Shrink Not , All You Violets

 




 It's pretty common for a young poet to reveal her tears, achingly, unabashedly holding up her broken heart or bubbling over with the joy of new love or life experiences - but for the older woman, it is mostly expected that she keep such thoughts and feelings to herself. And a lot of us do.

We might hide what is inside our hearts because of the risk of  ridicule. No one wants to be thought a fool, as in, "Have some pride; a 54 year old longing for a kiss in the moonlight, really?" But pride has its downside too. And I am not too proud to talk about this gentle kind of longing.

We also might not talk about matters of our seasoned hearts in fear of confronting indifference: " No one cares about a matronly heart."

Or do we keep silent because when we are older it is just not acceptable to want what the young want? I have seen it flash across a younger face or two :"Your time has come and gone." But we at this stage of life know that that kind of longing doesn't really ever go away.

At any age, a woman longs to be appreciated and valued for her femininity. And what she values about being feminine is uniquely personal. For me, it has much to do with my ability to nurture, a keen sensitivity that is guided by love and gratitude and experiencing it all from the perspective of every stage of being female. 

But, these days, it seems like this aspect of femininity isn't really appreciated all that much. I often feel like one of a thousand violets, blooming in a field, capable of adding to the world's beauty, but left behind without so much as a glance or a sniff.

Now I am not necessarily looking for sniffs, (the complexity of the sense of smell is best left for another post). But a glance might be nice; to be picked out of the crowd and admired, laugh lines and all. What a wonder it would be, not to be noticed in spite of these lines but because someone was interested to learn the kinds of things that had made me laugh for all of these years. There it is: a reveal, another glimpse into a the heart of a wrinkled girl. There is inherent vulnerability in statements like that.

So the tiny violet and I are both vulnerable. And being vulnerable isn't easy.  In fact there is something courageous about it. It is brave to bloom with the ever-present risk of being crushed, or worse yet, unnoticed.  It takes courage to talk about what is buried in the recesses of  our hearts. To release it, is  akin to whispering on the rooftops, "Our hearts still ache and soar much the same as yours!"

The fifty-something heart has a lovely patina, worn smooth by time's many moments of joy and pain, and it is my mini-mission to hold it up for appreciation.  Rest assured, all of you not yet here at this stage of life, there is no such thing as a matronly heart. No matter how it is dressed or carried or covered, it stays supple and susceptible, forever.

So thank goodness for this space to blog. Because I can't really go around tapping on shoulders, shedding some light on this, the way I can here. Nobody wants to have the contents of an older woman's heart dumped on them in a supermarket.

The trick of course is to actually be heard. Thanks, by the way, to the one, two, or dare I hope three of you, who have already stopped by to read. But I wonder, how does one really get read around here? Since I'm so new to this, the answer will either surface by perseverance and learning, or remain a mystery if I give up after few posts.

For now though, like the violet, I'll keep on reaching upward a little while longer. Maybe I will figure this blog stuff out and hear from other like-minded souls. Maybe not. But like the violet, I'll put my precious vulnerability out there. The fact that it hasn't been read, doesn't make it any less precious. Does it?