Letting Go of the World

I find that there are two ways of dealing with a growing litany of physical limitations: we can either feel that the world is closing in around us or we can feel that we are starting to let go of the world. Which isn’t, ultimately, all that bad. Gravity gets tiresome. 

 I keep thinking about my mom—in her 90’s, in a wheelchair, totally helpless, just gazing out at the lush Florida greenery, lost in her own world, it seemed. I asked her if she felt trapped. “No,” she whispered, “I feel free.”

Debby Dahl Edwardson

Debby was one of the students I worked with in the Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, one I am particularly proud of.  (A finalist for the National Book Award, among other accolades.)  She and I have kept a strong connection over the years, and with her permission, I borrowed the above quote from an email conversation.

 Debby’s mother’s response to her question amazes me.  “I feel free!”  And from a wheelchair!  Will I ever arrive at such a place?  To have so much taken away and yet to be living, not just without regret, but in freedom? 

 Aging is a ceremony of losses.  I understand that.  What I once assumed essential to my being keeps slipping away. 

I remember well giving up my last formal position as a writing teacher. It was work I loved and was well-suited to. My final years of teaching were through the Vermont College of Fine Arts.  A low-residency program with faculty and students coming from all over the world, it was the first MFA program dedicated exclusively to writing for children and young adults.  I had the privilege of being one of the founding faculty and the first Faculty Chair. I even created the system by which the faculty of each program could be self-governing with one of their own taking the helm. I’ve lost track of how many years I traveled back and forth to Vermont.  I do remember, though, how much I loved every exhausting, fulfilling moment of it. 

 Our students were talented, dedicated, thrilling to work with, and I found life-long friends among faculty and students alike.  Nonetheless, the day came when I realized I no longer had the psychic energy the program needed from me, and I went to our then Faculty Chair to tell her I would retire at the end of the semester.  When I made my announcement, I wept.

 Once that final semester had played itself out, I faced into the loss.  I wouldn’t be climbing onto a plane to return to Vermont.  I loved Vermont.  I loved the college.  I loved my fellow faculty.  I loved the students.  I loved teaching!

 And then I sighed with relief.  I wouldn’t be climbing onto a plane to return to Vermont!  

 Would that every letting go could be so painless.

 I’ve been writing for publication for fifty years.  My latest editor, the one I had long aspired to, retired recently, and though I still have a couple of books in the pipeline, one manuscript seeking a home and another idea rummaging around in my head, her absence has put my ability to place new work in doubt.  After all, I am—as Norma Fox Mazer and I used to say to one another, wryly—no longer the flavor of the month. 

And that is as it should be.  The world moves on, must move on.  The field I have worked in so happily for half a century is evolving, and I have not, cannot evolve with it.  Not fully, anyway.  And while I started out writing mostly for my own eyes, I can’t gather the energy to do that any longer.  I seem to need to have at least one other person out there to receive my words.

I’ve struggled with that loss for more than a year, and I’m just beginning to come to terms with it.  These blogs are, at least for now, a way to give my days that old, familiar purpose, a reason to write.  

Avery

Then there are the physical losses.  Ah . . . those physical losses.  For most of my life, I barely inhabited my body.  If I hadn’t studied ballet as a girl, I’m not sure I would have known I had one.  Strangely, though, I’ve grown more comfortable with this aging body, more attached to it, take more pleasure in what it is capable of than I ever did when I was young. 

But at 86 this body is beginning to . . .  I started to say “fail me,” but perhaps I should say instead, my body is beginning to change. 

I love to walk, and walking outdoors is an essential part of every day.  Recently, though, even that has come to be a challenge.  My partner and I have taken a new dog into our lives, a rescue, a five-year-old miniature Schnauzer/something named Avery, and we’re both in love.  But a young dog is very different from the ancient Sheltie we used to trundle around in a carriage when she could no longer walk more than short distances on her own. 

Avery, twice a day, comes and stares and me, and if I don’t respond, she says, in a polite but commanding voice, “Wuff!”  Because she wants, she needs, she demands a walk.  Which is fine, certainly.  I need a walk, too.  But I’ve gone from averaging two miles a day, to four.  Or more.  And my feet are rebelling and my leg muscles are tightening and my lower back aches in ways it hasn’t before. 

Another, another loss!

For years I’ve worked with a Pilates trainer . . . twice a week, hour-long sessions.  Pilates keeps me moving and reasonably supple.  Recently, though, I’ve had to cut back to thirty-minutes each time because what used to simply be part of my days now leaves me exhausted and in pain. 

I am aware that gravity gets tiresome.  I’m aware, too, that letting go is less painful than the refusing to let go. That doesn’t stop me from trying to refuse, though.

To let go of this world I love?  Love so much more than I could when I was young . . . when I was so self-involved, always so worried about doing right, being right?  To let go of the marsh marigolds blooming in my raingarden, the tulips at the edge of the patio planted by the woman who owned this house long before it was mine?  To let go of the sunset?  Of the silken comfort of my bed?

And yet . . . and yet . . . I can’t help but wonder.

What must it be like to feel free?