Oh gosh, this speaks exactly to how I was feeling tonight, reminiscing, and quite literately, GRIEVING, missed turns and forks in the road that you don't quite regret, but do all the same - especially places lived and not lived, that you miss, miss, miss. Thank you for helping me to know I'm not alone. Funny enough I asked your oracle deck for guidance on where to go next with this longing feeling (just before coming to this post) and I pulled the Isle of Women card. Came here to see what more might be written about using such forces for overcoming longing. Stay put and go deep? :)
It is such a strange thing to be prompted to remember our previous selves, in what ever way that happens. I have a green thread that's stretched through me since childhood. It's been bedrock.
But the permutations along the way - the stressful childhood of trying to achieve good grades, etc., the academic aspirations and future achievements, then finding purpose in informal natural history education, all accompanied by desires for wider creativity in writing and art. All interesting.
Now at 69, I hope to expand those creative ventures, finishing a book, creating art, while continuing to be grateful for the natural world that I'm privileged to experience.
The closest thing I know to seeing through the eyes of my former selves is to read my personal journals. It is amazing how many things I forget about having happened, or that I thought and felt about them. Yet interesting also that I have periodically thrown away my journals/former selves, not wanting to be that person in that reality, rather than embracing her...or maybe I integrated those selves enough that I didn't need to hold onto them, and it felt as if they were holding me back somehow? Healthy or not, the journals I have now go back to 2011, and for better or worse the rest of my selves are left to faulty, revisionist, impressionistic memory.
Luminal lives - I love the fluidity and the back and forward and the fluctuations of aging. I think as I have had a lot of trauma and health issues - including cancer - I have a very accepting attitude to death. Almost if you have been through the worst of times it gives you a detachment - in a good way - as I certainly do not want to be back in the shoes of my self across the lifespan. now is very different and I am happy to still have all the seasons in my existence. Being 56 is a new spring, it will have summer, autumn and winter - sometimes in the same day. But I love the rain on my face and wrapped up in big coats as much as buds and birds, warmth but not too much heat for this celt, crunchy leaves and brazen reds.
How synchronistic! My imagination has also been blowing up with scenarios of “what if” lives. These exercises were started by an explosion in a section of my bookcase wall. Seriously, the top three shelves of the center 3"x7" case collapsed around 11 pm one evening, now a couple of months in the past. The top shelf of DVDs fell onto the sofa lined up in perfect order lined up like dominos; the books & shelves below blew out in various directions across my living room. Fortunately I was in another room at the time.
I’m tempted to blame it on the Stomper upstairs but in truth that particular case has been with me for decades of multiple moves. The center stabilizing bar has worked loose & the whole case would sag to one side if the other cases weren’t there to hold it up. And, of course, I double stack everything.
Books are and always have been my most steadfast companions and now I’m faced with having to do more culling even though I’ve yet to recover from all the letting go of the last move five years ago. But it’s this very culling process that I believe has prompted all the reminiscing about “what if” lives.
Just last night, I pulled out my copy of my Masters Thesis written in 1985. Over the years, I’ve avoided (re) reading it because I thought it could have been more concise, more original, more insightful and probably a lot of other “mores” I’ve now forgotten. So, it’s in pristine condition. I gulped and started reading anyway and was amazed at the quality of both my writing & my thinking! What a pleasant shock!
After finishing & successfully defending the thesis, I made the life altering decision to decline an assistantship to work on a PhD. I simply didn’t see myself as an academic at that time. PhD’s were for really smart people. Besides, I felt a need to go back to work in social and mental health field services, hopefully at a higher pay grade. I’d been a clerk typist to a state assistance program; I wanted to be a caseworker. If I’d gone with the PhD I might have ended up a planner at the State level or even gone into teaching, but now at aged 87, I’m content with my history of hands on activism that flowed from this decision.
Not so sure I’d be so comfortable taking on those “what if” relationships... but looking at the Coments section is sure seems I'm not alone in this backward glance.
