• An Open Book: TMSW’s Library
  • Copyright
  • Food for Thought Recipes
  • My Right Eye: A Medical Memoir by Marci Rich
  • Praise and Awards
    • Writing Badges
  • The Midlife Second Wives’ Hall of Fame
  • Who is The Midlife Second Wife?
    • Contact
    • FAQ
  • Read Me On The Huffington Post

The Midlife Second Wife ™

~ The Real and True Adventures of Remarriage at Life's Midpoint

The Midlife Second Wife ™

Monthly Archives: January 2013

Moving to Encourage Good Fortune

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Transitions

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Good Luck, Life, Life Changes, Love, moving, Poetry, Relationships, William Stafford, Wisdom

MorgueFile Image

MorgueFile Image

You’d be forgiven for thinking I’ve fallen off the map. I haven’t been blogging much lately because my life is about to change in a whopping big way. After two-and-a-half years in the fascinating city of Richmond, Virginia, my husband and I are preparing for our return to Northeast Ohio. Or, as I like to call it, the Land Where I Met the Love of my Life.

You’d be right in thinking: “My goodness! Didn’t she just uproot herself to move from Ohio to Virginia? I remember reading all about it on her blog.”

Well yes. Welcome to life in the 21st-century, where job changes occur with greater frequency than they did in our parents’ generation. My husband’s new job—a really terrific one—is the magnet pulling us back, and it’s a good move for many reasons, although we’ll discuss the frigid climate another time. My son is getting married this fall, John’s oldest son is receiving his doctoral degree in May, and we will be much closer to his younger boy. Our boys, I should say. Our sons. None of this “his” or “mine.” John and I believe that our blended family feels very much like an “ours,” although, sometimes, old speech habits are slow to catch up with the heart.

As for myself and this move? Well, I can write and blog anywhere—from the top of Mount Rainier, if I have to—as long as there’s Internet access and I don’t have to climb to get there.

But for now, I’m here, chipping away at the slow deconstruction of my tiny office in our Richmond townhouse. I’ve just removed the artifacts and “familiars” that adorn my bulletin board, and at present I have on my desk a great treasure. It is a poem, yellowed with age and riddled with pinholes. I will carefully tuck it away in a file for the move to Ohio, where it will resume its rightful place—I want to say like a talisman, but that’s not quite right and you’ll see why in a moment—in my new office. I also want to say I hope it will bring me luck, but again—habits of speech tend not to catch up with the heart. The poem is about anti-luck, or, as the late American poet William Stafford called it,

The Little Ways that Encourage Good Fortune

Wisdom is having things right in your life
and knowing why.
If you do not have things right in your life,
you will simply be overwhelmed.
You may be heroic, but you will not be wise.
If you have things right in your life, and you
do not know why, you are just lucky,
And you will not move in the little ways that
encourage good fortune.
The saddest of all are those who are not right
in their own lives who are acting to make
things right for others.
They act only from the self, and that
self will never be right;
No luck, no help, no wisdom.

—William Stafford
(1914-1993)
©  1960, 1998 The Estate of William Stafford
Used with Permission of the Executor, Kim Stafford

When I emailed the poet’s son, Kim Stafford, asking for permission to reproduce this gem of a poem, I wrote that this is likely to be one of the poems I’d like read at my funeral. His reply?

“Perhaps the poem is more useful in the midst of life, when one can act so as to encourage the little ways …?”

And of course it is, which is why I’m sharing it with you here, thanks to Kim Stafford’s good offices, and why I’ve always kept it close to my heart, where old speech habits—even reflexively wishing someone good luck—sometimes lag behind.

Kim also shared something his father once said: “I must be willingly fallible to deserve a place in the realm where miracles happen.”

So I won’t wish good luck for myself, or for my husband or our boys. I shall will myself—and them—to be fallible in order to reside in the realm where miracles happen.

I wish that for you, too.

Note: Kim Stafford is an associate professor at the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling in Portland, Oregon, where he directs the Northwest Writing Institute. He tells me that he and his colleagues are at work planning “The William Stafford Centennial, 2014: 100 Years of Poetry and Peace.”

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Don’t Look: She’s Not Who You Think She Is

07 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in The Well-Dressed Life, The Writing Life, Transitions

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

Fashion, Fashion Mistakes, Style

FashionMistakeMidlife2ndWife

In the early 1970s, when I was in high school, a boy in my class had an older sister who worked for Glamour magazine. She edited its wickedly fascinating “Dos and Don’ts” column, with its pictures of ordinary young women going about their lives in various stages of street-scene activity. Unbeknownst to them, they were about to become anonymously immortalized as representing either sartorial savvy or a cautionary tale. If a face happened to be included in a photograph, black bars strategically placed across the eyes shielded one’s identity, sparing any number of poor girls the humiliation of being caught in broad daylight wearing ankle-strapped platform shoes with palazzo pants that were, sadly, too short. And with a panty-line to boot.

Believe me, having that kind of second-degree proximity to a fashion arbiter did make me think twice before getting dressed for school in the morning.

There’s little evidence in my own photographic archives to suggest that I had a terrible sense of style, or was prone to making serial fashion mistakes. In fact, I like to think that I was something of a snappy dresser, despite coming of age in the 1970s. Yes, I once purchased a belted polyester pantsuit, and I wore it with ankle-strap platform shoes. No, no pictures of the atrocity exist.

I did, however, come across this photo. What’s so wrong with it? you might ask. Well, quite a lot, actually.

The real fashion mistake here, aside from the tight curls that looked as though Harpo Marx dipped his head into a bowl of India ink, is the fact that this woman is not dressing for who she was.

