'I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining'
The wisdom in a famous old song by B.J. Thomas
I have a philodendron in the kitchen with a six-foot-long tap root snaking from its pot down the wall. Its tip is currently suspended about three inches from the linoleum floor. It fascinates me, of course. It’s objectively fascinating. What will happen when it hits the floor? I suppose it will just continue its progress, searching for soil. It reminds me of my visit to Ankor Wat in the late 90s, where I stumbled upon temple after temple being overtaken by the jungle, with strangler fig, kapok, and banyan trees straddling walls and sending rivers of roots down the sides.
I have no idea what this has to do with the essay I’m about to begin, but begin there I will. Maybe the reason will become clear.
I walked Daisy this morning, my ancient golden retriever. It’s sunny out, and sparkling after a cleansing deluge that turned gutters into exciting, four-foot-wide rivers of gushing rapids that I delightedly and somewhat fearfully leapt on my way home the day before yesterday. Our first “atmospheric river” of the season. I’m not sure when we began calling storms “atmospheric rivers,” but so be it.
Yes, it’s sparking and clean, and even warm. I walked in a short-sleeved, grey tee-shirt (cap-sleeved, cute), no sweater needed. I strode happily, singing Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head, a song by B. J. Thomas I heard regularly on my parents’ radio at home growing up and that never failed to cheer me.
I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining
Because I'm free
Nothing's worrying me
It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me
I’m in a good mood, and grateful for it. My son is visiting. I’m seeing a good friend today for a matinee, my garden is gleaming and teeming with birdsong, and I’m tasked with figuring out what the hell to do with my one and perfect life.
Because, you see, I have an opportunity, and a decision to make, and suddenly I feel like I have so many options. Because, I do. I’m also chiding myself, however, because I have trouble sticking to things. I started the horticulture program at Merritt College, and I love it, but I haven’t even signed up for the spring classes yet, and they’re filling fast, especially with the most popular teachers.
Why haven’t I?
Because I don’t know where the hell I’ll be. I say so easily (and so constantly) that I’m leaving to do this, or that. And I have done some cool things, and I have proven that I can leave the country on a dime and try something completely different. But, it’s still frightening, and I’m older now, and (probably?) more “set in my ways,” as they say, or as set in my ways as I ever get.
I also worry I take things, everything, in fact, for granted. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most beautiful places to live in the world, and yet, I still haven’t been to Treasure Island to check out the exciting developments there, even though a friend excitedly told me all about the incredibly cute cafe there called MerSea, with the most incredible view of the San Francisco skyline and the ocean, and the bay, and our iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
I have thousands of hikes around me that I’ve never taken. There are thousands of places in California that I’ve never visited. Our California natives teacher, Stew, is forever shaking his head and clucking, You guys gotta get out! See California!
Instead, I’m in the position of having to decide how to respond to the Peace Corps, who offered me a posting in… wait for it… Tonga! Good Lord. I checked the box that said, Send me anywhere, but now I wish I’d chosen a Spanish-speaking country at least, so I could work on my Spanish. I’ll have to learn (some) Tongan! Or, framed another way, I get to learn some Tongan.
Because of course even though Tonga is not a place I’ve ever wanted to visit, that’s only because I’m utterly ignorant of the country. I know nothing about it, except that it seemed “remote.” And remote it is. I’ve done some poking around and now know that it’s a conglomeration of more than 150 islands, about 50 of which are occupied by human denizens, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, about three hours’ flight from New Zealand, somewhere not too far from Samoa. Whoa!
I’ve read it’s beautiful, safe (there’s almost no crime), and traditional. It’s never been colonized, it’s a monarchy, and it’s deeply Christian and hierarchical.
After a year of fruitless and depressing job hunts, I blithely applied to the Peace Corps. I mean, not entirely blithely. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it before. In fact, I wanted to apply to the Peace Corps as a young woman, but got swept up in earning money and supporting myself. When I lived in Budapest in the early 90s, a very cool American retiree worked with us at the Open Society Institute. She was with the Peace Corps. She was about the age I am now: 56 or so. She had curly, shoulder-length hair, kind eyes, and an easy laugh. She was fun and smart, and I admired her. And I thought, when I retire, I’m joining the Peace Corps.
Maybe “retirement” has been thrust upon me a few years early, but how is that not a good thing?
I can’t decide if I should bemoan my fate (of being apparently unemployable) or relish it.
There are so many directions I can go.
A secret, but growing-braver, part of me feels weirdly proud of the fact that I can’t get a job in tech marketing. I never liked it anyway. And that makes me laugh.
But, if I’m to be sensible, I’ll build on the bit of freelance work I’ve gotten and make some forays in other directions. Be smart, be careful. Keep the money coming in.
And yet. Something wilder is beckoning. There’s no doubt about it.