The cull - being a nomad I have had that happen a lot and once most of my actual physical possessions were lost as the storage was flooded and the rest nibbled by rats! It was the small amount of the physical amount I had accrued or not accrued. Lost so many books - they have always been a important part of my life. I had a recent big clear out too - past lives, past selves yet even with the books - they are withing me - no longer tangible yet very accessible. I did the PhD and then moved into activism too
ah, the timing of this newsletter. i will be sixty-five in september and was just pondering the other day how difficult it is to reach back to the woman i was in my 20's, 30's, etc. and remember how she was making her choices. there is much compassion, knowing she made the best choices with the information she had available...so no regrets...though so "what ifs."
yet, at this age there are options that are simply off the table. there is not time to read every book, take every class, visit places that call to me, serve in areas that speak to my heart. it is an interesting paradox that as my own sense of expanding curiosity grows and claiming a place in the world as an elder, there is a contraction of my physical abilities due to aging (though i am still in "good" healthy, there are shifts.) and so, yes to listening deeply to how i want to spend my energy and be part of the world community in the time i have left in this corporeal body, whether it be a month or 30 years, and saying "no" to what is clutter.
so wise and interesting reflections - we expand we evolve yet our physical selves are doing what they are designed to do - I am sure you still have much to contribute - there is the joy of youthful exuberance and for many the physical/economic opportunities - equally knowing how to be discerning is a potential gift of having been on this planet for longer. Yet I reserve the right to youthful folly.
This resonated with me: "Smart-suited and designer-handbagged as she was then (oh, the last thing she ever planned to be …)".
Your views of walking around London through the telescope made of past ghosts and layered memories, reminds me of how I once felt about NYC which was once my home, the only place I have physically felt home, but it began falling apart in 2008 after the bank bailouts and now even the road to nostalgia isn't possible.
I really didn't think I would ever get to a place in my life where I didn't pine for "my New York" (everyone has their version of their city--those who come after have only known what they have known etc. and it's true of any place, I suppose). But here I am. I don't even have a desire to visit (it hurts too much because I don't even see my own ghost there!) but to visit a few friends who themselves try to get out of the city as often as they can and can't wait to retire. And they were alive and grown adults during the "the crime is bad in NYC" era of the 80s. By the way, NY-elite's relationship with vacationing and retiring and living in Florida is a study on its own. :)
None of what I have written will resonate with anyone who isn't trying to raise young children there nor if they are shielded through extreme wealth and just visiting for the first or fourth time, having a $15.00 cocktail at a restaurant in Soho.
But I am someone who absorbs the energy of a city and all its past and present layers. Nothing escapes me.
I have often wondered how cities vanish through Time, and I wonder if it happens first in the imaginations of those who so sincerely loved a place...and once a threshold is reached, those cities are eventually up for grabs, like Alexandria...
I still have a few close friends there and they have never voted along party lines when it comes to local elections. But party-affiliations in NYC have always been a joke. The billionaire Bloomberg (served three terms!) was a lifelong Democrat until 2001, when he switched to the Republican Party before running for mayor. Every Democrat voted for him. He became independent in 2007, and I believe registered again as a Democrat in October 2018.
I only miss NYC if I ever see it in a film from the 90s.
***
Your NM picture did tug a string because we just left NM. We were in Albuquerque - Santa Fe for 8 years (well, husband and his family are FROM Santa Fe--very few people are "from Santa Fe," all elite transplants from wealthy coasts and international developers, just like in NYC, are who are there now and have been for past two decades). My husband grew up in a very creative and unique "dirt village" before it became an artist colony for the wealthy etc.
We left last year because the crime and substance abuse in Albuquerque reached too close to home in every single way. That level of exposure to violence eventually starts impacting your psyche. And I needed to be near my aging parents and other family (domestic air travel since 2020 is a joke now--flights get cancelled and changed for those who can afford chartered planes all the time). It was a difficult move. Too soon to write about any of it. Our home was a one-of-a-kind craftsman home. The crime in every major city in US is out of control since 2020. I am sure you have read about the open-fentanyl markets in the Bay area in California (like a farmer's market, but for fentanyl).
