Let's Talk About ... the passage of time and passing time

I taught myself how to read when I was very young and from that moment on I was a voracious reader. I loved reading and being absorbed in stories and meeting all kinds of people through books and having a window into their lives. It was an escape I needed from constant bullying and abuse at school and at home and it kept me going, it gave me something beyond myself and my world.

I don’t remember most of the books I read in my childhood but a few are permanently imprinted on me. One is “A Lantern in Her Hand” by Bess Streeter Aldrich. It was published in 1928 and I read it in the 1960’s so it was already dated by then. The book is about Abbie, a character that the author based on her mother, and describes her life starting after the Civil War when she settles and lives in the Nebraska plains with her new husband. She leaves behind a possible life devoted to her main passion of singing, and her voice was good enough that she could have had a singing career.

The novel has a Little House on the Prairie path in that it describes their struggles working the land and surviving through farming. It emphasizes how Abbie devoted herself to raising their children. The children grow up and they all move away as none of them want to be farmers like their father and they see a world full of opportunities. At the end of the book, Abbie looks back at her life and finally realizes how she gave up her passion and identity for her children. She tries to sing but finds she has lost her beautiful, perfect voice; it is permanently gone.

What affected me as a child was understanding that that Abbie had lost herself. She had a passion that was her identity and she chose to walk away from that. The book ends with the message that Abbie’s contribution to the world was her children and she can live vicariously through her children (after all, this was written by the daughter about her mother). I rejected that message even though I wasn’t even a teenager yet. That’s why I remember reading the book and my strong reaction to it. I became very emotional reading how Abbie stood outside, alone on the farm, and realized her voice was literally gone. I had read about all her challenges through poverty and struggles through decades. Then at the end of her life I felt her sense of emptiness and loss at who she was after enduring all of that. Even though I was a child, I felt the passage of time through Abbie’s life. It was hard for me to accept that all that time could pass, decades of life, an entire life, and it would end with only emptiness.

I realize now that reading novels like “A Lantern in Her Hand” shaped me in ways I never before understood. I decided at the end of my 20’s that I did not want to be a mother. Maybe that’s because I could see Abbie’s sacrifice in the lives of the women I knew at that time who became mothers. Every 10 years I would switch my life onto a different path, first through making different career choices and then through exploring all kinds of new things once I retired. It was really all one path that I forged to find myself and become someone who I wanted to be and to be myself without limits.

Of course, in the corporate world being defined by others is inescapable. Unfortunately too many feel threatened by someone striving to go beyond the baseline and reaching their full potential. That’s one of the reasons I retired so young. It was the only way I could find out what I could accomplish on my own terms.

And now I am 65 years old and I feel the passage of time. I think about those I knew over the course of my life and become curious what paths they chose. I wonder what time has done to them, has it been kind or cruel. There are those who are exactly what they were when I knew them back in the 1980’s or 90’s or 2000’s. One of the main lessons from looking back is that people stay the same. As the saying goes, people don’t change, they reveal themselves.

Most people are joyful having lives raising children and having domesticity and living a life that I decided was not for me. They haven’t had the need to create an independent path to find themselves like I have had. Maybe that’s because I was unable for many reasons to truly explore what I could do and be during my childhood. I was withdrawn within myself to protect myself and was never encouraged to do more than that or be more than that. It takes a shitload of time to shed that protective skin and to heal from the inside out. It takes an effort that can go on for decades, sometimes a lifetime.

And so I have spent time over the decades working towards this goal of knowing myself and being myself with full confidence. But there comes a point when it becomes unavoidably clear that this journey has an end. Mortality becomes palpable. I think I felt this in my reaction as a child to “A Lantern in Her Hand” even if I didn’t understand it. Time is limited and, to paraphrase Mary Oliver, what have you done with your one precious life?

Time passes and we have to decide for ourselves what we want our lives to be, what for each of us is experiencing life through that time. I feel right now that I am ready, for the first time, to simply pass the time. I have never done that before or chosen that before but now it feels right. Part of this is finally accepting that being in the moment without the pressure to achieve is also experiencing life.

