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Angela Townsend's avatar

Made this 42-year-old stand up and cheer: "Midlife is not an age or a season, but the waking up to our original goodness, to who we were before the world told us who to be. Midlife is the re-membering of the parts of ourselves we buried long ago but that still have a part to play. Even now. Especially now."

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Hannah's avatar

"...women with dirt under their nails from their own excavation." 🌱

This reminds me of a piece from a book I read recently by Olivia Clare:"To pray, is to hope. To ask. To ask and wonder. What do you want to ask?" She did not look up. She tore at a tough stem violently. " You don't have to say it out loud. You can ask without using words." I said nothing. It was though I were asking something of the world without exactly knowing the words or what it was. A tendril of moss worked its grey way around a flowering weed. At the center of the petals, the heart of the flower sat like a gold eye. I almost left it there. But the gardens sprouts were overrun, would need to grow. I snapped the head of the flower clean from the stem. Josephine stopped, looked at me. "Good," she said. "Very good. Keep going now. Keep asking." I moved farther and faster. My hands clearing, attacking. Sprouts from the seeds we'd planted were more and more visible, like stars opening, brightening. I clawed and shredded, suddenly bursting, splitting the stems."

🌱🌱🌱

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