It's a lot to process what's happened. I can't believe people have the energy for takes and arguments. If you actually step back to process what's happened, there can be no words right now.
Taos is still beautiful and more remote than Santa Fe, but also out of reach for many of the locals, unless they have family homes. We were there in November of 2023 last.
For now we are in the Central Valley in California. The overlooked California. The fly-over counties of California. The agriculture and economic backbone of California. People are kind and nice, crime is relatively under control (compared to other parts of California and doesn't even come close to what's happening in NM!), just people working hard to support their families and trying to get along despite differences.
The privilege to have been able to move at all (that too to CA when most are leaving it) to be near my parents is not lost on me despite my sadness about what's happened and is happening and is likely inevitable for any empire that neglects its working class citizens for this long. My parents immigrated from a place where people lost faith in the elections. It's very dangerous when people lose faith in voting, no matter which side you are on.
There are 50 states which consist of 3,143 counties. That's massive. In the borrowed words of Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, it's a republic, "if you can keep it." (Not to be confused by the same title of a book by Neil Gorsuch’s, A Republic, If You Can Keep It.)
Maybe you will end up visiting anyway. :) or maybe after some years when you want and can.
I lived in NYC from 1989-1997. I loved it so much, but I was definitely ready to leave when I did because every aspect of it had become overwhelming. I haven't visited since 2017 and don't intend to due to a severe balance and vertigo problem I have, but the photos I see of it are unrecognizable, at least in spirit. But, how much I would love to revisit my 90s self confidently walking those streets, as I can no longer walk now due to my issues, and feel the thrill of knowing it all so well. As Sharon said, I just want to be dropped into her for a few minutes and feel what she felt, think what she thought, move as she moved. How much of her would I recognize? I have no idea.
Good Morning Sharon, because my husband and I want to return to Europe next year....for many reasons, I started to consolidate all my 12 photo albums. Sifting through so many years through places and people was daunting but also fascinating. I too thought of how many different lives and places I could have chosen. Then I felt so blessed with my imagination. It has given me such a perspective about this journey and I can act and write. An image came to me -that I will have stairs to walk down into my grave and that will be a whole new journey into a whole new fairytale.
You are CANCER astrologically - I thought you were a fella WATER SIGN! 💧
I look forward to WISE WOMAN in OCTOBER. Love the picture of New Mexico. I was just there last year.
HA! Yes, I am into astrology because I am a triple Pisces. Sun, moon, & Venus. 4 planets in Aquarius and thank goodness Capricorn Rising! You may contradict but with just enough fire and articulation.
I wasn't going to comment upon this, but I really feel I must: would you really refuse to travel to the United States contingent upon who is elected President? You would write off an entire nation of over 300 million based on politics? Do you truly understand the forces that compel so many millions to vote for Trump - truly understand them and have empathy?
It was an oddly discordant note in your post. It truly doesn't matter to me but as you write about spirituality I would think think that such a knee-jerk response is odd.
Hello Amy. I'm sorry of this offended you; it wasn't my intention. My intention was just to write about my own perspective, which might well not match yours. I've always thought that okay. It is certainly not a 'knee jerk response'. I wonder if you have ever travelled to the US as a foreign citizen? The experience of going through US immigration as a foreigner can (not always, but often) be dystopian at the best of times; many of my friends had really bad experiences when Trump was last in. Besides, politics is life. It can change everything and we'd be fools to ignore it. Mt perspective is that life under Trump would be less safe. You don't have to agree with me but, since we have never met, you might think of giving me the benefit of the doubt.
Well, as an American, who splits time between the U.S. and Canada, I will definitely be absent from the U.S. if Trump is somehow, by some awful chance, re-elected.
We'll be in Europe for the spring and fall, for sure. My husband is has dual-citizenship in Austria, but we'd be fine with the 3 month time that we can have in European countries, regardless.
I have experienced immigration lines with a blue passport and without and Europe before and after EU… It’s all such a demeaning experience over these made-up geographic lines. It always makes me feel even more like an alien on this planet.
