According to my age-defying eye cream, the 5 signs of aging are:

1) Puffiness

2) Crepiness

3) Under eye bags

4) Dark circles and

5) Crows feet

I don’t know if crepiness is even a word, but we must defy it. Anyway, those are just the signs of aging eyes. Faces have more signs than eyes, because my anti-aging FACE cream targets:

1) Fine lines and wrinkles

2) Uneven skin tone

3) Dullness

4) Visible pores

5) Age spots

6) Lack of firmness and

7) Dryness

If you add up all the signs, I’m pretty sure that’s a dozen lords a leapin’ away from your face, no matter how you look at it. Yet surely one of the signs of aging is not giving a damn about the signs of aging? Can we just stop with all the defying?  And what’s with that word, anyway? Defy this, señorita Olay: we are aging.

I do admit you lured me in, but I had recently suffered a brutal shock. I bought the age-defying duo the day after I had my eye exam and had to up my readers another notch. So I was in the kind of death defying spin that happens when you finally see yourself clearly, and ended up driving wildly to the nearest drugstore. It took a long time to choose how I would regain my youth because there were hundreds of anti-aging beauty products available. In the end, I chose the age defying cream over the night repair cream because I hated the idea of going to bed every night reminded that I had a broken face.

But hey, we all have our moments of weakness and other than those little gems, there’s only 1 bottle of shampoo and a bag of Epsom salts in my bathroom, and you have no idea what a relief that is.

Before my daughter left for college, stepping into the shower was like being blind in a Rite Aid. Every morning was a blurry fumble of lotions and potions that smelled like fruit salad, or ginger-honey, or lotus sun. I can’t count the number of times I groped for shampoo and ended up washing my hair with tea-blossom conditioner or coconut-bean body wash. There were sugar scrubs and salt scrubs, tiny soaps and round soaps, goat soaps, and lavender soaps, and god knows why, one giant slab of square hipster soap that, I kid you not, had seeds in it. I guess you never know when a goldfinch might need a shower.

I think I’m done with excessive beauty products. Or at least, I think I’m done defying. I’ll trade you 7 signs of aging for 1 bar of soap, and as for aging eyes? Someone really ought to invent shampoo & conditioner bottles with bigger fonts. All that squinting in the morning gives me the crepes.

Let me tell you about match.com. I joined because – well, I’m trying to figure that out, but in general I know I’m not going find what I’m looking for in the kitchen. Today’s matches include:

• A slack-jawed man in a suspiciously stained t-shirt standing in front of his mother’s hutch.
• A man with 18 pictures of himself, each one sporting a different variety of fish.
• A man in a cubicle-suit that looks like he may have the flu.
• A man with a 4-wheeler and a dead deer.
• And … Oh wait! Here’s a cutie! Umm…. never mind, that’s my ex.

I have nothing against fish or your mother’s hutch. Who doesn’t like seafood and a good set of china? For me it’s all about the words anyway, so I move on to find a vast majority of profiles read like this:

“I’m a fit, active male who likes to workout and stay fit. I’m looking for a fit, slim lady who takes pride in her appearance but will not be afraid to get her hands dirty. NO DRAMA!”

(Really? I’ll give you drama. What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you more concerned about fitness than soul-ness? And don’t call me lady. I’m in a shit mood and for godsake I take total pride in my appearance even when I’m in sweats and a jam-stained t-shirt…. Wait, maybe I should revisit that first match photo…)

The reality is, online dating is a brutal process. It’s brutal to be so summarily judged. Did you know that the app shows you how many views you’ve had (1,532), and then how many people actually reached out? (7). And my profile is so well written!

But you know what’s more brutal than being rejected 1,525 times? Being forced to judge others based on a lonely selfie and poor writing skills. I can’t tell you how mean-spirited I feel after going through these profiles. How at the ready my brain is with a snide comment and a red pen. There is nothing funnier in the world than making fun of other people, and I get that. I’m a huge Louis C.K. fan. But it goes deeper than that, doesn’t it? It becomes a sort of litmus test for what our own inflated egos judge to be an acceptable vs. unacceptable human being. So while I’m not finding match to be a great help in finding me a date, it’s been a terrific way to remind me of my own prejudices and small-minded notions. And I should know better.

A couple years of ago I walked into day 1 of a remarkable 5-week workshop. The room was full of powerful women with tumbled, arty hair. Yet because I was late I had to take the only empty seat, which happened to be next to a mousy woman with a perm, pleated khakis, and a sweater with pumpkins embroidered all over it. I instantly assumed she was a born again Christian with a hutch. Long story short? At the end of that 5-week session, we all agreed that one of the most brilliant minds and beautiful souls in our crowd was the pumpkin-sweater lady. Even more surprising? She WAS a born again Christian with a hutch.

I’m not going deer hunting anytime soon, and that’s okay. But light a match.com to this judging little monster inside me, will you? She still doesn’t know what she’s looking for.

