in tens

I live somewhere else now . . .

That was Rome.  I put the camera on a stool and set the timer.  Somehow it all came together in the first take. I was 39 and alone and could tell you nothing of the difference between my needs and my wants, despite carrying both most heavily.

I am supposed to look back at her – 39 – because we are turning a corner again. Turning corners.  It does not feel like a corner to me, so much as a reality. I live here, now.

But I have the benefit of words from that time, that day in fact, in Rome. 39. ” . . . . the realization when you look back is that you have moved forward, in both what you have accomplished and in how you have made mistakes.”

At some point in this truest of decades, I pulled apart need and want.  One is mine, the other I may ask of you.  Would that be ok? Because it wasn’t at 39.

There are bookloads of words that weave backwards and forwards through the mistakes that allowed for accomplishment, through the shedding into this alone. All of the stories that seared their way no longer hurt, which I never thought possible.  This is not where I am going to tell them . . .

39 took a breath and placed herself in front of the camera.  49 crossed her arms before the photographer could ask of her.

It’s quite something to know that you have arrived, knowing also that you will keep arriving and arriving . . . at this new place where you now live.