In The Future

Otters frolicked, a scissor-tailed flycatcher soared from a tree, and creek and ocean carved new rivulets in the sand. Ten million years earlier, a particular whale met its death near here, and on this day we stood and beheld the strand of its vertebrae, recently unearthed in cliffs that once were covered by the sea. A sleepy little boy who is almost three FaceTimed me from England, and I held up my phone and showed him the beach, and he said, “I want to go back there now.” I lack the magic carpet to make that happen, but the day still seemed to be teeming with miracles.

I destroyed one of my old journals last week that I had written in my twenties, first marveling at the meticulous penmanship, then sickened by the anguish of its contents, and finally tearing it into confetti shreds, because, really, what’s the point? It was all about desperation, sadness, stupid choices, and self-flagellation for abandoning and disappointing people I loved, filled with voices from a previous life, and none of them are happy. But the document is proof that one can survive and transcend. I am a poster child for late-blooming, messed-up young people who veer close to the edge. Take heart, young people.

In fact, on my 27th birthday, in a florid flourish of self-indulgence, I wrote a message to my future self. (And now here I was, with my numerals reversed to 72, reading it.) I was living in an apartment in Albany at that time, wrapping up a silly degree in sociology so I could finally be a college graduate and move through whatever doors this dubious achievement opened. I had left my husband in a manner so gradual and clumsy I compared it to doing surgery with a butter knife, and then stumbled into a melodramatic and abusive relationship with a horrible man I had met in Syracuse. I had not yet extricated myself from the latter, but I was beginning to see it more clearly. The message goes on and on, expressing love for my family and compassion for soulmates everywhere, proclaiming my determination to move forward, and in a nutshell, hoping that I would eventually have a home, be loved in a healthy way, and be happy. (Apparently I did believe that happiness was at least possible.) Seven months after I wrote this birthday entry, my beloved father died of a heart attack, the first great loss of my life. And yet, somehow, in the years that followed, most of the things I wished for Future Cynthia eventually came to be, many in unimaginably wonderful ways.

I was learning a lot about love then, about the impossibility of loving someone in exactly the way they wanted to be loved unless this also happened to be exactly what you felt, and about the futility of demanding this for yourself from someone else. I was learning that love was tied up with duty, loyalty, and expectation, yes, but this wasn’t a trade-off; no bargaining or blackmail was involved. Love was its own feeling, born within. It inspired giving and sharing and even self-betterment, and it manifested in action, but such behaviors were not commandeered, begged for, or manipulated—they were offered.  

Friends passed through. The names of three specific girlfriends are mentioned in the journal, two of whom are still dear to me and reachable right now, and the third passed away two years ago. But there’s another lesson. Friendship is a crucial kind of love, and perhaps the steadiest. The purely voluntary nature of friendship defines it.

Somewhere in that message to Future Cynthia, I resolved to start “championing” myself, taking my own side, yay Cynthia. I can appreciate the need I must have had to convince myself that I was worthy of self-love and self-respect, but the declarations seem fatuous to me now, and the decades have taught me that this fondness for oneself is far more likely to be achieved when not consciously aspired to. It’s not a goal but a peripheral outcome, and it happens when living with gratitude, kindness, and joy.

As for joy, well, that’s another thing I have learned. It’s there, many times daily, if I give myself permission to experience it. Does it eradicate all the sorrow, worry, and mistakes? Hell, no. But it’s real, and what a shame it would be to turn away.

Maybe the ultimate secret known to wise old crones like me is that we make a choice every morning about the lens through which we want to view the world. Those words in blue ink between the covers of a composition notebook were still talking 45 years later––and isn’t that amazing? We saw a rocket launch last week, and I’ve been perfecting a recipe for lentil soup just like my father used to make, and my little plum tree is beginning to yield fruit, and I am test-driving hearing aids and rode my bike yesterday in silvery drizzle. I’m doing a storytelling event in town with two talented performers, and a former student of mine said he still thinks of me when he writes, and the yellow birds keep coming back. A few clicks on the computer yesterday, and the room was filled with Beethoven.

Admittedly, I’m lucky. I inhabit a realm where miracles abound, and while I believe they are everywhere, it’s easier to feel them here where the grandfather oaks almost nod when we pass, and bodacious clouds are sailing above green and yellow hills, where a whale rested his bones millennia ago and a little boy in Oxford talked to me on a cell-phone screen while I stood on a shore five-thousand miles away.