Solstice Musings

The Nostalgia of Perimenopause

On Solstice morning, I sat along the water’s edge to greet the sun after the longest night of the year. The science has caught up with us. Science explains to us that greeting the sun with our eyes is truly one of the best ways to support good sleep by “resetting” our circadian rhythms. I have often thought science is magic explained.

I say “reset” because have we ever “set” them, in this digital age? Do we even realize how out of sync we are with the true nature of living?

Anyhow, as I sat, I pondered what feels like a nostalgic quality to perimenopause. In the autumn of our lives, we see our children, and then we think back to our own childhood.

At this moment when we have probably lived about half of our lives, we look back with all kinds of feelings. Reminiscence. Regret. Gratitude. Grief.

We consider all that we imagined for ourselves, some of which has, and some of which has not come to fruition. We feel the loss of what was not. What is not. I always thought I would be married with two kids. I have one amazing kiddo, and would not change that for the world. And I am met with this longing for the second child, I never got to meet. Longing to still have my child’s other parent in the world. To share life together.

Life is funny. It’s a fantasy. We broke up so many years ago. And yet, here I am, longing for what was not, is not, and will never be. It is part of the human condition, to long for what is not.

More longing. For my child to stay a child. To stay innocent. And the grief of him growing up and away. Still close, and becoming “autonomous”. That is what we are supposed to hope for our children, right?

Except I wonder about the culture that tells us that we must have rupture from our teenagers as they “individuate”. Many parents buckle down because they don’t want to let go and they want ot have a certain amount of control over their children. And then the new age parenting philosophy of not making them do anything they don’t want to do because we are all autonomous beings.

Both are problematic in their own ways. We are not here to control our children, and we are here to guide them to be good people, to live in the world in a good way that respects those around them. And if we don’t, for example, teach them to clean up after themselves, what kind of roommate or partner might they make someday?

Is it not the same culture that insists we must have rupture for our children to “individuate” that also has created this capitalist mess that reveres individualism?

I wonder if we truly need that rupture, and yet, living in the world with the structures as they are, somewhat naturally breeds the conditions for that, right?

Musing back to nostalgia, I remember life without smartphones, when having a clunky carphone meant you had a certain level of wealth. We hear this nostalgia in every generation. It is both a product of the autumn and winter seasons of our lives and how much is changing and how quickly.

I remember when my grandfather took me to the movies, and was astonished, because it used to cost him a dime to go to the movies. He’d be rolling over in his grave if he saw the cost of going to a movie now.

I watch the water and the still light reflected upon it, and I felt a nostalgia for something I never even experienced as a child. It was like an “in my bones” feeling. I remembered some other version of myself from another lifetime, playing at the stream as a child, bringing tea and crumpets and splashing in the sunshine.

We were always meant to watch moving light as a way to regulate our nervous systems. Like a fire where we sing, dance, and be in council together. My teacher Rosita’s teacher Don Elijio, said his tribe used to gather to listen to the dreams of the menstruating women and receive guidance as a community. We used to watch the sunlight or the moonlight dancing on the water, alone, or with beloveds.

Now we individually scroll our lil light boxes as a (highly ineffective and counter productive) way to regulate our nervous systems. Right when we wake up and right before we go to bed. We are entrained this way now. Even those of us who remember a time when we did not have these devices. Hard to imagine our children now will never live without one.

As I watched the still light on the water this solstice morning, I felt all the feelings. Gratitude. Grief. Regret. Reminiscence.

Blessed Solstice Beloveds

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