I was driving out of our neighborhood the other day, through the series of single-lane roads that bring you up and down from our house. Cars traveling both ways share these roads so we inch up and down them with neighborly care. I came to a T in the road right before you head down the hill, and a cadillac the length of a vessel met me at the T. I gestured to the darling old woman driving the cadillac to go right ahead.
Almost imperceptibly, she creeped her car in front of my bumper, put her hand up to her mouth in slow motion, and blew me a kiss that was so prolonged and so emphatic that it looked as though her entire driver’s-side window was filled with her salmon lips.
I giggled and blew her a kiss back.
***
As so many of you know, we returned from the Middle East just about exactly three years ago. We returned with two four year olds and our new baby, Elle, who was almost one. We were exhausted, slightly strung out from the adventure, and in a very demanding season of parenting. For months and months and months, I was in a place of recovery. Some of you are there now. You are wanting to be farther along, but the truth is, you need to recover.
Slowly and not all-at-once, the recovery has happened, more or less. Energy has returned. Exhaustion has lifted. But after you have lived in a state of recovery for so long, sometimes it becomes all we know. We’ve kind of forgotten how to dream and desire and play. We’ve kind of forgotten what we love, what we want, what wakes us up.
As I wrote here, I believe we already know what we love, what we want, what wakes us up . . . often, we just need to return to it.
One of the exercises that’s helped me return to this knowing, soulful, awake, strong part of me is to begin talking with my inner 86 year old. I think we all have an old woman inside us. She’s perhaps the version of ourselves we most want to become. For me, that would be: creative, elegant, risky, a little eccentric, slightly unapologetic.
She knows things. She’s seen things. She knows when to get panicked and when to just let it roll off. She’s the fully expanded version of you. And she has things she wants to tell you. I promise. She has secrets she wants to whisper in your ear if you’ll take a little time and listen.
Write a letter from the 86 year old you to the current you. What does she want to tell you? What wisdom does she want to share? What is she encouraging you to let go of? What is she reminding you to hold on to? What is really important? What is actually trivial? What’s worth worrying about? Where should your energy go?
This is a profound practice of reconnecting with the soulful, resilient, centered version of ourselves. If you’ve lost your way, if you’re feeling untethered, if you need to get to know yourself all over again, I so encourage you to meet your old woman within. Maybe she drives a giant cadillac and blows kisses to the neighbors. Maybe she wears the most memorable salmon lipstick. Maybe she runs around town in a caftan and forty pounds of jewelry. I don’t know for sure. But I do know one thing:
She’s waiting for you . . .
Oh, and I’d love to know what she says. I’m sure she has wisdom to share with us all.
Believing in you,
Leeana
***
Brazen: The Courage to Find the You That’s Been Hiding is now available for pre-order at Amazon and B&N.
