“If a snail’s shell gets injured, a repair can be made quickly. New shell material is secreted by the mantle, and where there was once a crack, a scar appears, looking much like a skin scar. Even a missing shell section can be replaced. Oliver Goldsmith described this in 1774: Sometimes these animals are crushed seemingly to pieces, and, to all appearance, utterly destroyed; yet still they set themselves to work, and, in a few days, mend all their numerous breaches . . . to the re-establishment of the ruined habitation. But all the junctures are very easily seen, for they have a fresher colour than the rest; and the whole shell, in some measure, resembles an old coat patched with new pieces.”
Elisabeth Tova Bailey, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating
Elizabeth Tova Bailey’s book, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, is exquisite, deeply touching, and moved me to tears. In her convalescence from a serious mystery illness it would come to pass that she would have as a companion on her difficult journey a snail who lived on her nightstand, and from whom she learned many things. In my lifetime I have related more to the snail than any other earthly being, now more than ever, and at 67 I myself feel like an old coat continually patched with new pieces, continually mending the broken places, and while being seemingly whole again the scars are visible to the naked eye and show up in myriad ways.
Yesterday I wrote the post O Snail Climb Mount Fuji, or, Just Don’t Stop, and It’s Safe To Be Still… with no intention of writing a follow-up post, in fact I had other work planned for today which I still hope to get to later, but something happened, and it all came out of the things I wrote about in yesterday’s post. I wrote that 3 things had come to me through the week that had helped me accept slowing down, they were…
- It’s safe to be still.
- And then the haiku by Issa,
“O snail
Climb Mount Fuji
But slowly, slowly!” - And finally a quote from Confucius,
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
The thing is, I had no idea, when I wrote the post, just how very deeply I had taken in those 3 things, and how they would move me to course correct — patch up a place that was broken, that wasn’t working, that was keeping me from comfortably living my life and doing the work I should be doing — until I sat outside on the deck, a lovely breeze blowing, the windchimes making their lovely melodies, birdsong in the air, and recorded a 20 minute podcast which I had planned to upload after recording it. I had advertised these new podcasts everywhere, had a widget on this site, and more. I was excited about doing them, but then I heard, from somewhere deep inside of me, a deafening crack. Something had broken again, and I needed to mend it.
When Issa, in his haiku, advised the snail to climb Mount Fuji, an arduous task at best, he told him to go slowly, ever so slowly. My bipolar nature does not always allow me to go slowly, and sometimes I leap ahead (The Flying Squirrel of a few posts back.) for which I will pay a sometimes heavy price. But this was more than that, and something that I have only recently come to realize is a passage I am going through now. It is the place where you known you have grown older, you can still do many things, but not in the same way you once did, and sometimes not at all. The aim for me, now, you see, is to learn to age gracefully, but this can be difficult, and complicated, if you are trying to do so still holding onto or believing that you can still do things you did 10, 15, 20 years or more ago. Your brain may feel sharp, you have a willing spirit, but you are now the coat that has been patched up many times with the things that life has laid in your path, you have recovered from and survived many things. In some ways that makes you stronger, but if you do not understand that you are no longer the new coat hanging on the rack in the store, and that you have to be mindful about the many patched up places in your body and in your being, you will continually stumble and fall, physically or metaphorically matters not, what matters is that until you accept that you can’t do the things you once did, and accept what you can, revel in what is possible, you will continue to trip yourself up. That is exactly what I did by starting the podcast a week ago.
Almost a decade ago I did podcasts 5 days a week, I absolutely loved doing them, and had a good following of people who enjoyed them, but then the house burned down and my whole life changed, and years went by and as I grew older my body became less capable of doing the things I could do even just a few years earlier. I can garden, say, but I can no longer create the very large gardens I once did and I need help with some of the garden chores I used to easily do. But it never occurred to me that I couldn’t resume podcasting. What was I going to be doing? Sitting in a chair and talking for a bit, recording with my phone, and uploading it. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? But last night I sat outside, and it was so beautiful, and I was so proud of the podcast I had recorded. And then, slowly, I got up out of my rocking chair, slowly because it’s harder for me to do so these days, it’s harder for me to walk, easier for me to stumble, and I came inside and sat down at my desk and listened to what I had just recorded. The podcast was fine, the sound was good, my voice clear, but tears were running down my cheeks because I knew that while I might be able to do it I was already paying a price. Adding podcasts to my other work was too much. I felt like the little snail climbing Mount Fuji with a pack on my back that was so heavy I could barely move. In adding a podcast to my other work I had caused everything to nearly come to a halt. At 67 I can still do many things, but I can’t do it all, all of the things I have done in the past and loved.
Aging with grace is learning to let go, not with sadness, but with acceptance. Acceptance that not all of what once was can still be. Acceptance, and even joy, in the things we can still do, new things we might discover. One of the things I am discovering is that joy is a choice. We can bemoan what is lost or celebrate what is. I can write, I can paint, I have my lovely Patreon community that supports me, encourages me, and daily sends me love which I return, so deeply grateful for their many kindnesses. I can still have a life that I love, I just cannot do everything I once did, and in trying to do so I lose the ability to fully do and enjoy what I can do. I, the snail part of me, took the podcasts out of the pack on my back and set them down for someone else to pick up and now, albeit moving slowly, I am moving again, after a few tears, and now with a sigh of relief.
These lessons come slowly, and not, usually, easily, and can be hard to remember. I could blame having taken on the podcasts as having been a very bipolary thing to do, but this time I don’t think so. This time it was the part of me who is now 67 and wanted to believe I still could. This time it was a necessary transition from letting go of what was to accepting what is, and it was all necessary, another step of learning about aging, and taking your joy where you can. I know I will stumble again, there are many lessons yet to learn, but today I have learned this one, and now I travel on.