 

When my son Owen was 4, we asked what he wanted to be for Halloween and he said “The Basement Door”. I think it was the scariest thing he could think of, and I rather agree with him. I become unhinged when confronted with the unknown. For instance I’ve always had a fear of scurrying, scuttling, unpredictable things. Mice, pigeons, unannounced guests.

This year, October was my unannounced guest. It crept up behind me and scared me right out of my flip-flops. As always it arrives in innocent costume, all blustery and bloated with sugar. But I’ve been trying to get in touch with my inner kale, so I’m not prepared for the terrifying onslaught of apple fritters, apple pie and apple crisp. And yesterday as I scurried past the fun sized Snickers display, I saw Christmas out of the corner of my eye and all hope was lost. I’m REALLY not prepared for figgy pudding.

October haunts me with the ghosts of things to come. It’s the spooky start to “lose all control” season that begins with one playful Kit Kat and ends one January day with a champagne flute full of regret and a wallet full of receipts. October is sneaky. The leaves drop silently and land without warning. The heat ticks on. A black cat may or may not cross your path. It starts with a pinecone, then a pumpkin, and soon the shelves fill with cranberry sauce and enough stuffing to sink the Mayflower, and the next thing you know you are dragging home bags of unnecessary plastic objects and gender-neutral toys to the frantic sound of sleigh bells.

I think I might have pre-traumatic stress syndrome. A fear of things about to happen, of what may happen, of what used to happen, but doesn’t have to anymore. Just because there’s one fritter, doesn’t mean there has to be more, right? I can imagine all kinds of frightful scenarios about what I can’t yet see, or I can relax and smell the cider. Because sometimes, Owen, a door is just a door.

Leaving the house in this autumn drench, I slip on a slick of wet leaves and do a gasping half-split in the driveway; a tiny windblown safety-drill for some future January outing. Meanwhile Gilligan looks at the sky in flat-eared submission and rushes back to the door, thoughts of squirrel domination secondary.

The day begs us to hunker down, hole up, hide. Eat a second breakfast, maybe. I light candles and lamps and brew coffee. But darkness still gets in, making old wounds tender; Voldemort is on the move. My inner critic swoops down with terrifying maw and death-eats all creativity. I examine my options: I could pump up the volume on spotify and confound the dog with my whip and my nae nae, I could eat a dozen cinnamon donuts and binge watch Netflix, I could find out which Disney Character I am, or Peanutize myself. I decide to sit silently and let the shadows fall with the rain. After all, light gets in at the broken places. This imperfect day; this imperfect me. A pretty perfect pair.

I woke with creaking knees, and downward facing mood. My lawn has apple-pox; spotted with the wounded and bruised I never got around to picking. A musty smell haunts me from some hidden crawl space; mice are looking for housemates and rumor has it I have toast crumbs and empty mason jars.

I have rooms full of warted gourds, and branches bent with orange berries, and tiny pumpkins and pinecones all gathered and captured in vases and bowls like acorns stuffed in a panicked cheek. I feel the need to light scented candles that smell like pie, and stick cloves into something, as if all of this will distract me from this sadness I woke with, let loose by the first scent of wood smoke in the air. What is it I am yearning for? What is this ache?

I woke with a fear of fall, of falling, of falling backward into a Norman Rockwell haze; into a cavernous wish for days gone by. I remind myself that nostalgia is a thief of time and a bit of a liar, too. The deer think the fallen apples are just where they need to be.

Yesterday afternoon on the first day of fall, I took a long walk with my Boston terrier, Gilligan — a short, 3-hour tour one might say. The light the color of butter, the fields yellow and green, a sky full of blue, a tree turning red; a phenomenal sense of gratefulness for the richness of it all. I wanted to stop and sketch it, paint it, tweet it, tumble it, put a soundtrack to it; I kept struggling to hold it all, drink it in, clutch it to me. And then I just let go and moved through it, with it, along side it. I felt a part of it — I could be a cornfield, a milkweed, a cattail, a crow!

An hour ago we took our afternoon walk, and it was nothing like yesterday. Yes, there were purple asters and goldenrod; blue jays and heron’s; turtles and twisted trees; water ripples ringed in sun…but mostly it was like taking a 25 pound bee for a walk. I think Gilligan’s energy must have reflected something deep within me, as he shot off into a million fragmented directions, straining at his tether, trying to free himself, seeking something elusive, desperate to pick up the trail. I returned home with a sore arm, a general sense of relief that it was over, and a dog that managed to roll in something bath-worthy while I was pondering the changing skies.

Some walks are more peaceful than others.
Some moments I know myself.
Some days I feel love, and sometimes I feel lost.

More often than not, I feel god-ness and human-ness, hand in hand. Like this particular pope, perhaps. I have to say, I rather like him. Even if he does wear white after Labor Day.