Hello. I know it’s Friday but instead of a ‘Slow-Small Media for the Weekend’ I want to share something else today.
I’ve had a challenging couple of weeks so my usual ‘lovely things detection service’ have been a bit on hiatus.
I hope to find my sea-legs and return to usual services next Friday but for now…
…almost a month ago I turned 53. Not a very special age. Not very young but not very old either. Not a ‘big zero’ birthday. Just a middle-aged-woman kind of birthday.
F and I went off-grid for two nights to a beautiful bush hut for a dip into nature and quiet. Trickling streams and ruru calls at night. It was lovely.
My birthday fell on a Saturday this year and the sun came out for the day after weeks of very stormy and cold spring weather. The sun felt like such a big birthday present that day.
Fraser went off for a walk and I poured a huge cup of tea and opened up my journal. I love using lists as a way into writing in my journal so I decided to set myself the (gentle) challenge of writing 53 thoughts for my birthday. At the outset, I didn’t have any sense of what might come…I just wrote quickly – hoping to get to 53 before Fraser returned.
(Above: the hut had a kaitiaki with paua shell eyes.)
I’ve decided to share the birthday list with you …not because it is especially edifying writing but because it is a snapshot of how wobbly and tender 53 feels; maybe it will be of some solace to you if you’re feeling wobbly and tender, too?
Some of it will probably read like naff pop-psychology or hippy aphorisms. What can I say? Those things are inside me and it’s what poured out on the day. At the time of writing it was just from me to me.
(I’m copying this from my journal. As I transcribe, I may ‘redact’ a few if they feel too specifically personal or mention my family)
53 Birthday Thoughts
- Despite my challenges I am so grateful for my life.
- There is beauty to be found in each day. The task is to find it and attend to it.
- *redacted*
- *redacted*
- I forgive myself. I was doing the best at the time…or at least I was surviving.
- I forgive people who have hurt my heart. Not all friendships/associations are meant to last …people come and go. People are mysterious. I am mysterious. I have disappointed people. People have disappointed me. It is the way of things. Let go…..let go…. let go…
- Be more like a river.
- Be a river.
- We’re here to love. That’s it.
- No act of love is ever wasted.
- Try to adopt more of a ‘maybe’ attitude like the Chinese Farmer.
- Love is the bridge…even if long, slow and not resolved in this lifetime.
- I read somewhere about midlife, ‘Get better or get bitter.’ I want to get better.
(Above: my unglamorous, sticking-plastered hand touching moss in the forest on that trip.)
14. In a similar vein, if at midlife you have ‘ripened on the vine’ and you choose to become wine (sweet) or vinegar (sour).
I choose wine.
15. ‘It will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.’
-John Lennon
16. I tied a red thread around my wrist in August to remind me to stay awake to my life. It’s still there… although now faded and looking a bit manky.
(oh my gosh 53 things is so many)
17. Is there any sweeter experience than sitting still enough that a bird swoops past you, low and swift, and you can feel the fan of air from it’s wing’s beating? (The swallows nesting in the porch here just did that to me.)
18. The 1990s (most of my twenties) feels a long time ago now. It didn’t used to.
19. I just found a dried and beautiful cicada wing.
20. The love in this hut is tangible. The energy of the family who built it having lots of good times over lots of years. (est. 1988)
21. My soundtrack right now is rushing water, magpies and tui.
22. We decided to bring just enough food so all weekend we are eating foil-wrapped potatoes cooked in ashes with lots of butter and salt.
(Above: birthday breakfast at the hut)
23. Happiness can be so simple if we let it.
Simplicity = happiness.
24. The satisfaction of elemental sensations: food in belly, sun on face, fireside gazing, hot coffee, good pillow, the sound of a river.
+ Sitting still long enough to let it soak in.
25. We (humans) could have this every day but we love to complicate things.
26. No internet = more time with mind = space to let thoughts meander and unfurl.
27. When I feel dissatisfied with life, remember today.
(Above: hut kitchen. Simple and good.)
28. Being content is a decision…is active…
29. Oh the neurotic, writerly, artist’s need to record things, capture, analyse, grasp at experience. (All the photographs I’ve taken. This list.)
30. Eels nearby. This afternoon’s adventure.
31. An almond-finger for birthday cake.
32. Scottish oat cakes and tangy cheddar.
33. Lagavulin whisky.
34. We resisted the inclination to overpack and over-cater and that has increased my enjoyment of the weekend so much. (Chosen) scarcity can increase appreciation.
35. That sounded a bit ascetic but it doesn’t feel in the least ascetic.
36. F is walking up a very steep hill with his still-mending leg. Courage. Determination.
37. The warmth of companionable silence.
38. In every way, I have to fight my constant urge to add more.
39. Evolution, devolution, evolution…
(home stretch)
40. We went off-grid for my 50th also. I can feel how much I’ve changed since then. Just a few years…but big such big years.
41. Delayed gratification: I left my little pile of birthday gifts at home on the kitchen table to open on Sunday night.
42. In my experience, time is a spiral.
(Above: hut bathroom. (Yes, of course we did!))
43. The vulnerability of birthdays. The vulnerability of spring.
44. When all you want is less – what does that look like?
45. Being okay with the things I thought I might do that I probably won’t do.
46. Being okay with how it all transpired.
47. Being okay with my own particular closet-skeletons.
Understanding that everyone has them and it would be very unwise to ever wish for anyone else’s life but my own.
48. Knowing that you never know what people are coping with, carrying, surviving or healing from.
49. Knowing that sometimes people who appear incredibly fortunate from the outside can sometimes be tortured by their own minds…a personal hell…
50. Knowing that this is why it is unwise to envy.
51. Knowing that gratitude is a kind of super-power that can help with almost any problem.
52. Knowing that choosing love is, more often than not, the right choice.
53. Knowing mostly how little I know…& this is the nature of life’s ongoing mystery and the way to peace.
*
Lucky, lucky life!
(Above: Crossing the log bridge.)
Helen Lehndorf 
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