MID-AUGUST, SHIFTING LIGHT

I notice the light is shifting to the left as I look out our front door on these August mornings, see how the line of shade from our house expands over the garden just beyond our front steps. I rearrange the container gardens that grace those steps so the variegated Boston fern can get the few hours of sunlight it needs to keep multiple hues of green in its leaves. The hard little crabapple nubs are just beginning to turn into juicy treats that robins and cedar waxwings will gorge themselves on in another month. Hints of autumnal chill hover in the early morning air.

We’ve come to that poignant part of summer once again, the part where our full gardens spill into the driveway and street and sidewalk, back-to-school supplies crowd Target’s aisles, school-age kids think about who will be in their classes in September, and grandparents like me offer childcare for the upcoming school year. Granddaughter Maeve will return for regular days with my partner Mick and me next Monday. We will go through the toys and books we have for her before she returns, cull out what she’s outgrown now that she’s almost three. Our older granddaughter Camille may hang out with us a few times before she returns to school, although at 13, she might prefer spending her days somewhere else. And that’s okay. She is growing up, her own light shifting just like the light outside.

As I write this, I’m sitting on the chair on our front steps, waiting for the arrival of Maeve, Camille, and their parents, who are both teachers, as they swing by to drop off their dog so they can take a much-needed mini-vacation for my daughter-in-law’s birthday. Martin, a rescue lab mix, is somewhere around eight years old and I love how doofy he is. We haven’t had a dog of our own for almost three years now, and I miss having one much of the time. I don’t miss having to arrange for dog care when we travel, though, and that’s the one thing that keeps us from getting another dog. Martin will be a nice guest to have for a few days, just enough of a dog fix to tide me over a little longer. Just enough companionship to make these days feel a little more joyful.

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Martin and I walk through our neighborhood midmorning the day after he comes to stay with us. It’s a quiet morning. Mick is off playing softball, so it’s just Martin and me. Martin is a pretty big dog, solid and calm. Mostly. He doesn’t like other dogs, so barks and pulls when one comes near. It takes all my strength to keep him from lunging. Once the dog is past, we are fine. And he’s good with people, except for the man who comes up behind me. Martin turns around and issues a low protective growl. The man says good morning. Martin and I both relax.

As Martin and I stroll along, I think about how dogs make us get outside and move around, one of their gifts to us. As Martin pauses to sniff here and there, he reminds me that slowing down to notice things is part of a good walk. We don’t have to pass everything by in the name of getting our steps in. We can – and should – see what’s there, notice who passed this way before us, who planted flowers that call to the bees, who spilled their ice cream in the driveway, and who left a water bowl out for passing canines to lap from. When I walk the neighborhood with my granddaughter Maeve, I feel that same sense of slowing down to take notice. Maeve isn’t much taller than Martin.

Maybe I should add more things to our own garden for dogs and kids to enjoy. That would be an easy shift to make. It might bring someone else joy.

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In a few days, I’ll turn 65. This particular birthday once seemed a lifetime away, along with its Medicare card and senior discounts and this light-gray hair that I’m growing out. In fact, my hair is nearly white. Earlier this year, I decided I missed having long hair and started the painful process of growing it out from a very short textured cut. It’s finally past the truly awkward stage, but still too short to pull into a ponytail when I’m gardening or painting. I’m glad for baseball caps.

I’m very clear that I’m not dying my hair to make myself look younger. This gray-white hair catches the light differently, looks platinum in a black-and-white photograph, has its own kind of glory. This is what 65 looks like. I’m comfortable with that, happy to still be on this earth.

I don’t wonder how close I am to the end. Who has time for that? There’s too much that’s wonderful in the now.

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One thing I do wonder about on nearly a daily basis is what kind of impact I’m leaving behind. How much good am I doing? How much damage? These thoughts are most often in reference to my own adult kids, with my ever-expanding understanding that this world is not at all the same one I grew up in. There’s a lot of meanness out in the open, a lot of cavalier ideas that we can all do whatever we want and everyone around us can just suck it up. 

I do not want to contribute further damage to a warming world that oppresses anyone who isn’t in power at the moment. I don’t want to add to the climate change that will kill all kinds of plants, animals, and people by being careless, thoughtless, selfish. By thinking accumulated money is the only accurate measure of a life or a business. By thinking there is only one legitimate religion. By discounting anyone different from myself.

This life has so many options. There are so many opportunities to create a community, listen to someone whose experience is different from our own, learn that every path has its perks. The fear of any change that is often expressed around election time – We’re losing our country! This is going to cost us too much! No more immigrants! That idea will never work! Our birthrate is dropping and it’s all the fault of women who don’t want kids! – is such a hinderance to peace and progress. Fear shatters compassion, encloses us in a dark, dark room with no windows. 

Getting older offers clarity about what really matters. After living through life’s assorted ups and downs – money and no money, college interrupted and restarted, housing with cockroaches and faulty plumbing followed by a well-maintained house that I co-own, working in jobs where men were sexist and then where they weren’t, learning first-hand how single mothers are treated after my first marriage went up in flames then being treated so differently after Mick’s and my daughter was born a year and a half into our marriage, leaving the Catholic Church, learning about Zen Buddhism and other religious views – how I see the world has been shaped and reshaped and reshaped again. Throw in some world travel, seeing firsthand how people outside the US actually live, and there came another shift.

There are a lot of answers to be had out there in the world. No one has them all.

——

On Martin’s last day with us, the sky clouds over after a gorgeous morning of sun and light breezes. All morning long, my friend Luann and I share time together, sip coffee, buy baby gifts for the family next door who welcomed their daughter two weeks ago. We talk about how it feels to have a new baby, miss sleep, alternate between exhilaration and exhaustion,  figure out a new way to be in the world. We decide to include coffee, tea, and chocolate in the gift bag.

As I sit in a chair waiting for Shawn, Beka, Camille, and Maeve to come collect Martin, I keep going over this essay, wrestling with what I want to say here in mid-August in my last days of being 64. When I look up from my laptop, I see the very first yellowed leaf on our backyard birch, a surprise. It feels too early. But change starts with one little thing, doesn’t it? Just one small yellow light in a dark green canopy. 

Light is everything on these waning summer days.