Most Days

Most days I do not mind being me. I’m fairly good-natured, and I have a fun life. I have great friends that have lasted a lifetime,and a family that love each other. I do my best to continually grow and learn and be.

When I was a younger woman, I always dreamed of being that stately elder… refined and distinguished. The ones like my grandma Doris, wise and understanding. Perfect in appearance with never a hair out of place.

I have to say, at 52 it looks like, perhaps I will turn out to be another kind of elder. The crazy kind. Sure we have our own appeal.. our own charm, but… well it is certainly different.

This past weekend as I sat visiting with friends, retelling old stories of “the good ole days,” it became clear to me, that it is quite possible, I was never actually on the Stately woman path. I shared stories of my trip to Wisconsin in a horrible summer storm, being in a summer dress and boots, water up to my knees as it rained sideways drenched from head to toe to only make it worse as I dove for the car when I heard what I thought was a tornado siren, only to learn that it was…… the local dinner bell. And of the time I sat at the end of a cast iron tub to wash off my feet, having already disrobed, to have the tub flip-up backwards leaving me indecently wedged between the tent and the deck screaming that everyone NOT come and save me.  Or the time I quickly “rescued” my then young son from what turned out to be a black COW and not the bear I had envisioned.

Well, unfortunately, the tales don’t stop there. But, one gets the picture. I have somewhere traded in the stately dreams, not sure when I did. But, I had a new awareness, one that I can live with as I read this poem, I could see me and I am okay with who I am becoming.. Most days.

“Old Cowgirl”

I shall wear diamonds

And a wide-brimmed straw hat

With silver and leather on it

and I shall spend my social security

On white wine and carrots

And sit in the alley of my barn

And listen to my horses breath.

I will sneak out

in the middle of a summers’ night

And ride the chestnut mare

Across the moon struck meadow.

If my old bones will allow.

When people come to call I will smile and nod

As I walk them past the gardens to the barn

And show, instead, the beauty growing there

In stalls fresh-lined with straw.

I will shovel and sweat and

Wear hay in my hair as if it were a jewel.

And I will be an embarrassment to all

Who look down on me.

They’ve not yet found the peace in being free

To love a horse as a friend,

A friend who waits at midnight hour

With muzzle and nicker and patient eyes

For the kind of woman I will be,

When I am old.