Only between US and Ireland (if U.S. passport) is it somewhat less jarring due to their reciprocity one can clear U.S. immigration on the Ireland side…
I live in the US and will no longer travel to Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and the list is growing. Idaho also. If Trump is re-elected, I'm researching moving overseas. This is a very real thing.
Empathy for Trump voters? I'm friends with many, family members too. I'm not sure why I need empathy for them? They have their reasons for voting as they do; I have mine; we don't agree. I don't want to live or visit a place where Trump and/or his supporters/believers are writing our laws (legislatures) or enforcing our laws (judiciary). I don't want my money to support those governments (state or federal) and their policies (and their values) that not only I don't believe in, but that I believe are actively harmful. I completely agree with Sharon's decision, and you might be surprised how many feel that way also.
I think there are two outcomes in life when one is facing a serious illnesses, either give up and be overwhelmed, or surrender to how much beauty there is in this unpredictable world. Being in a state of wonder and nurturing oneself with true passion for life can be a life saver. I lost a beloved sister to cancer and it was devastating to see her loss of joy and curiosity that could have nurtured back to health. There is so much to do, see, feel but most of all be, and I think one should not be discouraged or distracted by political events, not because political leaders or the devastation of war are irrelevant but because being steady in our pursuit of inner peace through our passions, can make a huge difference in this troubled world of manipulative, disempowered and immature individuals too angry to just live.
So glad you’re doing good and being able to make such a difference for those who aspire to be alive in this blessed life.
Thank you, Rita. Just to say that I'm not discouraged, but inevitably we all make choices as a consequence of political events. Happily, my choices feel as if they only take me closer to my 'necessity', to use an old Greek term associated with fate and calling. There's plenty to be done at home!
Thank you Sharon for your previous book recommendation of AG Slatters trilogy. I have powered through them and they’re marvellous! Also it was lovely to see her powers grow and develop as time passed. I especially enjoyed her absolute lack of hesitation to have women murder when required!
I just turned 75. Resonating with your words regarding past lives/seasons, future lives, and those lives we optioned not to take at the time. Beautiful!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings about different options, taken or not taken. I imagine that it must be a natural process of aging, and with less time left perhaps, that one begins to reflect upon other versions of our possible selves and to do the necessary grieving for those losses. I certainly can relate to you on this process and i appreciate your candour and ability to express it.
Thank you for this thought-provoking and moving piece Sharon. I felt a lump in my throat as I read it. I've always looked back with regret at paths not taken out of a fear I inherited about not making mistakes, because the world wasn't safe. I know now, no mistakes, trial and error, means no progress. Overall it's still a 'good' life, but not the one imagined. Leaving home before getting married, traveling like a gypsy, pursuing writing and art, exploring, satisfying my curiosity instead of playing it 'safe'. As I get older, the regrets sting a little more, so I'm trying acceptance as a soothing balm to roads not taken. I hope it works. 😌 Thanks again for this beautiful piece.
I feel 63 is a doorway. Like a portal where we stand on a threshold between our past and our very sure future. Thoughts of mortality (without being morbid), just that space in between and feeling very human! I too turn 63 this year and also had Lymphoma. Strange times, strange longings as you say. I like to think that I, in all the other dimensions, lived my lives whatever way my soul desired!
The idea of a portal is wonderful - I think in some ways every day is an opportunity to experience the new - as we and the world is always in flux. Of course we need to have some coherent order - at least in our own lives - yet we can still live in enchantment too.
Oh gosh, this speaks exactly to how I was feeling tonight, reminiscing, and quite literately, GRIEVING, missed turns and forks in the road that you don't quite regret, but do all the same - especially places lived and not lived, that you miss, miss, miss. Thank you for helping me to know I'm not alone. Funny enough I asked your oracle deck for guidance on where to go next with this longing feeling (just before coming to this post) and I pulled the Isle of Women card. Came here to see what more might be written about using such forces for overcoming longing. Stay put and go deep? :)
It is such a strange thing to be prompted to remember our previous selves, in what ever way that happens. I have a green thread that's stretched through me since childhood. It's been bedrock.
