Fall has always been my favorite season. The changing of color, my brain still holding long ago explanations of onset of cold and shortening of days messaging chlorophyll’s breakdown. Leaves fall, fall, fall. Days shorten, air cools, rain dumps. I love it all. Fall too prepares me for another birthday. This year, I’m amazed yet not startled, by the number of birthdays I have experienced. And my strange mind reminds me, the alternative to aging is not what most of us want: Mom shared that message a few times with me in her 80s. (Along with “aging isn’t for wimps.”) I feel good even though my back aches most mornings and more of my hair is gray. I try not to worry about health stuff that may or may not lie ahead, and appreciatively keep moving my body. I too understand I’ll take what I get and just try to take it from there.

Last year I mentioned in a blog (See: Seeking calm waters) a bit about the crone party Mom threw for herself on her 60th birthday. I share bits of this in my new memoir as well as how I didn’t feel like such a celebration at 60, nor did I at 61. Life’s ups and downs, Mom’s death, difficult job change: it all left me too consumed to imagine what is next. For some reason, in the last few months I have felt different. Part becoming a grandma; part preparing my next memoir for publishing. I’ve known the term Crone and about crone celebrations since I was a young woman, thanks to Mom. I’ve since learned many women have never heard of it or its connection to this later “wise woman” life stage. While some identify the stage as post menopausal, others see it at 60 or perhaps not till 70. I appreciate this quote: “In some cultural traditions, women become crones when they reach the age of 50 and in others it’s when she enters menopause. Today, a woman becomes a crone when she dammed well feels she is.” I don’t know if I call myself wise but I’d like to believe on some things I’m getting wiser. I’d like to think I’m getting better at letting go of the stuff that doesn’t matter. I’d like to think I’m there for younger folks and I occasionally have a thread of something to offer. I hope I’m getting more patient and open to new ideas. I hope I’m becoming even kinder. But what I do know is I feel remarkably different than I did a year or two ago.

In the last few years I’ve had quite a journey. Helping Mom through the dying process, writing about that in my Spring 2024 memoir as a chapter within her long life. I too for the first time understood how anger isn’t always bad and can create a positive action in support of oneself. And even though some days I question decisions I’ve made, I too feel appreciative and grateful about where I’m at. Even though so much around us feels unstable, scary, worrisome. And certainly the new life created by my daughter and her partner have overwhelmed me with a new feeling. While not everybody is a grandma just like not everyone is a mother, I believe we all can have powerful feelings of love for this next generation however they may enter our lives. Sadness, worry, fear too. But none of it matches this profound feeling of being there with this new child powerfully loved by my own daughter. Yes, I knew almost overnight that I was ready to celebrate stepping into this next life phase.

At what felt like a last minute for an event to invite friends to, I planned it. The week before I’d spent a day and night with my bestie since age 14. We too share our birthday: each year we relate similar feelings on this special October day. I was excited in anticipation of my party. I put together my altar, focusing on women who have gone before me; those who all taught me something important. I invited women near to me from different parts of my life and of different ages. Most crucial to me was to have my now grown daughters present. My grandson the only male. I prepared my weekend to give me time to bake my favorite cake myself. I knew I wanted to make this simple, but I hoped it could feel profound, though I wasn’t certain if it would. I didn’t copy what Mom did, instead I recognized our differences: a smudge ceremony was important to her, not me.

It was only the morning of as I was slowly getting things ready when something shifted in me. I’m someone who doesn’t entertain often, but when I do I like to have more than enough time to enjoy the getting ready. I’m not a last minute kind of person unless it’s a simple spontaneous get together with friends. Those who know me well understand I like to be prepared, though I too am trying to lessen that demand on myself. I filled my kitchen with music as I baked my cake early in the morning. I listened to old CDs my daughters had made me for birthdays and mothers days. Music my mother loved. Music I love. Some of it reached deep into my soul and I began to cry. I miss Mom. And my grandmother. I’m sad and happy all mixed together. I miss my friends who died before celebrating this stage of life. But I rejoice today. I’m still here and I have so much. And yet my days ahead are shorter than the ones behind and I don’t want to feel pressure about using it wisely, me who likes to stroll regularly along my nearby river. Go for long walks from right outside my door. I feel I need to balance that with doing new things too. Hours later – poems and stories shared, food and drink and the best carrot cake in the world savored. I felt joy and peace and contemplation and appreciation for my dear friends, family, and for life itself.

And here we have it. Full stage ahead, whether those steps be slow, sauntering, limping some days. But I’m here. Grateful. Curious. Inspired.