introduction

Yes, I still have not published anything I have written.  I have accumulated more scraps of paper with want to be poems, muses, experiences, lost in places found and unfound.  To be a writer you have to have some sort of organization, right?  Or enough money to have a personal secretary to file, edit, do laundry, grocery shop, cook a dinner under the guidelines of whatever is the diet de jour, answer the 24 hour  mother, daughter, sister, friend hotline and taxi service (which may result in total energy consumption for the day),  bring me green tea and tell me I am great.  Oh, I forgot to have her cook a warm and nourishing breakfast for my brood. She better arrive early.

This morning, I read a blog that a local online, upscale "coupon" website posted because it deemed it a worthy and an insightful read for its large upper middle class audience.The blogger's topic is how to live a successful and happy life. Sounds worth the read, huh?  Who of us does not like this sort of self help gibberish and non-gibberish?  Sitting in my robe at 5:30 am, sipping coffee and looking like most women of my age at this time of day, I am in need of an injection of anything stimulating to mind and body. Maybe this read would be it! The skinny, perfectly coiffured blonde, immaculately dressed, flawless figured and sparkly toothed woman was deemed by this website worthy to counsel in the ways of happiness and hardships. Ok?  As I read on I did indeed infuse myself with a sort of incredulous adrenaline that caused me to go so far as put my coffee cup down in fear of losing it on the floor. I read of this woman's description of hardship, her greatest hardship: a breakup that left her heart "smashed into smithereens"and that her happiness arrived by marrying the man of her dreams. This story sounds vaguely familiar:  maybe the beloved Cinderella story? On I reluctantly read.  Then, the punch to the gut: the beauty offered my robe clad greying self advice on the ups and downs of life and how to achieve happiness from her vantage point of being on the cusp of 30. 30 mind you!  As if all those years of struggling to  find her dream man (that offers her champagne in Paris.  Not a lie, it is written in the blog), dressing nicely and always wearing sunscreen to protect agains those nasty little wrinkles of the unavoidable aging process, are the tenets she and all in her circle should live by. She writes as if she, by being on the verge of a middle ager, is a respected shaman full of wisdom and insight. Her tenets  assumably  are written from a place deep (OK, not really that deep),  filled with conviction that offers a break in the tumultuous clouds of life and offers a warm beach and sun to bask in. Is this young (yes very young) woman's advice really the picture of an authentic life?  Is this about how to achieve the happy life, through the ideal man, the trips abroad, the right clothes, and please for God's sake don't forget your sunscreen! Is this the image that I want my teenage daughter to aspire to?  Get real!  I look at her body and ask myself, "has she gone through pregnancy and childbirth? Has she experienced the loss of a child, spent time in a third world country, or even under the bridges of our town?  Has she read any works by Cora Ten Boom or read Ann Frank?" Any more modern work by our women heroes like Sonia Sotomayor or Becca Stevens, just to name of few of thousands!   If in fact she has had children,  she has had the luxury to work out (probably with a trainer ), drink expensive veggie smoothies or maybe she has an app to keep her in a tip top 1200 calorie a day body.   If she does not like to exercise, she has a primo plastic surgeon.  I take great umbrage with the mention of working hard to avoid those pesky wrinkles brought on with aging and not using sunscreen.Please.  Don't offend those of us who have wrinkles. What is wrong with those wrinkles that beautify the feminine experience? Under those crevices lay sage wisdom. Each turn and indention hold stories and experiences that reside in the precious minutes of an ordinary, everyday woman's life. It is in the reflection of wrinkles  that women, young and old,  should gaze and  learn about a life lived.  I have always wondered why the song The Story by Brandi Carlile has always resonated with me, especially these lines:

"all of these lines across my face, tell you the story of who I am...

So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am."

maybe it is the truth that screams out of verse.

If for no other motivation then the myopic view of how to live a fulfilled life from the vantage point of a barbie like 30 year old privileged blogger, it is time to share what is behind the lines on my face, the stories I have to tell,  the experiences of tragedy, sorrow, pure joy and happiness I have experienced. I am real.  I am not poised as a writer. Grammar and I never got along.  But experience is what I have to share.  Some stories may seem trite, some may resonate in some corner of a cell somewhere. I have cultivated some wisdom from my past, through (no, sorry blogger, not through my use of daily sunscreen), trial and great error (mixed with a few successes).  And, yes, I have the right to own some of my tenets. I also know that I have not arrived in some fantasy self actualized mecca of wonderment.  I am a traveler on a very rutty pothole ladened road with views of vistas and wonder. I have experience on this road, however. I am a woman over  50.