a hard year, an educational year, and a blessing year.
Fifty-six, for Aitch, will be "a renaissance of [her] own design". I love her vision. I just want a cabin near her, just a short woodland trail away, near the river and the sky. There will be books, oh yes, and warm blankets and music and lovers and "fire[s] at midnight, when the dogs have all been fed".
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