In your decades-long trek, you finally finished supporting him to success–you did everything day and night with bright smiles and affirmations and went to all the promotion parties, smiling with frozen face. And you took him to doctors and nursed him, finally, supervising the day and night nurses, and at last put him to rest.

At the same time, you also supervised the children’s development: diapers. discipline, school meetings, homework; worry over adolescent sex protection, cars, drugs, unsavory friends; graduations, weddings, baby showers, birthdays, massive holiday gatherings, endless grandmotherly duties. Now you wave—another Sunday dinner vanquished—as they, laden with leftovers, pull out of your driveway. You turn away and sigh with relief, eager for the quiet.

For years you were also an informal caregiver and pseudo-parent to your own parents and other elders. You visited; brought groceries, DVDs, Depends; murmured false reassurances, even while aghast at how the elders looked paler and paler. You finally saw them settled in private rooms at institutions where meals and daily care were provided by others and they could play cards with fellow inmates— their forced smiles disguising the wish that their longtime friends would visit. You went every Saturday, straightened their sheets, shared morsels about the grandchildren, smiled, and never stayed for more than an hour.

You finally made peace with your house: rug worn, curtains frayed, outlets dead, cupboard doors askew . . . . You have a good bed, a comfortable sofa, a reliable TV, and kitchen appliances that work. What else is needed?

And most importantly—hardly believable—you have time. Time for exploring your thoughts, feelings, and metaphors long buried by the demands of doing for others. You discover a new, almost unbelievable spark, a blossom, flower, lightning flash—power undeniable, as if a younger poet were writing (mirror be damned).

You take the time—relish, bask, embrace and savor it, like the sublime apple cobbler you used to make or a blessed fragrant spring breeze after rain, still hardly believing.

You have time for keyboard and notebook writing; even, grabbed by sudden inspiration, scribbling on random scraps while eating, thinking about next lines between bites. You have time to read articles on better craft, to Zoom with other women poets, share work and travails and publishing leads (and, when your older women poet friends publish, congratulate them grudgingly).

Swallowing hard, you start submitting your work and—at last—publish! Then what you never dared dream: an award for best older woman poet, another for a new poet voice, another and another and, crowning it all, publication of your collected poems.

What’s age in the unquenchable, irrepressible drive to create? What’s age in the blessings of words, swelling cascading bubbling up like a long-dry spring coming to life? What’s age in the intoxication of creating—phrases at odd hours, titles in the shower, rhymes stirring stew, perfect whole lines appearing like goddesses?

Older women poets, I praise admire salute you and, as a fellow older poet, draw heart from you to continue our glorious creativity.

 

 

 

Fly, My Darling: a love story

By Lisa K. Richter

  A soulful memoir of desire and a woman’s midlife quest to let go—in jazz and in life   Lisa—a classically trained pianist, wife, and mother—yearns for something she can’t define. After she begins a study of jazz improv with an outspoken, trailblazing musician from the ’70s girl band era, a woman who encourages Lisa to let go musically and emotionally, life takes an unexpected, irrevocable turn. When they become lovers, what began as a desire to learn jazz becomes a lesson in letting go: with music, with an old way of living, and finally with life itself.


With rhythmic, imaginative prose, Fly, My Darling explores the resilience of love, the weight of loss, the undeniable pull toward freedom, and the transformation that occurs when a woman finally asks, What do I really want? Based on the author’s years together with musician and visionary composer Lynda Roth, past and present weave together in this intimate journey of awakened eroticism and music.

“A graceful and spare memoir of personal transformation and loss.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Available at Bookshop, Simon & Schuster, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and through your local independent bookstore.

More at LisaKRichter.com

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