But the permutations along the way - the stressful childhood of trying to achieve good grades, etc., the academic aspirations and future achievements, then finding purpose in informal natural history education, all accompanied by desires for wider creativity in writing and art. All interesting.
Now at 69, I hope to expand those creative ventures, finishing a book, creating art, while continuing to be grateful for the natural world that I'm privileged to experience.
The closest thing I know to seeing through the eyes of my former selves is to read my personal journals. It is amazing how many things I forget about having happened, or that I thought and felt about them. Yet interesting also that I have periodically thrown away my journals/former selves, not wanting to be that person in that reality, rather than embracing her...or maybe I integrated those selves enough that I didn't need to hold onto them, and it felt as if they were holding me back somehow? Healthy or not, the journals I have now go back to 2011, and for better or worse the rest of my selves are left to faulty, revisionist, impressionistic memory.
Luminal lives - I love the fluidity and the back and forward and the fluctuations of aging. I think as I have had a lot of trauma and health issues - including cancer - I have a very accepting attitude to death. Almost if you have been through the worst of times it gives you a detachment - in a good way - as I certainly do not want to be back in the shoes of my self across the lifespan. now is very different and I am happy to still have all the seasons in my existence. Being 56 is a new spring, it will have summer, autumn and winter - sometimes in the same day. But I love the rain on my face and wrapped up in big coats as much as buds and birds, warmth but not too much heat for this celt, crunchy leaves and brazen reds.
To resurrect a bookcase that’s beyond repair
How synchronistic! My imagination has also been blowing up with scenarios of “what if” lives. These exercises were started by an explosion in a section of my bookcase wall. Seriously, the top three shelves of the center 3"x7" case collapsed around 11 pm one evening, now a couple of months in the past. The top shelf of DVDs fell onto the sofa lined up in perfect order lined up like dominos; the books & shelves below blew out in various directions across my living room. Fortunately I was in another room at the time.
I’m tempted to blame it on the Stomper upstairs but in truth that particular case has been with me for decades of multiple moves. The center stabilizing bar has worked loose & the whole case would sag to one side if the other cases weren’t there to hold it up. And, of course, I double stack everything.
Books are and always have been my most steadfast companions and now I’m faced with having to do more culling even though I’ve yet to recover from all the letting go of the last move five years ago. But it’s this very culling process that I believe has prompted all the reminiscing about “what if” lives.
Just last night, I pulled out my copy of my Masters Thesis written in 1985. Over the years, I’ve avoided (re) reading it because I thought it could have been more concise, more original, more insightful and probably a lot of other “mores” I’ve now forgotten. So, it’s in pristine condition. I gulped and started reading anyway and was amazed at the quality of both my writing & my thinking! What a pleasant shock!
After finishing & successfully defending the thesis, I made the life altering decision to decline an assistantship to work on a PhD. I simply didn’t see myself as an academic at that time. PhD’s were for really smart people. Besides, I felt a need to go back to work in social and mental health field services, hopefully at a higher pay grade. I’d been a clerk typist to a state assistance program; I wanted to be a caseworker. If I’d gone with the PhD I might have ended up a planner at the State level or even gone into teaching, but now at aged 87, I’m content with my history of hands on activism that flowed from this decision.
Not so sure I’d be so comfortable taking on those “what if” relationships... but looking at the Coments section is sure seems I'm not alone in this backward glance.
The cull - being a nomad I have had that happen a lot and once most of my actual physical possessions were lost as the storage was flooded and the rest nibbled by rats! It was the small amount of the physical amount I had accrued or not accrued. Lost so many books - they have always been a important part of my life. I had a recent big clear out too - past lives, past selves yet even with the books - they are withing me - no longer tangible yet very accessible. I did the PhD and then moved into activism too
I am a relatively new paid subscriber. How do I join the Fairy Tale salon on June 29th and at what time?
