A Poem for One's 70's: Tuesday's Reflection

In preparation for revision of a chapter in my memoir, I re-read a couple journals written in 1997, the year we moved to Sweetwater Farm in Ohio. 











I found a clipping of a poem by Anne Hazlewood-Brady called "One Week in My Seventies" taped to a blank page in the journal. She describes one activity for each day of the week, including cancelling the news and laughing at her cat. The following lines resonate with me now and perhaps did then, too. 

                   


                    
                    On Friday I tidy the house
                  because neatness clarifies life.
                    On Saturday I bake a dessert
              to sweeten the sorrows I cannot solve.
                    On Sunday I know for sure
                             all life is prayer
                    and everyone is immortal 
                            to someone.

I googled the poet, and she was 72 when she wrote this and died in 2012 at the age of 87. I wonder if she wrote a poem about a week in her 80's. I was 49 years old when I read the poem and saved it in my journal --more than two decades away from being 70. Now I am only a few months away from being 71.

The journal where I found this poem documents a busy and emotional time in our lives. Earlier in the year we made a rather surprising move from our home in a Cleveland suburb where we had lived for not quite three years to a century farm in the country. Our soul place. That fall our daughter and son-in-love moved to Tanzania to teach for a year, my father had a heart attack requiring triple bypass surgery, and our son started his freshman year in college at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design--all within the same month. 

Living at Sweetwater Farm provided the calm and serenity I needed in order to respond with some degree of equanimity during those days when feelings were right on the surface. I imagine myself cleaning the house, in order to restore order in each room and in my heart. I imagine myself mixing flour, sugar, and eggs to blend sadness with hope and promise. And I imagine myself giving thanks for all the love and grace in my life. 

I must have had some idea when I was 49 that "all life is prayer," but now that I am in my 70's those words are more real for me. They may be the only words that are truly necessary. The only instruction and reminder needed to live each day wholly. 

So today I write about a day in my 70's. 

                  Today I open my laptop
                and vow to live with an open heart.
                   Today I simmer chicken soup
                to nourish the spirit, as well as the soul.
                    Today I know for sure
                God's presence is everywhere,
                     within and all around. 

An Invitation
What wisdom from earlier years continues to live in you today? I would love to know.