Can’t blame her, really; she didn’t even know who she was.

The bridge in the backdrop of this studio portrait is fake. Even the pearls. And yes, the dress was polyester.

It was 1983, and she had dressed to play a role—the role of a certain kind of wife, a certain kind of woman. She was just starting to become who she was going to be…who she was meant to be. But she wasn’t there yet.

The word “corporate” comes to mind. This is a corporate look, whereas the woman fastened into it has a creative temperament. There was a poet and writer inside, struggling to get out, but it would be a year or so before the chrysalis would crack.

It was a film that would do it. She had recently seen Educating Rita, in which a character (played by Julie Walters) undergoes a metamorphosis through the study of literature, helped along with the tutorial guidance of Michael Caine’s character. Rita’s costume changes chart her evolution from tarty hairdresser—a streak of pink in her blond hair to match the color of her smock—to bohemian college student, dressed in studied earth tones, her hair allowed its natural brown. At the end of the film, Rita’s transformation is complete. Frank, her professor, presents her with a graduation gift: a dress. He bought it, he says, with “an educated woman” in mind.

“What kind of education were you giving her?” Rita jokingly asks.

I suppose the point of all this is that nothing represents our true selves better than our clothes. They are fashion markers charting the evolution of our growth and (at the risk of getting all New-Age-y), our self-actualization. In truth, the woman you see pictured here wasn’t representing herself falsely after all. Like Rita, her dress just hadn’t caught up yet with her education.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

On Waking to a New Year Without Revelry

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by themidlifesecondwife in Special Events, Transitions

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

Life, New Year, Poetry, Resolutions

Calendarcropped2

MorgueFile image

Last night at midnight a New Year dawned,
But what did I do? I stretched and yawned.
For I was asleep, warmly snug in my bed
While visions of calendars danced in my head.

It was not a good year, two thousand and twelve,
And I’m glad to leave it behind on the shelf
With all of its storms and horror and grief
That threatened to shake my firmest beliefs.

I awoke to the news—not done in a jiff—
That our Senate averted the dread fiscal cliff.
All that remains is to rally the House.
Will they do the right thing? Or grumble and grouse?

I’m so weary of fussing and fighting, my friends.
Can’t we all get along? Can’t we all make amends?
Let this be the year we do the right thing
For our future, our children, and all living things.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...

Twitter Updates

  • Hi there! I changed names; please follow me @marcirichwriter instead. 5 years ago
Follow @midlife2wife

Company

  • 166,877 Guests since 8/24/11

Receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 2,938 other subscribers

Topics

  • Current Events
  • Food for Thought
  • Giveaways
  • House and Garden
  • Humor Me
  • Indulgences
  • Inspiring Women
  • LifeStyles
  • Love
  • Midpoints
  • Monday Morning Q & A
  • Money Matters
  • Nostalgia
  • Portraits of the Artist
  • Product Reviews
  • Relationships and Family Life
  • Remarriage
  • Second Weddings
  • Second Wife Hall of Fame
  • Secrets to a Happy Relationship
  • Special Events
  • Technology
  • The Beautiful Life
  • The Cultured Life
  • The Healthy Life
  • The Life Poetic
  • The Musical Life
  • The Reading Life
  • The Well-Dressed Life
  • The Writing Life
  • Transitions
  • Travel
  • Well-Dressed
  • What's the Buzz?

RSS Feeds

  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Archives

  • July 2019 (1)
  • December 2014 (1)
  • November 2014 (1)
  • October 2014 (2)
  • August 2014 (1)
  • June 2014 (2)
  • May 2014 (2)
  • April 2014 (3)
  • March 2014 (3)
  • February 2014 (3)
  • January 2014 (4)
  • December 2013 (9)
  • November 2013 (2)
  • October 2013 (3)
  • September 2013 (6)
  • August 2013 (5)
  • July 2013 (6)
  • June 2013 (2)
  • May 2013 (3)
  • April 2013 (1)
  • March 2013 (1)
  • January 2013 (3)
  • December 2012 (7)
  • November 2012 (7)
  • October 2012 (12)
  • September 2012 (9)
  • August 2012 (6)
  • July 2012 (4)
  • June 2012 (5)
  • May 2012 (4)
  • April 2012 (1)
  • March 2012 (10)
  • February 2012 (8)
  • January 2012 (9)
  • December 2011 (10)
  • November 2011 (30)
  • October 2011 (18)
  • September 2011 (12)
  • August 2011 (2)

Networks

NetworkedBlogs
Blog:
The Midlife Second Wife ™
Topics:
Relationships, Life, After 50
 
Follow my blog

bloglovin

The Blogs of Others

  • A Baby Boomer Woman's Life After 50
  • A.B. Westrick
  • Alexandra Wrote
  • An Empowered Spirit
  • Apart from my Art
  • Author Meg Medina
  • Better After 50
  • Books is Wonderful
  • Dame Nation
  • Darryle Pollack: I Never Signed Up For This
  • Dating Dementia
  • Diana Patient: Photography
  • Empty House, Full Mind
  • GenerationBSquared
  • Grandma's Briefs
  • Grown and Flown
  • Midlife at the Oasis
  • Midlife Bloggers
  • Midlife Boulevard
  • Midlife Mixtape
  • Reason Creek
  • Relocation: The Blog
  • Romancing Reality
  • Second Lives Club
  • The Boomer Rants
  • The Succulent Wife
  • Think Denk
  • WHOA Network
  • WordCount

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • The Midlife Second Wife ™
    • Join 448 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • The Midlife Second Wife ™
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: