I am in Point Richmond, California, taking care of Mortimer and Jose Bunny Flipper while my brother and his family are in Hawaii. Morty is an extroverted wheat-colored Shih Tzu and Jose Bunny Flipper is a leopard gecko. Every day I get down on the floor and open the gecko’s cage, feeling godlike as I drop three live “superworms” into Jose’s living room. These high-protein Zophobas morio squirm and curl on the sacrificial saucer.
Enticed by their movement, Jose slowly creeps out of her cave and lumbers towards them, tongue aflicker. I’ve read that the superworms are crunchy and taste a little like toasted bread. What is Jose thinking as she approaches these writhing creatures, which aren’t worms at all but the larval form of darkling beetles?
Maybe she thinks: Oh, thank god it’s dinner. Or: Jesus, I’m sick of these fucking things.
I’m not good at reading lizard behavior. Is Jose Bunny Flipper fulfilled? Bummed out? Bored out of her mind? She delicately sniffs one of the morio, and stuffs it into her cheek like a plug of tobacco. A few more bites and it’s gone. Then Jose stalks into the shrubbery to have a moment to herself. Is she dreaming of a humid rainforest? A semi-arid desert? Any place but the glass box where she lives out her days?
Next month I’ll be seventy. This birthday feels momentous to me. Most of my sixth decade was intense, swinging wildly from relief (thank god it's dinner) to desperation (I’m sick of these fucking things). There was heartbreak, grief, and reckoning as I dealt with being divorced and living alone, truly alone, for the first time in my life. I struggled and had to befriend myself because I was the only one with the right credentials to do the job. I broke out of my glass box and realized I could create a different, wilder, more wondrous habitat for myself, one filled with dogs and trees and real rain. I painted the walls of my house magenta and peach and a serene, Zen-like blue. In my sixties, I visibly aged. Sometimes when I looked in the mirror, I liked what I saw and sometimes I wished I could afford to have a facelift. Mostly I tried to accept who I was and who I was becoming.
During that decade I became more grateful and committed to the friends I had, embracing the people who could sweeten, enhance, and even save my life. I accepted and trusted that they loved me. I tried to forgive the people I’d been angry with. Hardest of all was forgiving and loving myself. I made carrot cakes piled high with cream cheese frosting and apple pies laced with cinnamon and tangy sourdough bread from my own starter. I leaned into the person who loves to feed people. In truth, I was starving too.
A few months ago, I joined a dating site called Silver Singles. I confess to having some lingering shame about needing to use a dating site to meet Mr. Wonderful, but the truth is, I’m lonely. This is how I describe myself on my profile page: “Short-tempered goddess type quick to forgive.” (This description isn’t as elliptical as the gent on Silver Singles who described himself this way: “dexterous.” I’m afraid to ask what that means.) I like living by myself, but I also haven’t ruled out the possibility of being cherished, ravished, or nibbled on just a little. I don’t want to get married again or live with anybody, but I’m up for a Big Love, with a saucy side of solitude. As the gamblers say, you gotta play to win.
I met someone I liked a lot through Silver Singles but ultimately didn’t get what I needed and craved, which was an intimate, heart-to-heart connection. Part of the reason we didn’t connect was because I was hiding who I was, a vulnerable person with a dull machete hacking through an overgrown jungle of self-loathing, and judgment.
I’m not all fixed or self-actualized and probably never will be, but life is getting better. I still go to the dog park all the time and meet people with their dogs. We swap cornbread recipes and talk about our kids and what we’re reading. This tickles me. I am surrendering to the moment, giving in, accepting what is rather than raging about what isn’t. Aging is filled with indignities and uncertainties but what’s the alternative? You gotta play to win.
One thing that has made my life happier and less lonely is writing on Substack. It’s been exactly a year since I posted my first At the Dogpark column. Since then I’ve written about the country’s restrictive abortion laws, pies, canning salsa, almost losing my dog, students who give me the silent treatment, jealousy, trying to bribe a city worker into planting a tree for me, and the challenges of restoring an old house on a tight budget. When I reached out to you about the particular 4 o’clock loneliness and restlessness that occurs on Sunday afternoons or the pain of cutting down a 100-year-old maple, you understood and reached back. If I hadn’t heard from you, I don’t think I would’ve had the confidence to keep writing. Thank you.
In this next decade, I want to be brave and honest. I don’t know what seventy is going to look like for me, but I refuse to go quietly. And in the spirit of forthrightness, I must express this important desire: I want to be a grandmother. I don’t know if that’s in the cards for me, but I would like that. My son and his wife may decide not to have children, or I might die before the Blessed Event occurs, but that doesn’t mean I have to miss out on being a grandmother. I can be my own grandmother right now, being kind and indulgent and merciful to myself and the people I love. Just don’t call me Gam Gam.
These are my thoughts out here in California with Morty and the gecko. It’s the week before Christmas and I’m far from my old house in Ohio but happy to be close to some of my very favorite people. I’m on a dating site and I may or may not meet somebody terrific. In the meantime, it’s a cool gray day outside, the kind of day portending stormy weather. As I write this, I’m stretched out in my brother and his wife’s king-sized bed watching the El Greco clouds scud across the sky. Mortimer has started to whine a little, and you know what that means. I better take him out before it starts to rain.
You are welcome to adopt my children, they only have one grandparent (And I've told you some of the "fun" with my mom). I hope you had a great vacation! Though, as a former gecko breeder, that little guy needs more than super worms or they'll get health problems! Super worms are like granola bars, full of good calories but not a full diet.
I'm just sitting in my jammies finally getting caught up on some Substacks that have flown into my email and gotten buried in the quotidian. I sure do like reading yours, D'Arcy! I have an idea/question about a local phenomenon in the environs near our campus that I'd like to ask you about....if you're teaching this term, I'll try to catch you in the halls. Keep writing, I love your vulnerable funny crankiness. I am looking at 60 and worried about the world. Your voice is reassuring--not that everything is going to be ok (who knows!) but that life right now is endlessly interesting and worth living, no matter what.