She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow…” -Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

Twelve years later, and I’m still staring off into the distance. Still contemplative. Still searching. Still moved deeply by the territory around me. But no longer sitting my sadness on an elbow.

I’m not so concerned with how hard aging has hit me, as the profile pic challenge that’s circulating asks us to show. I’m proud of my transition from maiden to mother and the way my body has carried me faithfully through these years. Although when I ask my husband what he sees in the first picture, the first thing he says–in a detached way as an art historian might–is “youthful breasts”. Yeah yeah yeah, thanks, buddy. I know I now have undeniably maternal breasts, tugged on by baby mouths ticking clockwise and counterclockwise and winding backwards and forwards to every degree. My breasts are more like the long hand now, swinging fast and free.

But the differences that I see, the shifts that strike me sound more like: “How hard has freedom hit you?” “How hard has reckoning hit you?” “How hard has self-knowledge hit you?” “How hard has becoming and unbecoming hit you?” Cosmically hard in my case. Gloriously hard. Blessedly hard. The explosive creation of beautiful new worlds. [Read more…]