Unfinished

This is not the first time I have taken a series of self-portraits in my hallway. The photos are reflections that appear in the full-length framed mirror that stands at the bottom of a staircase and leads to the upper reaches of my home. I am dressed in something, a garment that prompts me to think and write. I am seated on a step covered with old carpeting we have yet to remove. Above me is a small platform where one can pause a moment before you climb the last three stairs, where you finally reach the second floor. It is my granddaughter’s favorite perch. It is where she retreats to be by herself but is still close enough to those of us below. It is in-between up and down. It reflects her developmental challenge at age 9; navigating her growing independence and the times she may feel ambivalent about it.

 In the photo, you can see an unpainted sheetrock ceiling and some plaster cracks in the wall that need repair. I don’t mind them today. Tomorrow I might. Much the same way I feel about the crevices that appear in my aging body. Those spaces between bones that get smaller. When they meet, they will cause pain. I looked at my Instagram and found that I posted the last stairway self-portrait when I was writing my memoir and taking care of my grandson. It does not escape my attention that hallways are passageways that take us from an entry point and lead to other, more significant rooms.

I often linger in my hallway because I love the dark brown of the original oak front door, the stained-glass window at the foot of the stairs and the antique kilim hand knitted rug. It is vibrant with the same colors that appear in the stained glass. Of any space in my home, the morning light there is extraordinary. It occurs to me that perhaps I linger because there is something about a liminal space and time that gives me more pleasure than actually getting through to the other side. I like to rest in it. It is where I discover my most creative self, perform my favorite activities, reading, research, learning something new and meeting people with whom to have an interesting conversation. It is where I am becoming something, but not yet there. Or perhaps it is simply because I am in that in-between time of a book being written and fully edited and when it is published and out in the world.

At the end of this hallway is my lemon-yellow and celery green kitchen. We finished our kitchen, as well as the pergola, my shed, a patio, a platform at the edge of our property that allows us to take in the marshland's view below, a fence, and the garden beds outside. The spring and summer made us want to invest more time on the outside. The colder weather turns our attention indoors. My cheery kitchen is the space where I warmed bottles, nestled my sleeping grandson in a grey baby carrier so I could write. The bottles remain as there are days he is sick, or his day care is closed, and he comes to us. When it is cold, I will make tea from the tied and drying chocolate mint from my herb garden. There is the first of my bouquets from Trader Joe’s on the table as the flowers in my garden no longer bloom. The vase contains the rich colors of fall; yellow, shades of burgundy, amber. The same round, dark stained oak, Arts and Crafts table is where I am writing this morning, after taking my self-portrait. It is the first time there is sun in over a week.

In the self-portrait, I wear overalls and a silk pajama top. The overalls are black denim and the pajama top is a brown and black vintage looking print. I am enthralled by the sleeve and elongated cuff. Pajama tops and denim jeans are the uniform I introduce my readers to in the epilogue of my book. Overalls just another form of denim. Pajamas and overalls. Rest and work. Silk and denim. Fragility and protection. Light and heavy. Feminine and masculine. Old and young. Body and mind. Sensuality and asceticism. All feelings, identities and needs living in the threads and fibers of the clothes I choose to wear today. All living in me. All imply finding balance as I move into what comes into my life after providing full-time day care and the completion of a book.

Now that I am 70, there is something satisfying about my home being unfinished. I am not in a rush because then our interaction with our home will become passive. We will only sit in it, sleep in it, eat in it. Restoring and renovating means action, implies a process. It moves. It also feels luscious for me to feel I am unfinished. That I too need some restoration and renovation. That my interaction with my life and community will be active, not passive. That I am not done. Perhaps this is a pushing away of what it means at my age to be finished. Or it could just be the feeling one has at any age when they utter the words, “I’m finished”. It could be a shout of joy at completion, a desperate feeling one is done for, an achievement or a termination. Not everything about me is defined by being old.

Although I am 70, I am a young writer. Like my house, I am unfinished. It does not escape me that I probably got an agent and a book contract with a well-known publisher because of my Instagram following rather than a body of literary work that shows I deserve it. I want to deserve it. This is probably what stops me from moving to paid subscriptions. Many of you who will read this have told me countless times that you love my writing. Some of you have pledged money to support my writing. I assure you; I am not putting myself down here. I am really okay about being unfinished with writing.

As I read the galleys of my book, I identify ideas I could have elaborated on, and scenes I could have described more fully and poetically. A better turn of phrase. My blog and Substack reveal essays that could have taken an interesting turn but did not. I read writers who show me how far I can go with language if I keep at this and treat it as a craft I am in the early stages of developing. I’ve signed up for two writing classes, one this month, another next. We’re heading to a literary festival in Vermont in a week. This week I’ve set up meetings with new writers of all ages in the little city where I live and have reached out across the internet to older, more experienced ones for advice. Each action I take as a young writer releases energy and a desire to keep myself well so I can do this. I bike so I may write.

We’ve decided now that it is fall, we’ll finish the hallway and start on the dining room. While the walls and ceiling of the dining room are sheetrocked and ready for our attention, I have been scouring Etsy and eBay for secondhand overalls made in Japan to add to my collection of vintage Levis's. I own a pair of Gap overalls that I last wore in the early 90s when I was taking creative writing classes in New York City. Parenting, work, and family demands always seemed to interrupt my desire to write. Something unfinished that kept tugging on my sleeve.

We have a whole upstairs and an enclosed front porch to keep us busy, as well as a detached garage that can use some sprucing up. There will be more classes to take, more literary events to attend. More opportunities to grow. More challenging trails to ride our bikes on. Our granddaughter will probably move upstairs and use her tablet in one of the rooms. She might even close the door. Her brother will want to climb up the stairs to be with her. Our house will be active and interacting with all of us who visit, inhabit and work on it. None of us are finished, we are all on the move. No matter how old we are in this house.

What’s your unfinished business?

Link to pre-order my book, How to Be Old