I am discovering strategies for living alone—ways to stay happy, and to motivate myself to stay upbeat. As someone who finds herself waking up in bed alone later in life, I find I need a sharp twinkly phrase or two to keep myself from dissolving into a puddle of grey gluey loneliness.
How does a person avoid living with oneself as glue? My sister has evolved the phrase, “Living a sparkly life,” which points me in the direction of fun. I adore the phrase as both hilarious and practical. During a recent visit, we talked about what living a sparkly life might look like. It’s important for more than just the two of us.
Many more women are left after the death of a partner than men. According to Stats Can, 45% of women in Canada over 65 are widowed. That’s my sister and that’s me. Though she would point out to me that she’s not that old! In the States, 58% of women have been widowed as opposed to 27% of men. That’s a lot of people adapting to a state of being alone.
Gratitude and sparkliness are closely allied. What am I grateful for right now? Judge me, say I’m shallow, but food is high on my list. I’m excited because I know what I’m having for supper; I’ve already cooked it. This afternoon I put together three meals of a decent curry, two for the freezer and one for tonight.
Initially, when I was learning to cook for one, I thought, if I just made a large pot of say, spaghetti or chicken saag, and packaged the food into single servings which I froze like meal-size ice cubes, that would be good. That’s how I worked it when I was teaching and I knew I’d be coming home late, exhausted and hungry. And it’s delightful, truly, to have excellent homemade meals in the freezer, though nothing is ever as tasty as freshly made.
Eating a good meal is easy. That’s the happy-making part. Thinking of it, shopping for it, the prep, cooking and the dishes, oh, the endless cleaning up, is less amusing. Especially when it’s only me involved.
I asked myself: how could I make this sparkly?
Certainly the smell of cooking drifting through the house, onions, garlic, herbs is delightful. That’s sparkly. But life is really about the moments between. It’s bubbles in the space-time continuum that often I choose to play music in. Some nice Celtic guitar or say, some soaring motets by Palestrina can take those moments of prep and washing and make them feel richer. It might be going too far to say festive, but it’s a lot more textured and upbeat. And if I break off for a moment and dance with my dog, how fun is that?
Kira is fabulous at dancing. She follows hand signals to come forward and back up, then follows my hand to turn and even twirl. She gets lots of treats, I laugh like a fool, and there you are, the sparkliness factor has just amped up.
A friend pointed out to me that if she cooks when she’s in a bad mood, the food never tastes right. Not then and not later. Cooking is not just mechanical, there’s energy that goes into it. When I got over my surprise, I realized she was right. If I put together a main dish thinking of the people I’ll invite over to share the meal with, a happy anticipation infuses the whole process. Food cooked with love and attention has a quality of deliciousness to it, even if the meal is simple.
For me today, the short sweet phrase that turns things around is, “How can I make this moment sparkly?”
I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!
UPDATES
Kira got her stitches out last week and has more energy than I do at this point. The vet says she can run, so today, for the first time in two and a half weeks, we have a walk planned with her dog buddy.
The session at the South Granville Seniors’ Centre in Vancouver was really fun. Lunch was delicious, everyone was friendly, old friends came and we hugged. I took a read of the audience, the comfortable space and the nice clubby chairs and it became a more interactive reading than anything I’ve done since teaching days. I was touched by how the poems in Orchid Heart Elegies spoke to people. Truly, when we create, we can become a transparency for something much bigger than ourselves.
I’d love it if you could ask your local library to stock the book!