Birthday Week Thoughts: Bicycling my way into the Fifties

Blogging: Birthday Week
Bicycling my way into the Fifties

©Mark H. Pillsbury

Leaving the past decade feels momentous. Was it a mountain-top experience; or in reality, a “mole-hill?” It depends on the perspective—the viewpoint. I’ve never carried the heft of “age” so physically, the wear and mileage shows at every doctors visit. Skin, teeth, eyes, muscles, feet… Could they all decline at once, right around this milestone birthday? I’m serious. This isn’t the obligatory midlife melodrama blog post. I won’t berate generic marketing campaigns aimed at driving me to false comparisons. You know the ones.

Still, I’m wondering whether this decade taught me more than the others. Happy where I am, better in so many phases of life, it is the surviving that gives my reflection meaning. As I’ve often written  here on the New Rostra blog about resiliency, recovery, recalibration as a result of our brokenness; this post is also a good point at which to bisect my story. My birthday month isn’t a midlife crisis; but instead, a vista from which to look both forward and past.

Last Saturday night I viewed a couplet star, grouped too far away to see with the naked eye. My lifespan’s brevity compared to the time it took for the light to reach that telescope, warped my sense of time; forcing me to admit my few decades don’t amount to more than a blip on a nanometer. And what am I to make of my accomplishments? How do I set goals this late in life, with reality setting in? It’s a mental tug-of-war between what-might-be and what-might-have-been; a battle against cynicism that thinks, “I’ve seen it all by now.” As I think about this age, I’m aware that the knowledge that makes me cherish innocence, makes innocence unattainable; nonetheless, I’m reminded by Solzhenitsyn that I must still “cherish innocence,” not losing the wonder of discovery, even by riding a bike around the neighborhood. (Psalm 51:12)

Stepping off the busy-bus for a few moments to reflect on this midpoint; I’m happier in being, more than doing, in thinking more than talking, in giving rather than taking, resting instead of rushing. I’m even comfortable with renouncing the vanished naivety and utter futility of the “Illusion of Control.” For the past 18 years, my family and my church has helped me the most to grow and expand my definitions of love, joy, peace, centeredness, humor, inter-dependence, humility, and purpose.

In this beautiful October, always one of the best months of the year; my mind focuses on this life, my loves, dreams, and the purpose for being. By sweet grace, the tempests have stalled for the briefest of moments; the Ferris-wheel of life slowly turning to the top of the circle, giving me time to breathe. Smiling at what came before, future storms at bay; I wonder over what flows out of my heart: thinking, learning, reading, working, loving, laughing, teaching, cooking, walking, bicycling… even singing!

Songs are like photographs from my childhood: listening to the AM Radio during the summer, teenage driving with the sound turned up, or the long commute between Austin and Dallas. From the Bangles to Rush, Soul Train, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, Starplex Amphitheatre, the ACL Guadalupe studio recordings attended; these are just some of the ways song burned into my psyche. I’ve gone from 8-tracks to Pandora® hearing songs like “Walking on a Thin Line,” Huey Lewis & the News, the one-shot album of Bad English, sneaking out to a Tom Petty concert, Shalomar’s “Dancing in the Sheets,” and maybe a slow dance to Lionel Ritchie’s “My Love?” Strangely, somewhere in the night (or the 1980s); I became a big fan of Frank Sinatra (thanks Mary!). As an example: “It was a very good year” lyrics are shown below (1965).

The bell’s about to ring. I have to cram 50 years of memories back into my memory locker and run to class. I appreciate you taking the time to listen to me during this break. Humbly working in life’s Second Act not to waste the wisdom gained from the first; I’m not going to risk my time and energy on some of the activities and things I did before. I want to live my life true to my conscience, my family, and the calling of God’s word (sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel); not what I think others expect of me. I’m planning on being more appreciative of the small things in life that can’t be bought. Can I rest more than work, listen more than speak, love more, worry less; will I feel dumber the smarter I get? Maybe it’s true that 50 is the new 30.

(October 2014)

“When you hit your fifties life starts comin’ up on ya fast,” Gordo Tallman said to me on the occasion of my forty-ninth birthday. “Before that time life is pretty much a straight climb. Wife looks up to you and the young kids are small enough, and the older kids smart enough, not to weigh you down. But then, just when you start puttin’ on the pounds an’ losin’ your wind, the kids are expectin’ you to fulfill your promises and the wife all of a sudden sees every single one of your flaws. Your parents, if you still got any, are gettin’ old and turnin’ back into kids themselves. For the first time you realize that the sky does have a limit. You comin’ to a rise, but when you hit the top there’s another life up ahead of you and here you are—just about spent.” (By Walter Mosley ©2010, Penguin Group Publishing, New York)

"I think of my life as vintage wine from fine old kegs;

 From the brim to the dregs, and it poured sweet and clear.

 It was a very good year.” –Frank Sinatra (1965)

"Sixty feels exactly like 50, with aching feet and more forgetfulness. (AAA had to come unlock my car this morning, as God is my witness). But your inside person doesn't age. Your inside person is soul, is heart, in the eternal now, the ageless, the old, the young; all the ages you've ever been." --Anne Lamott (2014)

Psalter's prayer: "Clean my heart God,

Cast me not away from your presence
Restore to me, the joy of my salvation."

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