On What You Must Become
I hope I grow old.
I look forward to the day I have liver spots blanketing my hands, when my hair sighs into a rich gray. The thing is, my mother did not get the opportunity to age, was denied the archetype of the crone. I don’t know if senescence inherently equals wisdom, but I hope it does. I hope that there comes a day when all the books I read fashion themselves into a diaphanous shadow in my mind and ease me into some sort of enlightenment.
It is no secret that I have been rebuilding my life since my mother died. She was such a dreamer — she wanted to travel, to develop her Institute, to write, to be a scholar of women’s studies and mythology. Her dissertation was on the triple goddess in world theologies. When she died, I had never felt more determined to live because I needed — still need — to carry on her legacy. Dean has her teleplays, and he will work with the material and hopefully soon we can find an agent for it. My mom had a vision once: She was a crone, and talked to her younger self. “Don’t you recognize me?” she asked herself. When she was in the hospital and I knew that she would not be coming home, I clung to that vision, certain beyond measure that she knew what she was talking about, that she would age and blossom into that promised sagacity.
A few weeks ago, I talked with my dear friend, Mika, whom I have always been in awe of. Mika has conducted important research in psychology, and is now pivoting to a medical career. I am so proud to be her friend because she inspires me that we must become what we have to become. To quote Jane Eyre: “It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.” I am ready to bear whatever fate will greet me at the door in the same way Mika is. Knowing her, I think, “I can do this, too.” What is our destiny as women? As people in our 30s? As pockets of hearts and minds and a will to do good in this world?
For so long I have treated The Diagnosis as an obstinate wall. I see its yellowing, curdling wallpaper. I smell the mildew coursing just beneath its papery surface. These days, I quest out with my finger, touch the wall that sags and gives with the weight of its destiny that it cannot bear, and I push through until it is a door. A portal.
Many years ago, I watched a documentary called Finding Joe, about Joseph Campbell. One of the men interviewed for the documentary spoke of his native tongue, Chinese, and he said, “The Chinese symbol for crisis is two characters: Danger. Opportunity.” I don’t know if this is a bald translation, but it gave me hope the way that learning we all go on the Hero’s Journey gave me hope that my life was not any different from the stories I read. When I learned that I was no different from a character…I suddenly had purpose.
I have a small figurine from my mom’s altar. It is of a goddess, her hands haloed above her head, swirls etched into her womb. When I was a child, I thought that the worst thing that could ever happen to me would be to lose my mother. It would outstrip being fired from a dream job or losing an eye. And then we lost her, and I still stood. Swaying from the blow, but still standing. The reconfiguration of my life is simply this: To be the woman my mother (and Kelly) raised me to be.
Today, I even allowed myself to daydream, fountain pen poised over my journal, that bosom friend of mine. I daydreamt that I was a published author. Not a bestseller, because that really is of no consequence, but someone who had written something that saved a reader’s life. I listen to the soundtrack to Arcane on loop. I blow on the steam drifting off my teacup. I yearn to go into the woods to read poetry to the trees, but I settle on a limerick for my pothos plant. Maybe someday, I will see my name in a bookstore. Maybe someday, I will defend a PhD dissertation of my own.
But more than anything, I hope that I am a wise creature someday.
It is time to rebuild life. This is what I must become, someone who does everything she can to be a good person, to be an empowered person even. For her mom. Cheers to scribbling Project Guernica into existence. Cheers to querying, even though it hurts. Cheers to my spider ring, which I wear on my wedding finger so that I know that I am bride of language and story. Cheers to the wrinkles that I hope someday trickle over my face.
I hope I grow old.
