Fifty 2007

Fifty

Fifty feels like the heats turned up on life
so much to do and say about life and so little time
Fifty feels like there’s no room for any bullshit,
just get out of my way, get out of my face
and don’t waste my time
Fifty feels like I’m not settling, I’m not peaceful,
not passive and not depressed
Fifty feels like a betraying body could undermine my plans
and force a hand I didn’t mean to play
Fifty feels like a different planet from thirty
and after 20 years of being clean and sober – at
Fifty I’ve grown up to about 30 now –
and no longer have to be so in-control to prove I’m not out of control
Fifty feels like love’s still possible
and lovemaking is even more divine, more direct, more intense,
more natural than in my 30’s and 40’s
Fifty feels like a devotion to beauty is blooming perpetually
in my senses, gestures, being
Fifty feels like it happened so suddenly
this more salt than pepper hair still startles me when I see it
Fifty feels like its gotta be just right or better or I’m not interested
so I moved my home 4 times this year and my office twice.
Fifty feels like the world is open and I can just go in if I want
Fifty feels like the hard work, the pain and suffering
the competency established in the daily practice of living
affords me some legitimacy and credibility
Fifty feels like I’ve had enough hard time in the school of life
I’m broken in like my favorite pair of boots
Fifty feels like there’s finally some substance, some weight, some gravity
that the laws of physics apply even to me.
I’m not terminally unique or invincible just a regular gal
Fifty feels like it’s OK that it has been what it was and is what it is
and it’s necessary to grieve or be glad for what wasn’t or isn’t and after grieving I’ve been glad to still live and love more
Fifty feels like grasping the fact of my own nature and yours and honoring it and making it all the more so is one of the big mystery keys
Fifty feels familiar with dancing with destiny
and the good and evil actors upon us and within us
and refining our true nature means doing this dance with both discipline and practice to get the moves down just so and then abandoning all that and letting the world music move my heart and soul as it will and trust that even in the dance trance of abandon there’s still consciousness pulsing aplenty
Fifty feels glad for friends who are still older and wiser
Fifty feels OK playing the fool now and then and isn’t mortally wounded by your disapproval anymore

Fifty feels OK playing anything now and then once in a while –
can slip off the regalia, the encumbrances for at least a few minutes here and there
and loves to be invited to play
Fifty feels pretty sure that humans personify God
and that’s where mistakes have been made -
that human minds hearts and souls
channeled the Bible, Koran, Torah, Sutras
and the highest of human beings are indeed
the most direct channellers of human wisdom
but they still convey it through human language
and it suffers from human projections –
but it’s the best and all we have
for archetypal wisdom books to study and reflect on
Fifty feels the truth is always recognizable
whether it contains dread or relief –
it’s like the tumblers of a big lock
all aligning and opening – a clear opening
Fifty has been beyond the horizon
and though it looks like it goes on and on forever
knows it’s just a round ball after all
and if you follow it you come back to right here
Fifty knows that theses are all just ego concerns –
nothing more and that ego concerns are necessary
for living well while incarnated in a body
that still makes use of the world
Fifty knows that when the body
can no longer make use of the world
none of this or that will matter,
and if I can’t let it go as the death road approaches
mercifully dementia will loosen my grip.