It's all on the 'Calendar' page of my Substack. Hope to see you there!
it will be advertised - I went to my first in May - it was pm in the UK. SO many interesting ideas and thoughts from the group
ah, the timing of this newsletter. i will be sixty-five in september and was just pondering the other day how difficult it is to reach back to the woman i was in my 20's, 30's, etc. and remember how she was making her choices. there is much compassion, knowing she made the best choices with the information she had available...so no regrets...though so "what ifs."
yet, at this age there are options that are simply off the table. there is not time to read every book, take every class, visit places that call to me, serve in areas that speak to my heart. it is an interesting paradox that as my own sense of expanding curiosity grows and claiming a place in the world as an elder, there is a contraction of my physical abilities due to aging (though i am still in "good" healthy, there are shifts.) and so, yes to listening deeply to how i want to spend my energy and be part of the world community in the time i have left in this corporeal body, whether it be a month or 30 years, and saying "no" to what is clutter.
as always Sharon, thank you.
so wise and interesting reflections - we expand we evolve yet our physical selves are doing what they are designed to do - I am sure you still have much to contribute - there is the joy of youthful exuberance and for many the physical/economic opportunities - equally knowing how to be discerning is a potential gift of having been on this planet for longer. Yet I reserve the right to youthful folly.
There should always be space in our lives for a drop of folly.
there is probably a tale with a folly theme!
Yes, a big difference between 'regrets' and 'what ifs', thank you.
This resonated with me: "Smart-suited and designer-handbagged as she was then (oh, the last thing she ever planned to be …)".
Your views of walking around London through the telescope made of past ghosts and layered memories, reminds me of how I once felt about NYC which was once my home, the only place I have physically felt home, but it began falling apart in 2008 after the bank bailouts and now even the road to nostalgia isn't possible.
I really didn't think I would ever get to a place in my life where I didn't pine for "my New York" (everyone has their version of their city--those who come after have only known what they have known etc. and it's true of any place, I suppose). But here I am. I don't even have a desire to visit (it hurts too much because I don't even see my own ghost there!) but to visit a few friends who themselves try to get out of the city as often as they can and can't wait to retire. And they were alive and grown adults during the "the crime is bad in NYC" era of the 80s. By the way, NY-elite's relationship with vacationing and retiring and living in Florida is a study on its own. :)
None of what I have written will resonate with anyone who isn't trying to raise young children there nor if they are shielded through extreme wealth and just visiting for the first or fourth time, having a $15.00 cocktail at a restaurant in Soho.
But I am someone who absorbs the energy of a city and all its past and present layers. Nothing escapes me.
I have often wondered how cities vanish through Time, and I wonder if it happens first in the imaginations of those who so sincerely loved a place...and once a threshold is reached, those cities are eventually up for grabs, like Alexandria...
I still have a few close friends there and they have never voted along party lines when it comes to local elections. But party-affiliations in NYC have always been a joke. The billionaire Bloomberg (served three terms!) was a lifelong Democrat until 2001, when he switched to the Republican Party before running for mayor. Every Democrat voted for him. He became independent in 2007, and I believe registered again as a Democrat in October 2018.
I only miss NYC if I ever see it in a film from the 90s.
***
Your NM picture did tug a string because we just left NM. We were in Albuquerque - Santa Fe for 8 years (well, husband and his family are FROM Santa Fe--very few people are "from Santa Fe," all elite transplants from wealthy coasts and international developers, just like in NYC, are who are there now and have been for past two decades). My husband grew up in a very creative and unique "dirt village" before it became an artist colony for the wealthy etc.
We left last year because the crime and substance abuse in Albuquerque reached too close to home in every single way. That level of exposure to violence eventually starts impacting your psyche. And I needed to be near my aging parents and other family (domestic air travel since 2020 is a joke now--flights get cancelled and changed for those who can afford chartered planes all the time). It was a difficult move. Too soon to write about any of it. Our home was a one-of-a-kind craftsman home. The crime in every major city in US is out of control since 2020. I am sure you have read about the open-fentanyl markets in the Bay area in California (like a farmer's market, but for fentanyl).
