Turning 60 and the Story I tell of Myself

"It seems to me that I am a character from a work of fiction. This is a serious intuition; it goes deep. For our imaginings about ourselves, whether written down or not, are a composition. Consciousness is like a law of form. My cat, Tiny, does not dream up any stories about himself." --Czeslaw Milosz, A Year of the Hunter, journal entry of Sept. 19, 1987

In 1987, when Czeslaw Milosz wrote those words, I was two months from realizing that I was pregnant with our first child, I was suffering from depression, and I was teaching full-time at Texas A&M University, my alma mater, as a lecturer. Tom and I had just moved back to Texas after four years in Louisiana, where I taught in the English Department while Tom finished his PhD in forestry.  I was to discover that drastic changes in my life tended to induce anxiety as I worked to establish myself in whatever new place to which we had located. Over time and after many moves, I have created for myself a fiction--well, not so much a fiction as a story of myself as someone who can adapt easily to new situations.

And so I can adapt, but it's not easy, and it's not without emotional trauma. Now I am adapting to turning 60 at the end of the year, far away from my children and from friends with whom I have kept in touch with over the years. Six years have passed since my last job as a part-time tutor in a learning center at a community college; ten years have passed since my last part-time teaching appointment at a community college; fourteen years have passed since my last full-time teaching appointment, one in which I had achieved a promotion to assistant professor (non-tenure track) and a stint as the director of a summer program for Japanese citizens. Seven years have passed since I last published a poem and about that many since I last wrote one.

In those intervening years, I have struggled to re-invent myself outside of my professional life. It was easiest to postpone that re-assessment while the kids were at home. Once they left on their own adult adventures, the story I told of myself seemed to falter into broken sentences, missed metaphors, faulty plotline. What story can I tell now? One that will get me past 60 and into old age?

When one moves to a new place far away from the old places after one's professional life is over and done with, one discovers no one is interested in that old life. If you remain in the place where you established that professional life or where you have lived for many years, your storyline remains intact; you cannot understand the futility of continuing the story in a totally new place past middle age, beyond your professional life and all the myriad experiences that created the tapestry of your backstory. Really. No one is interested in that story.

We recently had neighbors over one evening for snacks and drinks on our patio, and I mentioned that I missed the culture of cities where I had lived. We had been talking of this place where we live now, a four-hour drive to any major city, in the heart of Apache County, Arizona. Our neighbors are retirees, with a winter home elsewhere and a summer home here in the foothills of the White Mountains. They were telling us of how much they love the peace and quiet of this area, and I mentioned that I miss the culture of cities where I had lived, particularly that of Decatur, near Atlanta, GA. I missed being able to go to a movie on a whim, knowing that I would be able to see the latest production; I missed being able to go to a bookstore when I was bored, to go to a coffee shop and to watch the people passing. I missed the music venues, the festivals, the diversity, the restaurants, the walkable community where we had once lived.

One of our neighbors asked, "Where did you grow up that you now miss those things?"

"I grew up in the country," I said.

"So what makes you miss the stuff you just described?"

I was taken aback and realized...these are people who don't know my story of growing up in the country yearning for something bigger, of going to university and being the first college graduate on the maternal side of my family, of getting married at a young age, of being awarded a graduate degree after two years of teaching freshman composition, of teaching at major universities and regional colleges, of writing and publishing poetry and personal essays in small regional publications, of trying a bit of journalism in a northern Minnesota town, of raising a family while teaching and moving around the country as Tom found new jobs, of getting a full-time teaching position at a university that allowed me to grow intellectually and professionally, of directing a summer program at that university for students of all ages from Japan, of participating in poetry workshops directed by well-known poets, of creating and displaying an art car, of traveling--to England, to Japan, to Mexico, to various states of the U.S.--of making friends and leaving friends along the way.....

That's a too-brief summary of the old life. What story do I tell of myself now? 

This is the story my blog tells: Anita is interested in politics and the effects of our political choices, writes about her cats and their presence in her life, is sustained emotionally and physically by gardening, likes to make things,  is introspective, and seems to like taking photos of pollinators.

But this is only a small part of the story I tell myself. We all have hidden depths we rarely reveal outside the observable fiction of ourselves.

Spring at Casa Malpollos

Snow covers peach blossoms on March 28, 2017

Last year we put in our first full garden in Arizona where we live near the White Mountains, at 7200 feet above sea level. Most of our gardening experience has been in the South (Texas, Georgia, Louisiana) except for a couple of years in northern Minnesota. The monsoon season begins here at the beginning of July, and most long-timers don't begin planting until May. However, we decided to experiment, and I planted cool season seeds (arugula, mesclun mixes, radishes) on April 10th. I followed suit this year, and these cool season plants survived the late freezes that are common here. But the warmer season plants that survived early planting last year were hit hard by those late freezes this year.

The weather here is not consistent, and gardeners are frequently disappointed. Friends who live just five miles away, nearer the Little Colorado River and at a little lower elevation, have never had apples from their apple trees. Yet last year, even though many blooms were killed in a frost, we harvested plenty of apples for canning. This year, we had such warm weather in March that we were encouraged by all the peach and apple blooms. Then the area turned colder, with freezing temperatures and snow the last week of March. 

the snow of 27-28 March 2017--peach tree full of blossoms, covered with snow

We were amazed, however, to see tiny fruit swellings on the peach, pear, cherry, and apple trees--only to be disappointed again by a late freeze and snow on April 29th and 30th. All the little fruits were killed, as well as the tiny, curling leaves just emerging on our grape vines. Even the hardy, ornamental Russian sage was killed back, its spring leaves withering in the cold. I wait to see if those will sprout back. 

The snow of April 29-30, 2017

The garden after the snow of April 29, 2017

With so many spring-flowering plants affected by those snows, the bees, which had been covering the blooms of the fruit trees, began swarming the hardier plants. I had planted arugula and mesclun mixes last fall. The plants hunkered down, survived the winter, and are now in bloom and full of bees every day.

Arugula and mustard flowering in the early spring garden--These plants survived the winter.

The arugula, mesclun mixes, and radishes we planted in early-to-mid April are doing well, potatoes have sprouted, and the garlic has 5- to 6-inch leaves. The parsley that I planted by seed last year also resprouted; they are biennial plants. Today I made a great salad with those greens and parsley.

Arugula and mixed mustards, early May garden

We have also added to our animal quotient on our little half-acre "suburban farm." When we bought this house, the previous owners had chickens and turkeys; we kept the chickens, ate the roosters, and now have four hens left from the original flock. In March, I purchased six little Wyandotte chicks (purported to be pullets at the local feedstore so there better not be any cockerels among them!). For the first three weeks, we kept the chicks in a large box in one of our spare bathrooms where we could set up a heater as well as a heat lamp. Then, as the weather warmed up, we moved the chicks to a rabbit hutch that we put in the garage, again with a heater and heat lamp set up to keep the growing chicks warm. Yesterday we moved the chicks to the hen house. They are in a small cage that Tom built in order to help the older hens and chicks become acquainted, with as little anxiety and pullet pecking as possible. In a week, we will release them into the larger hen yard.

One (of the two) black hens checks out the chicks yesterday (6 April 2017)

chicks in the hen house--The cage will keep them separated from the older hens for a week.

Now we are experiencing the high winds that the area is famous for--wind and very dry weather. Gardening here is a challenge, but so far, we've been up for the challenge.