My elder / mentor years

It’s that time in my life to now give ample and fearless consideration to what it means when one’s physical capabilities are diminishing, but one still wants to be “in service”.

For inspiration I look to poet Mary Oliver.

Lines Written in the days of Growing Darkness

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?

I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?

Mary Oliver

The line most ripe with meaning is: “…the vivacity of what was is married to the vitality of what will be.”

The two words that ring out within this line: vivacity and vitality.

In other words, as I approach my 72nd year, I can inspire and impart vitality to the next generation of people following in my footsteps by remaining full of vivacity in my later years to the very end.

I can do this as mentor and elder.

And it is not just young people who, through my vivacity could become vital in their later years. It is the earth itself. Let me continue to plant — literally and figuratively — seeds of growth for future generations of trees and all forms of life forces.

And here’s another Mary Oliver poem that offers encouragement — to anyone of any age — to live a vivacious life.

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measly-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver