{A Middle-Aged Goober’s Week in Review}

May 19, 2014 ~ Amy Lyles Wilson ~ 2 Comments

Last Monday night, it was a homeowners’ association meeting, in which people who supposedly live in community talked over one another and complained about the color of the flowers in the bed at the entrance to the subdivision. They’re blooming, so they look fine to me, but apparently a handful of people are horrified—horrified, I tell you!—that the colors aren’t different from last year. The fact that anyone remembers what the flowers looked like last year gives me pause, but I was so busy trying not to jump out of my skin that I didn’t have the energy to whisper a snarky remark to my neighbor sitting next to me. Martha would be proud.

On Tuesday night, it was twenty people who were strangers to one another a month ago in my pastoral care training class at a local hospital, in which we listened to one another and came together on issues much bigger than a pansy palette.

Wednesday was meditation group, led by a husband-wife team, in which the wife is dying of cancer and living out her last days with us in such a state of grace, acceptance, and peace that I can scarcely speak of it. Being in that sacred space gives me hope and lessens my fear. {Insight Nashville}

Thursday brought time with one of those friends you don’t have to see often to love much. {Hey Louise!}

On Friday I was thanked for doing nothing more than listening with intention, and Saturday found me writing with eight wise and tender souls. We call it the “magic table,” in reference to all the great stuff that’s created around it, but it’s not the table, of course. It’s the risks these women take with me, month after month.

Last week ended with pink peonies and a puppy named Hiram. Who knows what this week might bring?

Stealing My Neighbor’s Daffodils

April 17, 2014 ~ Amy Lyles Wilson

When I was about five, my family moved from one subdivision to another in my hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. Soon after we arrived, a woman came from next door to welcome us to the neighborhood. Mother told me to go out back and play while they visited. So I did. After roaming around for a bit with my Labrador sidekick, Sloopy, I found the longest row of daffodils, all yellow and good smelling, lining one side of the yard. I picked a bunch of them, delighting in my discovery, and took them in to Mother, my chubby fingers wrapped around the stems.

“Here,” I said, offering up my bounty. “These are for you.”

“Oh no,” said my mother. “Those don’t belong to us. You shouldn’t have done that.”

Somehow she knew what I didn’t, that the flowers bloomed on the property next to ours, owned by the nice woman sitting on the couch. She was lovely about it, this new friend, but my mother was not amused.

The neighbor, Mrs. Wise, and I laughed about it when I was older, with her telling me I could pick those flowers anytime, that she just wanted people to enjoy them.

The last time I saw her she brought a card to my father in the hospital after he collapsed in a restaurant while eating lunch. Once again Mrs. Wise and I spoke of the daffodils, although she was well into her eighties then and said she had no memory of my indiscretion. Why would she?

Why do I? Because of the shame of it, perhaps, one of those early scoldings we think we didn’t deserve. An early embarrassment. Or maybe it was my first meaningful encounter with a daffodil.

“But I wouldn’t have minded if you picked those flowers whenever you wanted,” she said as we visited in the lobby of Baptist Hospital on North State Street.

“This is for Earl,” she continued, handing me the card. “Get well soon,” it read.

Daddy died the next day, Mrs. Wise several years later.

Every spring when I pick daffodils in my own yard in Tennessee, I think of them both, a neighbor and a father who made lasting impressions on me.

Searching, Searching, Searching

March 27, 2014 ~ Amy Lyles Wilson

I’m like the child who can’t stop asking questions, although I try with all my might not to fidget.

“Why is the sky blue?” becomes, for me, “What shall I do with the rest of my life?”

“I want to be a fireman when I grow up,” sounds like “Should I have been a social worker? A priest?”

“Can dogs fly?” makes me wonder, “Can I get everything I want out of this life?”

“Give me more candy” translates as “Give me more: Time. Energy. Dreams.”

And, like the voracious child, I will have to learn to accept that sometimes the answer is “no,” and sometimes the answer is “maybe later,” and sometimes the answer is, “settle down.”

And every once in a while there is no response that will satisfy.

