You’re writing to be an adventurer. I want to be taken somewhere I know nothing about. I want to be a stranger to a territory. One of the few good things to say about old age is that you have a new experience. Diminishment is not everybody’s most anticipated joy, but there is news in this situation. And that, for a poet or writer, is invaluable. 

~ Louise Gluck, quoted in the New York Times, interview with Alexandra Alter

Every day the river is like this in my life: a glittery awakening, a touchstone, a place to say thank you, to feel the flow and pace of life, to be awake, aware and present, and grateful for this natural beauty. Oh, the clamor and chaos and tumult of our country at this moment. At the river, I know it’s there, it doesn’t go away. But I find peace. So I can give peace, generate peace around me. The ferns by the Charles after my long walk by the river’s edge were like flames. It’s the golden month of October. Later, I stood in the yard. I walked to the arch near the garden. I thought about my soon grandson, and how to be a grandmother. Who am I, grandmother, I wondered and watched a leaf twirl and tumble in the shifts of air, tumble down and rest on the ground at my feet. Well, this role, grandmother, how far away and impossible to imagine all my life. Now, it’s here. I heard the authority and generosity and wisdom of her voice whispering in me today, in the meadow, as if I were meeting her, greeting her, after a long walk toward her, or she to me. See, grandmother, she is news to me. She is the news I am listening to today. My daughter who will have this son spent time going through my nature photos today, picking some she wants printed and framed and hung on her walls. I let her into my file and she marveled at all the images I have, the years of them. And she said it is so hard for her to choose. And as she admired them, I felt this energy of what I’ve done, day by day, by paying attention. How I have stored up all this beauty and inspiration, and nourishment. Good news.