moving through my 30s

But things will happen to us
so that we don't know ourselves.
Cool, unlying life will rush in,
and passion will make our
bodies taut with power.
We shall laugh, and
institutions will curl up
like burnt paper. D.H. Lawrence

i am now 32. it happened on thursday the 24th. i turned it. the thing that makes it ultimately strange is the fact that i was actually 13 years old when my mama turned 32. I was a teenager and totally remember my ma being a young mother while simultaneously getting worried each year that she turned older cause i thought she was getting so old. yeah, right, 32 is so not old, but as a teen i thought it something different.

Now, i am pushing gently forward into my thirties and loving these years more than any others that i have lived.

the things that make me love this time in life:
1. kk and i are rooted in our community; we have become good friends with our neighbors and i love this sense of knowing the people who live in houses just a few feet from us.

2. kk and i are involved in a spontaneously generated community collective that makes my heart race with anticipation and joy. Bike Ypsi is this group a bunch of us started and good things have come from it and we are determined to continue to make our community a more bicycle friendly and sustainable place. I give a loud flipping off to all the motorized vehicle drivers who shout for cyclist to to get on the sidewalk or off the "fucking road"; soon oh very soon these lazy assed people are going to have to open up their car doors and foot it or bike it cause gas is going to be out of reach. in the meantime, don't mess with me cause i might just kick your car as you zoom pass and yell profanities--i'm sick of your misplaced vehemence.



3. i get paid to do meaningful work. while it is stressful and at times it makes me feel hopeless and zapped, the highlights of goodness overshadow the futility of working with systems that seem unshakable.

4. i have a roof over my head and good food at my fingertips.

5. i have many people in my life who i am fortunate enough to love and who love me.

6. i can grow things in the earth and eat of the bounty.

7. i can muse on the mysteries unfurling around me.

8. i can write and think and paint and believe.

9. i can grow each day knowing that i am still willing and wanting to work for the greatest good--to define it with others, to define it with the natural history and living world around me, and then to lift voice and rock and limb to make the good we collectively define happen.

these things are guiding my footsteps through the long, slow strides of this decade of my life.