On Being 52: Trust Me, It’s More Than a Number

March 3, 2014 ~ Amy Lyles Wilson ~ 6 Comments

Please, I beg of you, don’t tell me that my age is “just a number” or “all a matter of attitude.” I get it, really I do, that you mean well, and that you think I’ve got a youthful spirit and that 52 is not 92. But I am here to tell you that being fiftysomething is more than a number. Regardless of one’s perky outlook, it is the startling—although it shouldn’t be a surprise seeing that I’ve had five decades to get used to the idea—realization that more than half my life is over. With that comes, if you’re paying attention at all, some kind of evaluation about where you are and where you want to go from here.

Here’s what being 52 is: weakening eyesight, creaking knees, a need for naps, an ever-present countdown toward the rest of my life’s goals, missing my dead father, learning the language of Mother’s dementia, dreaming of going back to school yet again, wanting to make a difference, a longer list of books I haven’t read, grieving misplaced relationships and lost opportunities, wondering what will become of me. Thankfully, being middle-aged (humor me, please; I know I’m stretching the math here) also brings sharpened awareness of even the smallest joy, an appreciation for what I’ve accomplished and what I’ve avoided, a heightened curiosity, increased energy for what simply must get done and a gentle release of what won’t, discarding what no longer fits me—from old clothes to worn out grievances—without guilt, overflowing gratitude for steadfast friends and supportive relations, and trusting it will be okay in the end.

On this icy winter morning, as I consider my next steps, I raise my decaf latte to the fabulous Elaine Stritch, who bears witness to the “courage of age” with such blazing fortitude that I am made bolder simply by listening to her on National Public Radio.

Sing it, sister, I say. Shout it, growl it, live it.

Why I Don’t Hate Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2014 ~ Amy Lyles Wilson ~ 8 Comments

While I understand people pushing back against the over commercialization of Valentine’s Day—and certainly I don’t think today is the only day we should express appreciation to our loved ones—I’m not a hater. I’m going to revel in the heart shaped mug Precious used for my coffee this morning, the roses that were just delivered to my front door, and the candlelight dinner he and I will share tonight because I waited a long time to be loved like this.

I’m lucky that my parents didn’t raise me to think a prince was coming on a white horse. Frankly, they didn’t tell me anybody was coming and instead made sure I got enough education and sufficient professional chops to be able to support myself. By the time Precious presented me with his mother’s diamond when I was 40 years old, I had decided I would never marry and that, yes, that would be okay. I had a good life and I trusted I would continue to do so, even without a ring on it.

I was used to being alone by then, intimately familiar with being passed over for dates to proms, formals, and college fraternity parties. When I lived in DC in my late twenties, I think I went two years (it was probably longer but I don’t want you to pity me) without so much as a flirtatious glance from a man. Occasionally I’d get a little sad about my apparent lack of womanly skills, but I tried to make sure I had enough inner resources to be content, and enough outside interests to stay connected with the world.

I had single friends who made noise about being happy: “I’ve got a good job,” or “I love my apartment,” they’d say. But they didn’t seem happy to me, disengaging from society and rarely leaving their homes. How they planned to meet anyone that way I have no idea. Although I realize not everyone will—or even wants to—partner long term, I dare say your chances of meeting someone special increase exponentially if you get off the couch. I did the hard work, because I wanted to live the fullest life I could regardless of my love life. I went to a workshop for singles led by an Episcopal priest, based on imago therapy. I saw a psychiatrist, who helped me realize I was not the only woman in Davidson County questioning my self worth simply because I wasn’t married. I did online dating, mainly to make sure I didn’t forget how to powder my nose and engage in polite conversation with men.

“Weren’t you scared?” asked a friend when I told her I’d joined an online dating service. “No,” I responded. “I was never scared, although I was very nearly bored to death on more than one occasion.”

It all helped. It helped by reminding me I was not alone in my search for wholeness, and that such completion was my responsibility, not someone else’s, not even a handsome, smart man. It showed me how to reach out when I got so lonely I worried I might expire on a Friday night and have no one notice until the next Tuesday. It reassured me I was still connected to others, at least in the cosmic sense. Although at the time I was probably more interested in having a companion to go the movies with than I was in any spiritual union with humankind, I remain grateful that I confronted the depths of my loneliness in order to befriend myself.

So on this day so many have come to hate, I’m going with love.