It's a lot to process what's happened. I can't believe people have the energy for takes and arguments. If you actually step back to process what's happened, there can be no words right now.
Taos is still beautiful and more remote than Santa Fe, but also out of reach for many of the locals, unless they have family homes. We were there in November of 2023 last.
For now we are in the Central Valley in California. The overlooked California. The fly-over counties of California. The agriculture and economic backbone of California. People are kind and nice, crime is relatively under control (compared to other parts of California and doesn't even come close to what's happening in NM!), just people working hard to support their families and trying to get along despite differences.
The privilege to have been able to move at all (that too to CA when most are leaving it) to be near my parents is not lost on me despite my sadness about what's happened and is happening and is likely inevitable for any empire that neglects its working class citizens for this long. My parents immigrated from a place where people lost faith in the elections. It's very dangerous when people lose faith in voting, no matter which side you are on.
There are 50 states which consist of 3,143 counties. That's massive. In the borrowed words of Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, it's a republic, "if you can keep it." (Not to be confused by the same title of a book by Neil Gorsuch’s, A Republic, If You Can Keep It.)
Maybe you will end up visiting anyway. :) or maybe after some years when you want and can.
I lived in NYC from 1989-1997. I loved it so much, but I was definitely ready to leave when I did because every aspect of it had become overwhelming. I haven't visited since 2017 and don't intend to due to a severe balance and vertigo problem I have, but the photos I see of it are unrecognizable, at least in spirit. But, how much I would love to revisit my 90s self confidently walking those streets, as I can no longer walk now due to my issues, and feel the thrill of knowing it all so well. As Sharon said, I just want to be dropped into her for a few minutes and feel what she felt, think what she thought, move as she moved. How much of her would I recognize? I have no idea.
Good Morning Sharon, because my husband and I want to return to Europe next year....for many reasons, I started to consolidate all my 12 photo albums. Sifting through so many years through places and people was daunting but also fascinating. I too thought of how many different lives and places I could have chosen. Then I felt so blessed with my imagination. It has given me such a perspective about this journey and I can act and write. An image came to me -that I will have stairs to walk down into my grave and that will be a whole new journey into a whole new fairytale.
You are CANCER astrologically - I thought you were a fella WATER SIGN! 💧
I look forward to WISE WOMAN in OCTOBER. Love the picture of New Mexico. I was just there last year.
Laura
Thank you, Laura. If you're into astrology, I'm Cancer with Sagittarius rising and Moon in Aquarius, which explains all my contradictions perfectly.
HA! Yes, I am into astrology because I am a triple Pisces. Sun, moon, & Venus. 4 planets in Aquarius and thank goodness Capricorn Rising! You may contradict but with just enough fire and articulation.
I wasn't going to comment upon this, but I really feel I must: would you really refuse to travel to the United States contingent upon who is elected President? You would write off an entire nation of over 300 million based on politics? Do you truly understand the forces that compel so many millions to vote for Trump - truly understand them and have empathy?
It was an oddly discordant note in your post. It truly doesn't matter to me but as you write about spirituality I would think think that such a knee-jerk response is odd.
Unfortunately POLITICS has seeped into every part of life. It rings KING!
Hello Amy. I'm sorry of this offended you; it wasn't my intention. My intention was just to write about my own perspective, which might well not match yours. I've always thought that okay. It is certainly not a 'knee jerk response'. I wonder if you have ever travelled to the US as a foreign citizen? The experience of going through US immigration as a foreigner can (not always, but often) be dystopian at the best of times; many of my friends had really bad experiences when Trump was last in. Besides, politics is life. It can change everything and we'd be fools to ignore it. Mt perspective is that life under Trump would be less safe. You don't have to agree with me but, since we have never met, you might think of giving me the benefit of the doubt.
Well, as an American, who splits time between the U.S. and Canada, I will definitely be absent from the U.S. if Trump is somehow, by some awful chance, re-elected.
