Lessons in Learning by Julia Jarrell

Lessons in Learning

I know I’ve spoken often about turning 80, an official Octogenarian.

My long time teacher and friend tells me, “ I choose to think of you as an Octogenarian. “ He reflects. “I myself am a nongermanium.” ( 93, 94 soon) A good visualization for every day: a little laugh, a spontaneous smile!

There is a back story of why arriving at this new marker feels so important. When I was in my late 30s, I imagined the life I was living would continue to evolve where and how it was, but in a short span of time I experienced a series of major disruptions.

● The university based organization I was part of was suddenly failing, its founder and my mentor asked to resign, a colleague and I were left to deal with a huge debt, responsibility to complete multiple contracts and grants for programs in mid process, and to propose options for future directions.

● My teenage daughter was going through the challenges of first love.

● My mother’s long term dementia was worsening and my caretaking father needed more support than I too often could give.

● My anchoring home helper and housekeeper shifted households to anchor my dad.

● My marriage was rocky.

● Alone one night in the house with my children, I fended off a knife wielding intruder with assault on his mind, wielding a broom like a spear.

● On examination, a fibroid tumor the size of a grapefruit was discovered, needing immediate surgery.

Fortunately I had a specially creative and intuitive counselor to help me navigate this onslaught of “make-me or break-me” events that collectively I did not think I could handle. In emotional exhaustion, I asked her to help me figure out how to get my three children launched into safety and stability before I became cognitively unsound or I died. She looked straight into me and commented” I think it is time for a reset, to reframe our focus.”

She asked me to visualize myself at 60 ( over 20 years away), the person I will enjoy being, the projects I take on, the everyday ways I live my life, the people and places surrounding me.

I practiced imagining in different forms- drawings of my future inner selves, collages of my life, journal writing. I found ways and supportive networks to share my visualizations.

Reenergizing! Spirit lifting!

I found myself smiling at the thought of becoming 60. Visualizing myself as a happy healthy 60 helped me get through the challenges I faced with a more practical imagination. I grew less afraid. I realized, maybe, I could get all the way to 70. It took just as much visualizing energy, so

why not imagine it!

Over the years that exercise has stayed with me and helped me be a better navigator of life’s challenges, to fear less the risks of the unknown. To get up in the morning and make my way to a better idea, another day. It has helped me grow, periodically recreating myself from the seed of the person I was into something new, someone I am becoming.

Hardships are our teachers, our guides. They lift the veil of our old perceptions and challenge us to dig deeper, find internal resources and possibilities we never imagined were there.

Over the years I have celebrated those critical decade markers !

At 60, I gathered my friends and cooked for them and invited them to help me celebrate my passage.

At 70, I cooked again as we gathered, sang songs, shared poems of gratitude and wishes for our world. I traveled with my children and celebrated my grandchildren!

At 80, I think of myself as a walking miracle. As I reflect on celebrating this marker I am imagining how I grow my tradition. I will join others to visualize our hurting world filled with new good things, recreated from and past all this pain, towards better days.

———————-

Winter

“ now is the winter of our discontent”

I don’t feel that way.

Winter is a time for going inward. For seeds sleeping .

The culmination of a cycle before rebirth.

Winter puts constraints on us,

It can limit our movement, we endure more dark days. My Texas roots daughter, calling Northwestern Massachusetts her home for nearly 25 years, still dreads the winter, the cold and especially the dark. She comes South for a few weeks at the end of the year, in those shortest darkest days... for family, rejuvenation and sunshine.

I have always had happy associations with winter. Special household and communal decorations, poinsettias, hot drinks, gatherings with friends and family, music, candles. A time when we get to pause and reflect on the year’s passing: say goodbye, bring closure. We are

freed to visualize a new year of our becoming, for ourselves and our world.

I am culminating years of becoming 80 to a transition of being 80.

I don’t think so much about visions of what my life should be over a longer span of time any more , though I do consider things I would

Like to get done. I can ask of myself, Do I really want to do that?

I find renewal and pleasure in envisioning the day at hand-

The chores to accomplish, demands to meet, the opportunities for joy, the big and little pleasures. Today for instance, I woke up early and after a small meditation, attended my silver sneakers zoom yoga classes.

I took down the Dia de Los Muertos altar and refreshed the last of the flowers. I made banana breads for household and neighbor from overripe bananas. I read to my sister.

I wrote this reflection.

I am journeying to spirit writers group, driving on familiar streets in the dark.