THE IGNOMINY OF WHITE

Over the hill...double time! That IS what SIXTY is, right?

I am, as of today, two months and one week, to the day, away from discovering what it means to be

OVER THE HILLS X's TWO.

I've been trying to remember what I felt when I was THIRTY and tipped over the ORIGINAL hill.

I had just gotten the restraining order, after nearly eleven years of trying to get my ex husband out, so I was both

in heaven...no more fearing the door opening at 6:00 and a night of what most people would call unimagineable horror...

and hell...the SOB cleaned out the bank accounts before I gave them any thought and was now responsible for the three of us with only the four dollars in my wallet.

Still I felt light as a joyfilled feather when I stood outside, with the broom in hand, beating the accumulated snow from the branches of the bushes surrounding our home. My first breath of free air in decades.

For me, then if THIRTY was over the hill, it was the hill of freedom and joy. I could see pristine lands ahead with promise and hope. Not terrifying...nothing could be as terrifying as what I'd just wiggled out from beneath.

Three decades later? Our sea temperatures have risen. And me?

SIXTY...Life it seems has a sense of humor, and not always funny.

I was not longer haunted by 6:00, but what I hadn't realized was the things done before I turned thirty had

buried roots deeply into the very marrow of my being and had no intentions of letting me ever completely walk tall and without encumberance.

For awhile I pretended. And was very good at it...not always to my son's appreciation. It didn't please him when people mistook me, his dear

old Mom for his girlfriend, but hey, I never actually DID anything to stay young looking...it's just in my genes I guess, like the high cheekbones, the only feature others can see of my Native American heritage.

I cared little about fashion...if I wore t-shirts over bikini tops and bottoms it had more to do with trying to

stay cool in the sweltering humidity of the dog days of summer than in trying to catch the eye of any admiring attention.

I died my hair, not becuse I hated the idea of letting nature take its course, but because I was still trying to compete, once I'd earned my teaching credentials in my late forties, with graduates half my age...age discrimination DOES exist!

Until the car accident eleven days after 9/11, I didn't think one way or another about the advancement of the double hill, but here I am, little more than two months from the apex of that climb.

Should I stand on that mountaintop, beat my chest and scream about my accomplishments? And what would they be?

Enumeration time...How I hate enumeration time...On this side we have the good and on that side the...well...not-so-good. Since it's MY birthday coming up, you'll forgive me if I leave off the not-so-good list won't you?

GOOD SIDE COMING UP.

1. My daughter. I don't know how many mothers and daughters have the kind of relationship Kat Holmes...my very prolific, beautiful daughter and I have, but not a day goes by I don't thank God and my guardians for blessing me with being this young woman's mom.

2. My son. His smile can erase so much hurt, and we have all known hurt. In finding his Forever, his smile radiates filling this mom's heart with so much joy.

3. My Grandmother...had she not been my mother figure during my first eleven years I would never have survived. I don't think I can claim any credit for her, but she must have seen something in the little me to make me worthy of her love. She even called me "Little One". Every time I hear or see those two words strung together I think about her. Miss you Nonnie.

4. Now we get to the tough parts..because this is MY accomplishments section.

My son tells me I am the most over-educated slug he knows, and he's right. I am EXTREMELY well educated, but those roots I spoke of earlier in this post, have never let go, and no matter how bright I might be, or how hard I have worked, the roots suck up the positive, turn it into negative, releasing it into the body making another new challenge from the damage my marriage left behind.

It seems the body IS mendable, but only partially. Think of how your own body reacts to a break in childhood. Come adulthood, that break spot comes into burning life every time the weather stirs your arthritis awake. Imagine your enire body being riddled with arthritis...that gives you an idea.

So I'm educated up the royal wazoo, but I don't teach, don't preach, but, yeah, I guess I leech...

But I write too...And since being contracted by Muse last March 29, 2010, and becoming a part of the Team I am acquiring MY DREAM...I already have 13 contracts with more coming. This is also the

happiest year of my entire life despite any and all setbacks.

For the first time more than Kat appreciates the voice within me, but also the rest of me. I cannot function at many things, but they, My Muse Family, and the others that have come to know the voice that weaves the stories I write,

have felt the woman that lives beneath the mangled roots, the one my ex never quite destroyed, no matter how hard he tried.

So the ignominy of white.

Kat and I don't have a lot of THINGS...and we are always learning the stuff we have is wearing out faster than we can afford to replace it. But that's nothing new, and it's the new that makes the change.

On December 12th I officially turn SIXTY, and I have the white hair, the pains, the hesitations to prove it, but I have also found a place that allows me to be all that no one has wanted me to be in the past and moreso. My glorious publisher urges me to write MORE...can you believe it?

I have found a home with people that like, respect, and yes, incredibly

...I only had to wait until I reached the riper age of 59.

Did I need to go through so many trials to appreciate what Muse and the Muse family would bring to me?

I don't know.

Maybe God just wanted me to finally find the joy He'd been promising me so I'd keep putting one foot before the other during the harder years.

Maybe God wanted these years to wash away the sense I never belonged during the majority of those first 59 years.

The thing is I am here...I'm about to reach that pinnacle and when I reach the top if I can only choose one word to scream out in unadulturated joy I know what it will be

MUSE!

Thank you my Muse family. You truly have given both Kat and I more joy in this one year than we have ever known.