Autumn reminds me of change and passing time. My acquaintance with this season is a pleasant, calm sort of familiarity. As the saying goes, “This is not my first rodeo.”
I am growing into a contentment in this time of life that matches this season perfectly. As a creative spirit trained in scientific method, I enjoy finding the perfect metaphor or frame for processes or events. Nothing exists without context, and finding the right context with which to present a bit of information helps expand the audience who can understand and use that bit of information.
When I look at women’s culture and attempt to describe aspects of it in my writing, I employ these framing methods. In my recent attempts to discuss the stage of life I am entering I felt the rightness of using autumn as a metaphor, but something was not clicking or fitting as I tried to plug women’s imagery into the metaphor.
I rejected the traditional, rather derogatory, depiction of someone at my stage of life as a crone quite some time ago, well before I entered this wonderfully faceted and sage time of life. I also rejected the term midlife that is currently enjoying significant use in online communities. I sincerely doubt that I will live to be over 115 years of age, and I would have to do this, if I was at a midpoint of my life.
How we visualize ourselves shapes attitude, influences energy, and touches many of the ways we project ourselves into the world. I am not a dried up hag or crone. Life energy courses through me in a different way than it did at other times of life, but it is a vibrant, kinetic aspect of my being. I am plump to overflowing with life energy.
“The sere and yellow leaf” per Shakespeare, connotes and evokes nothing off-putting or hideous, as neither should a time of life. In a conscious effort to draw no boundaries through the use of religious imagery, rather to bridge barriers, I do not propose using Goddess terminology to replace maiden, matron, crone terminology.
So, for lack of any term more apt, I am autumnal.
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