We'll be in Europe for the spring and fall, for sure. My husband is has dual-citizenship in Austria, but we'd be fine with the 3 month time that we can have in European countries, regardless.
I have experienced immigration lines with a blue passport and without and Europe before and after EU… It’s all such a demeaning experience over these made-up geographic lines. It always makes me feel even more like an alien on this planet.
Only between US and Ireland (if U.S. passport) is it somewhat less jarring due to their reciprocity one can clear U.S. immigration on the Ireland side…
I live in the US and will no longer travel to Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and the list is growing. Idaho also. If Trump is re-elected, I'm researching moving overseas. This is a very real thing.
Empathy for Trump voters? I'm friends with many, family members too. I'm not sure why I need empathy for them? They have their reasons for voting as they do; I have mine; we don't agree. I don't want to live or visit a place where Trump and/or his supporters/believers are writing our laws (legislatures) or enforcing our laws (judiciary). I don't want my money to support those governments (state or federal) and their policies (and their values) that not only I don't believe in, but that I believe are actively harmful. I completely agree with Sharon's decision, and you might be surprised how many feel that way also.
Hi Sharon. I so enjoyed this. Thanks!
I think there are two outcomes in life when one is facing a serious illnesses, either give up and be overwhelmed, or surrender to how much beauty there is in this unpredictable world. Being in a state of wonder and nurturing oneself with true passion for life can be a life saver. I lost a beloved sister to cancer and it was devastating to see her loss of joy and curiosity that could have nurtured back to health. There is so much to do, see, feel but most of all be, and I think one should not be discouraged or distracted by political events, not because political leaders or the devastation of war are irrelevant but because being steady in our pursuit of inner peace through our passions, can make a huge difference in this troubled world of manipulative, disempowered and immature individuals too angry to just live.
So glad you’re doing good and being able to make such a difference for those who aspire to be alive in this blessed life.
Thank you, Rita. Just to say that I'm not discouraged, but inevitably we all make choices as a consequence of political events. Happily, my choices feel as if they only take me closer to my 'necessity', to use an old Greek term associated with fate and calling. There's plenty to be done at home!
Thank you Sharon for your previous book recommendation of AG Slatters trilogy. I have powered through them and they’re marvellous! Also it was lovely to see her powers grow and develop as time passed. I especially enjoyed her absolute lack of hesitation to have women murder when required!
Glad you enjoyed them! And most days right now I can enjoy the idea of murdering women too ...
I just turned 75. Resonating with your words regarding past lives/seasons, future lives, and those lives we optioned not to take at the time. Beautiful!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings about different options, taken or not taken. I imagine that it must be a natural process of aging, and with less time left perhaps, that one begins to reflect upon other versions of our possible selves and to do the necessary grieving for those losses. I certainly can relate to you on this process and i appreciate your candour and ability to express it.
Thank you for this thought-provoking and moving piece Sharon. I felt a lump in my throat as I read it. I've always looked back with regret at paths not taken out of a fear I inherited about not making mistakes, because the world wasn't safe. I know now, no mistakes, trial and error, means no progress. Overall it's still a 'good' life, but not the one imagined. Leaving home before getting married, traveling like a gypsy, pursuing writing and art, exploring, satisfying my curiosity instead of playing it 'safe'. As I get older, the regrets sting a little more, so I'm trying acceptance as a soothing balm to roads not taken. I hope it works. 😌 Thanks again for this beautiful piece.
I feel 63 is a doorway. Like a portal where we stand on a threshold between our past and our very sure future. Thoughts of mortality (without being morbid), just that space in between and feeling very human! I too turn 63 this year and also had Lymphoma. Strange times, strange longings as you say. I like to think that I, in all the other dimensions, lived my lives whatever way my soul desired!
Rock on Sharon 🤘!!
The idea of a portal is wonderful - I think in some ways every day is an opportunity to experience the new - as we and the world is always in flux. Of course we need to have some coherent order - at least in our own lives - yet we can still live in enchantment too.
Thank you!