Also, I’ve been utterly inspired by my friend’s relative whose husband applied to the Foreign Service in his mid-50s and got in. Weeks ago, I made an entry in my calendar to sign up for the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) on December 16th, when it opens. The test is in February, and age-wise I’m just under the cut-off.
If I accept the Peace Corps post, I lose the foreign service opportunity.
In all honesty, in my twenties my dream was to be in the foreign service, but I assumed I couldn’t get in. Maybe because I wasn’t fluent in multiple languages. I had it in my mind that would a foundational requisite. I never bothered to check.
I’m veering all over the place here. What I’m trying to say is, I feel excited and positive on this sparkling day. I’m in my mid-fifties and opportunities are presenting themselves to me.
I can join the Peace Corps, which will be like going to outer space on a 27-month mission. I know it will be hard, and great, and life-changing. I know I’ll be able to contribute, teaching English to Tongan children, making new foods with Tongan women, exploring Polynesia with new friends. It will no doubt be all the things: exciting, boring, frustrating, tiring, rewarding, surprising, heart-opening, intense, bizarre, and shocking.
If I choose to take and by some miracle pass the FSOT, I’d be posted at a US embassy in the “developing” world with other seekers and adventurers who have an insatiable curiosity about the world beyond our borders. I love those folks and always have, and I do believe I’d be good in a diplomatic post. Just the reading list for the FSOT excited me tremendously.
The idea of Donald Trump being my boss gives me pause, but my son laughed and said, he’d be like 70 levels above you. I said, more like 700! He thought, and said, no, 70. There aren’t that many levels.
I’m also in a great mood because I had a private tango lesson last night with the young traditionalist couple from Buenos Aires who taught me some of the ineffable and foundational aspects of dance about body alignment and what is groundedness in dance, and expression, and taking one’s space in the world, and making the dance your own, and being independent.
Once again, teachers dance with me, assess my dance, and begin talking to me as though they’re my therapists, not my dance instructors. They’re essentially talking about confidence, agency, power, self-love, self-respect. It always comes down to that for me. Improving these aspects of my dance will improve these aspects of my life and personality. It’s why tango has such a hold on me. It’s always a therapy session.
And on the walk with Daisy this morning, I practiced bending my knee and extending into the step, owning the space, toning my entire body, being PRESENT.
Presence, they said. What you’re after is Presence. You need to be present in your dance. Really on the spot.
Indeed.
And present in my life. On the spot. Owning myself and my decisions. And that means no comparing. No complaining. My life, with all its wins and losses, my personality, with all its charms and flaws, are my creations. They are the result of decades of my choices. They are mine, and I have only to be proud of them. Good or bad is irrelevent. Every life contains both good and bad elements. But beating myself up for my “mistakes” is ludicrous. I simply wouldn’t be who I am today if I had not made those very mistakes.
On the walk to the biscuit jar in the radiant, post-rain sun, Daisy and I passed the St. Mary Catholic Cemetery. The shining white arches at the end of the street seemed to beckon me, but I ignored the call. I did hold however in my mind’s eye my recent visit to that very cemetery, especially the children’s corner I stumbled on that I’d missed on prior visits.
You see, the northwest corner of the Catholic Cemetery on Howe Street is a baby and children’s corner. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in any other cemetery, and I was deeply moved and slightly baffled and definitely chagrined to walk slowly among these deeply sad headstones for babies, in once case, twin girls who both died at birth. Many, many babies. Days old, weeks old, a year or two old. Then, all the children. Six years old. Seven. Nine. Then, the teens and youths. There was no one over 17 there. So many children. Row after row of dead children, with so much love and anguish pouring from the headstones.
They didn’t get to live their lives.
I do. I do, and have gotten to live my life. In that cemetery, I’m already old. The elder were by and large… my age now. I’ve already gotten to live my life.
I just read about a woman, a great writer, a bright light, who just died. She was a Substack writer, and I wish I’d found her last year, when she was still with us. She wrote a post last year called “Scared and Brave,” and her Substack is “The Dance.” She was only 36, with three young daughters, children. Very young children. She died, of metastatic breast cancer. She was gone so fast.
It’s shocking.
When will I learn that it’s all good? Our lives are precious gifts, given to us. We are here for the briefest of times. My son likes to say, in geologic time, we’re already dead. It’s true. Our lives are a flash in the pan, and none of us knows exactly how to do it.
My life is good, and I have only to be grateful for it. Enough belly-aching. I know hard days will come again where I doubt myself painfully. It’s on me to re-frame and remember all of my gifts. The gift of being born in California, this beautiful, prosperous place. The gift of being born an American, with utter privilege. The gift, so far, of health. The gift of friends, family, my children, my pets who flank me now, on either side, as always when I’m writing. The gift of the incessant, humorous blue jay hopping at this moment on my garage roof. The gift of rain, and sun. The great gift that is tango, and the gift of me. Me, myself, and I.