spynotes ::
  February 16, 2006
Onions

Last night, in an effort to keep my annual February funk from spiraling into depression, I turned off the computer early, changed into my black knit pants and my softest T-shirt and did my favorite yoga asana sequence. I have practiced yoga on and off for more than two decades, since I was a kid. It seems to work fairly well at keeping my internalization of stress to a minimum. At this point, the motions are second nature.

But while my kinesthetic sense of how to move through the sequence is intact, my ability to make my body obey is not as keen as it once was. I am feeling my age. But despite stiffness, last night�s session was remarkably satisfying. I finished with my mood much improved.

I�ve been thinking a lot about aging lately, thinking of my grandmother and my mother and also myself. I am starting to sense the invisibility, that sense of not mattering, that comes with age in our culture, particularly for women. I know that my grandmother has suffered through it. It is, I am certain, one of the reasons she�s so much happier now that she�s closer to family who visit her regularly. But must we slowly deteriorate and disappear? It seems a depressing prospect and one that to me does not make a lot of sense.

I was thinking about this too when reading the entrieslass wrote about Ella, a surrogate family member who died recently and left many mysteries behind, pieces of her life that all but died with her. Does it take a death for us to realize what rich lives we lead?

But what constitutes richness? Last night as I eased my stiff and aching ex-dancer hips into position, my mind wandering while listening to some meditative piano music, something simple and a little sad, I was suddenly standing in the middle of the wood floor of my Somerville apartment. I was 21 and my roommates were all out. The sunlight was pouring through one of the stained glass windows that flanked the living room. I could feel the sun on my face and I felt lonely and strong. At the same time, I was standing in my bedroom in my Philadelphia apartment. It was a week before my 21st birthday and I was home alone. It was stiflingly hot, but a fan coaxed a pale breeze from my airshaft window and I was dancing to music on the radio. I was also standing in a courtyard at G-town University on a snowy night. I was waiting for my friend K, whom I was visiting for a few days, so we could walk to see �A Lion in Winter� at a campus film society. It was snowing lightly and the streetlamps dotting the quad seemed almost magical.

I was struck by two things. First, that aging is not simply a deterioration but an amalgamation of experiences, layers upon layers. Second, the experiences that have the most resonance for me are fleeting emotional states, not big events. Somehow these moments are when I have felt the most myself, free of other distractions � a string of beauty and quiet. The superimposition of one event upon the other seems to somehow equal the sum of experiences which is me.

This entry feels very teenagery and I'm kind of embarassed about posting it. But it's where my head is this morning. It is not being helped by The Music Genome Project which is programming the most depressive music for me this morning, no matter what I type in. Today all roads lead to Elliott Smith. I think today that my mood needs Aretha Franklin.

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