A NEW DIRECTION IN THE BUCKET

WHICH WAY IS FORWARD?

Simple question but not always a simple one to answer when you are  75 years old. What is forward for me and others like me?
Certainly I am not getting better physically.  I have hired a personal trainer who comes to the house weekly, and I do feel that is helping me. It is probably what enabled me to take on  some public activity recently at the  Pawtucket Arts Festival.  But it does not mean that  I am getting better.

What can I get better at doing?

Since my time is limited how can I make the best use of it?
I don't really know the answer to this  question.  I do know that I have  finally given myself  permission  to explore my own creativity.  I devote  time as I always did to writing,  but now I dare to go public with what  I am writing. I try to silence the inner critic
that always shouted to me to wait until I  could make it better long enough to ask for an outside opinion.\

That is all good.  But still I ask what is forward  for me?
On most days I know  from the increased difficulties in doing ordinary things that  both my husband and I are headed towards greater pain and inability and difficulty that will end in death.
Hard to even write that word-- even though it is never far  from my thoughts. There is nothing special about death--it is our common fate. But what about the quality of  living  before death?
I  try to see myself as advancing spiritually and gaining more   confidence in God's love and his assurances of eternal life.

Again I come back to the story of the Widow's Mite and the knowledge that what little I have I must  use and contribute.
I still want to  improve as a poet and playwright and  find a way to
contribute to the world.

As I get older I can only grow in my admiration for Emily Dickinson who wrote so  many poems without any  recognition. 

I'm Nobody! Who are you? (260)

Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –  
To tell one's name – the livelong June –  
To an admiring Bog!