I keep thinking that maybe it’s time to come full circle. Maybe right now I need to withdraw into myself like when I was a child. Perhaps what I need is to read books and contemplate and observe the world rather than push myself to take action and engage to try to change or save it. I have no idea how much longer my journey will be. I have good genes; my grandparents and father lived until their late 80’s and even 90, and my mother died in her early 80’s. So maybe I can give myself a break from the pressure to feel responsible to engage and achieve for now. I don’t have to feel that somehow I am breaking a rule. I won’t spend each day being focused on accomplishing as much as possible so that I can feel like I am living to my potential. I can be content with simply passing time in the company of my dogs, reading and watching movies and sipping tea and just being. Let’s see how that goes.

 

Let’s Talk About … what it means to be wealthy

Jan 31, 2023

I went a small women’s liberal arts college in Southern California. When I attended in the late 70’s and early 80’s, the student body consisted primarily of wealthy white young women who were not there to prepare for careers. They drove luxury cars and wore designer clothing and were there to meet other members of the elite. The college had a mocking reputation of granting an “Mrs.” degree, meaning most of the women were there to find an equally wealthy husband. Looking at many of my peers today, it is clear, whether they admitted it then or not, that was indeed what they were there for.

Unlike most of the student body, I worked through my college years and bought my clothing at Army surplus and second-hand stores. I walked where I needed to go and stayed within my means. In return I got a fantastic education and my years in college prepared me for life in ways that I didn’t realize until years later. The professors were accomplished leaders in their fields. I certainly realize and appreciate the quality of the education I received.

While I was there, I was not accepted into that elite world and that suited me just fine. My friends and I welcomed all fellow outcasts to join us at our table in the dining hall and hang out if they wanted to.

There was one young woman I will call Jessie. She was overweight and didn’t shower much. She dressed, well, even worse than I did. She knew she was welcome to be with us and we provided a safe space. But I didn’t quite know what to make of her. While she was smart and creative, her communication skills were not good. The only topic she could only talk about was herself and she did so in a babbling way. Looking back, I now question if she was on the spectrum or if she had experienced major trauma already in her life that stunted her permanently. I didn’t know if she was on scholarship or was able to pay her way. We knew very little about her other than she had a big crush on Timothy Hutton and she was taking art classes. She really couldn’t engage in conversation beyond that.

Jessie never reached out in friendship to any of us and being young we didn’t question why and just gave her the space she wanted. And since she was someone I couldn’t relate to, I didn’t pursue friendship either. Once we all graduated I never heard about her again. Until today.

I read through the latest edition of the alumni magazine which has updates on life events including deaths. Listed in the Death section was Jessie who died last year.

I looked her up on Google to see what had happened and how her life had been. All I could find was an obituary written by her family. There was no information about her life in that obituary other than a brief paragraph.

Her family described her life as going to college, studying photography and graphic art, a lifelong reader, and during her last years, acting as caretaker for her elderly father. Nothing more.

Her father survives her and is listed as living in the Midwest where Jessie passed away. She also had 5 siblings yet she alone took care of the father. What struck me was the final sentence: “Jessie will be buried in the family plot in Ojai”. I thought, what does that mean – is this a wealthy family? Why is the family plot in Ojai when none of the family lives in that area? Was she at my college because this is where that particular wealthy family sent family members?

The obituary is on a page of a mortuary website where people can share their thoughts and memories. There are no posts – none from her siblings nor from the “numerous nieces and nephews” the obituary mentions. The mortuary produced a tribute book and not one person contributed a tribute.

Today I think about Jessie and all of us who crossed paths with Jessie during that time in college. What world was she supposed to belong to, what world was she capable of living in and what world did she choose. Did her family expect her to be part of that world of the wealthy but she knew she never could or would be. I hope the silence on the tribute page doesn’t reflect how she was treated during her life. I wish I could know what world she chose to live in during these decades of her brief life.

In the picture of her on the obituary she looks almost exactly the same as she did in college except for, you know, being 45 years older. She died young and I hope her life was filled with the joy she found through photography, graphic art and reading. Things that can be enjoyed fully whether or not you are wealthy.

1/30/23