Muse Hang-Out

Muses, the messengers of creative inspiration, spiritual electricity and occasional episodes of feeling smart hang out at this blog. occasionally all nine of them break out in a harmonized version of simply singing the word "blog" and holding it for up to 10 minutes. desired effects of visiting this blog: flurries of ideas, spontaneous grins, compulsions to create. Visit www.themuseisin.com for more Muses.

Friday, December 29, 2006

midlife crises




Surfing the net the other day, I landed on Amy Wallen's website (her novel went on sale yesterday by the way.. Congratulations
Amy). Among a list of details about her interests, she included that she started playing piano at age 40 and I thought nonchalantly to myself, “Hmm, maybe I’ll return to playing the piano when I turn 40.” Yet, I am 50. Now on most occasions I enjoy my highly sophisticated denial skills but this time they robbed me of 10 years that I could have used to develop a provocative and well spiced piano repertoire. A mid-life crisis immediately set in. I sat in paralyzed angst owing to the fact that I had a LOT of stuff that I assumed I’d do by the time I gotten to the age I’d already been. Angst is an uncomfortable thing to sit in. Of course, there have been several flurries of aging reality before this one. I’ve, in fact, had 60 or 70 mid life crises - starting in my … 30s.

In my early thirties I thought people in their mid-twenties had their whole life ahead of them while being 32 was late in life. In my forties, I thought, now I was surely ancient; the forties are synonymous with old age, right? So little time left. A little bit of common sense from each of these countless crises helped me perfect the art of looking forward rather than back. Realistically, I could have possibly more than 35 MORE years left to learn the piano, meet and love a lot of wonderful people, bike through Holland, make a contribution or nine, and experience many other things on my list of yearnings. I am pretty sure I could get good at almost anything in only 20 years so I’d even have 10 to 15 years left to read funny literature and paint quirky watercolor paintings . Looking at it that way... there seems to be plenty of time left.


At this point in the age-game we have wisdom, a deepening potential to be creative - rich life experiences as inspiration, less reason to be stymied by what others think, the mellowing agent of age, and more motivation to live deeply and evocatively.

I now consider each mid-life crisis I’ve had as one more draw back of the band on my destiny sling-shot. My sling-shot is currently at the max extension, the point of release and I’m poised in the middle so to speak, ready to be launched with divinely executed aerodynamics which includes but is not limited to a graceful arch into the second half of my life - in a confident, deliberate, undaunted, gusto-filled, effortlessly dedicated forward motion rather than a diminishing one. And I’m taking you with me. So let’s have launch. For a conversation and further revealing of anti-aging potions, choose the anti-aging option on the newsletter subscription link.