A Placid Life

Snow on Whiteface Mountain (yes, snow)

A Room with a View

Glimmerglass?

Beauty

Me at 36

Steve surprised me on my birthday with a weekend away. Our kids stayed home with their grandparents. I threw a couple of outfits and a pair of hiking shoes into the car and we headed to Lake Placid.

I had this weird moment in our hotel room. I sat down on the couch to wait for Steve. I didn't realize it, but the couch was pushed up against a mirrored wall and as I sat, I looked up and caught myself in the eye. There have been times when I have seen myself in a mirror without actually recognizing myself - times I have walked into restaurants, unaware of a mirror, and upon seeing my reflection, have thought, "Hey, she looks familiar." That is also a weird experience. But this was different. I knew I was looking at me. I mean, there was no one else sitting on the couch, so who else could it have been? So there I was, me, looking at me, this time thinking, "So, this is me at 36." I looked at myself for awhile, not the way I usually do, which is to look and wonder why my tan has already faded into eternal paleness or if allergies are causing the large black bags under my eyes or when someone will finally invent a hair care product that will give me the long, shiny, luxurious locks that will make me want to shake my head while the hair all swirls around me before falling perfectly to my shoulders even when it is 95 degrees outside and raining. No, this was a different look. I didn't look at my face or my hair or my clothes. I just looked at my eyes. I looked into my own eyes and saw a dance of decades before me - six with a birthday crown and Raggedy Ann and Andy cookies for my kindergarten class, sixteen, sneaking out from the family party and standing giddily on the front porch with the boy who would be the first love of my life, 26, blowing out birthday candles with my parents and grandparents and the man I had dated for only two months but would propose six weeks later. I looked into my own eyes and saw the girl, the teen, the young woman and me, me who at 36 is some combination of all those figures, and yet, not quite any of them. Where had they gone and what had they given me that was still mine? Are we all always all of who we once were combined with what we hope is the growing wisdom of our passing years?

A dear friend once told me that the best time of her life had been in her 30's. And I think I agree. I now have a sense of peace about myself that I don't think I had at those other ages. I know the main characters of my life and I love them. But it was fun to be 6 and 16 and 26. I think I thought those were the best years of my life and I hope at 46 I think the same.

And then the moment was over. Steve was done. It was time to head out into the frigid afternoon, take a walk, find some wine and take my mind off of such weighty matters. The passing decades, I guess, are the complex person I have become, the daughter who still needs her mom to bake her birthday cookies, the teen waiting anxiously for the unexpected surprise, the young woman willing to take a bold step of commitment and now me, all of those things and a quite a few more.