Until the Walk Itself is Home

Photo by Santiago Manuel De la Colina on Unsplash

I want to have a conversation

that we can return to without

conclusion, one that lasts for

years, that feels like a walk that

has no end.  Until the walk

itself is home.

Those are the opening lines of a poem by Mark Nepo, Long Walk Home.  Every Friday morning of the world I take that “walk that has no end” with two dear friends, something we have been doing for more years than any of us can count. 

Each time we meet, we light a candle and read Long Walk Home.  Then one of us reads another poem, a fresh one each time, and we use that one for a spiritual practice called Lectio Divina.  We read the poem three times. On the first reading we simply listen; on the second reading, we each choose a line or lines, and on the third, we talk about what those lines mean in our lives.

Then we tumble into conversation.  First, we check in.  My friends are close behind me in age, so we talk about the challenges and blessings that come with being old.  We discuss that most forbidden of all topics, living in an aging body: the hip replacement that will not quit aching, the gut that grows more tender by the day, the memory that does not hold. We even contemplate the inevitable yet still impossible idea of death.  Our own deaths.  We talk about politics, of course.  And we read and discuss a wide range of fascinating and challenging books.

We began, years ago, with a memoir, Measure of My Days by Florida Scott-Maxwell.  Then we fell in love with quantum physics and challenged ourselves with titles such as Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carl Rovelli; The Web of Meaning:  Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find our Place in the Universe by Jeremy Lent; Beyond Biocentrism:  Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death by Robert Lanza and Bob Berman; The Whole Elephant Revealed:  Insights into the Existence and Operation of Universal Laws and the Golden Ratio by Marja de Vries.  And just now, we are delving into Early Exists:  Spirituality, Mortality and Meaning in an Age of Medical Assistance in Dying by David Maginley.

We call ourselves The Lucky Old Ladies.  (Or The Lovely Old Ladies, depending on which of us is doing the naming.  We have never felt obligated to agree, even when it comes to what we should call ourselves.) 

We love being old.  Every one of us.  Despite the fraught world assaulting us on every side, I think I can say we are happier now, more content, than ever before.  When we do look back, we do so mostly with forgiveness . . . for ourselves and others.  And with gratitude.  Gratitude even for the mistakes, the losses that have brought us to being the old women we are today.

The society that surrounds us doesn’t have much use for old women.  We are aware of that, of course.  Aware and untroubled.  That’s society’s problem, not ours.  We know our own worth.  Far more than we could when we were young and had responsibilities that gave us some small status in the world.  We were once each professionals in demanding careers:  a therapist, a professor, a writer.

We found one another through our Unitarian-Universalist church.  Garrison Kealor’s joke about UU’s lands gently for being so profoundly true, our abiding symbol, a question mark.  And oh, the questions we ask, week after week, year after year!

Such as . . . if the substance we are made of is energy and if energy can be converted but never destroyed is there such thing as death?  And to take that question a step further, if the atoms that make up this person I am survive my death but my ego does not, do I care? 

Such as . . . if consciousness is the true reality and our physical existence merely a kind of hologram as quantum physics maintains, how does that consciousness relate to humanity’s ancient idea of the Divine?

Such as . . . how will we face into the losses that lie ahead?  Will we have the integrity and strength to carry whatever comes to us with grace?  If we find ourselves living in pain—dying in pain—will we cease to be the persons we most want to be?

Such as . . . will our fierce desire to live long enough to vote in the next presidential election be sufficient to carry us to that day?

We end each gathering with a blessing, put out the candle, embrace, and return to our lives . . . renewed, refreshed.  Grateful for one another and grateful for the waiting world, too.

Here are the final lines of Mark Nepo’s poem:

I want to reach with you into

the heart of things, where the

stitching of the Universe

shows its golden knots.

And reach we do.  And golden those knots have proven to be.  And how blessed we are to have created this sacred space with and for one another.  A space to stretch and grow.  To thrive.  To become more fully ourselves even as we prepare to leave this precious world.

We are, indeed, three lucky old ladies.

Lovely, too!