Everything seems to be keeping me away from HIVE at the moment - life seems a good kind of busy. Every time I sit down to write, I'm pulled into a project or realise I should do something 'proper' productive, as it were, rather than sitting in front of a screen. Weeks of remote teaching has one very adverse to screens.
Yet here I am, on the eve of my 50th birthday, musing about where my life's at. It's not a bad thing to sit here and contemplate as the bath runs and my honey lover a.k.a. husband is up shop getting me a nice organic bottle of red. Bitcoin's doing okay and I just treated myself to a set of camera lens, ordered online. Australia Post is doing a shocking job getting things here - I had to wait three weeks for an order of herbs to come from Queensland. But parcels are ordered, and are delivered. Fifteen years ago it seemed a miracle that we would be able to watch movies online instead of going to the DVD store. Now they arrive at the click of a button and you can order anything from a take away meal to a lifetime's supply of peppermint tea, if you are idiotic enough to misjudge exactly how much a kilogram of dried herb actually is.
Me at 44.
On Friday night we had a dinner at a Greek restaurant in town - not the one that was shut down for one case of COVID - with my folks, who I'm grateful are still alive and healthy, my sister (who I'm getting along with better than I ever have in my life) and her husband and the boys, and my favourite uncle and my aunty. We're not allowed to have big gatherings and you cannot invite people to your home. I won't see my son in Melbourne until the end of October, as that city is enduring what is officially the longest lockdown in the world. Who would have thought I'd turn 50 during a pandemic? I'm suprised that I didn't, given the amount of dystopian and post apocalyptic fiction I've devoured in my life. Zombie Australian nation aside, it was a nice dinner.
On Saturday we went to Angelsea, a coastal town not twenty minutes from here, taking the long route through the bush with the Landrover. We're blessed with a huge national park and beautiful coastline right by us. Funny how (despite living in the UK for years) I end up not thirty minutes from where I grew up. I still long for Europe, but it's a nice place to live, all told. We are the kind of people that long for adventure, so sometimes we're resentful about staying put. Turning 50 has not put a dampener on my desire for travel, and we feel a sense of urgency that some grand adventure must be carried through before it is too late. Saying that, Jamie knows someone who is 90 and still travelling and doing adventurous things. Being old doesn't mean you can't be a gypsy. You just need to ignore everyone that suggests you can't be.
And so, we plan. The garden is magnificent and I'm loving creating it, but in the back of my mind I'm trying to make it easy to maintain so that anyone who rents the place whilst we are gone doesn't find it difficult and we don't return to a jungle. Despite knowing we might leave, drought might be on it's way or any number of disasters, it's wonderful to put my hands in the dirt and make something. Connection to nature is everything to me. I talk to the herbs, the chickens, the birds. When the bees see Jamie coming they buzz around him and he freaks out. 'It's because they don't know you, honey' I say. 'They're making a scan of you so they know.'. I walk past them with namaste hands. Greetings, bees. Thankyou for everything you do.
I thank my husband for everything he is. I still can't believe how blessed I am to marry the love of my life. It took me til I was 30 but it was love at first sight and I still find him as sexy as that first day and he makes me laugh. I don't know how long we have together on this earth, but I'm bloody happy he's on this journey with me. I think he's getting me an online mushroom course for my birthday. I've ordered reishi kits through the post. A few are already growing in my bathroom. I want a mushroom empire. Every time I'm in the polytunnel I hear the lyric 'my empire of dirt', sung by Johnny Cash, not the 9 Inch Nails version, though that's great as well. I miss live music. I just play it loud in the garden instead, from reggae to jungle to raga to americana to mali music to mantra and everything in between. Or podcasts. Is being old listening to podcasts? I wish I'd got into podcasting. My son's getting into radio. I'm excited for him. He writes beautiful album reviews. He just got engaged. Beautiful boy.
The older I get the more hippie I become. I'll be wearing purple velvet next. I watch the moon pass across the sky, plant accordingly. Contemplate which plants are ruled by which planets. Talk to mugwort. Sing mantras as I light smudge sticks. Hang prayer flags from the garden. Make medicines. I feel like I'm becoming who I always was, but who's been hiding a little for being in a job that forces me to be something else. With only a few months to go, I am less worried about who I'm meant to be in this position. What are they going to do, sack me? I'm already gone. I want to die the ends of my hair blue and get another tattoo. Perhaps getting older is a little bit like being a teenager. There's some kind of becoming, anyway.
I'm feeling defiant in all kinds of ways. I think I'll become even more of an outsider but relish it this time. I'm becoming the witch I read about in books when I was young. The ones I was always attracted to with all kinds of plants drying from the rafters and jars of herbal medicine who lives on the edge of the forest. I'm making all kinds of brews for Christmas presents and vow not to buy presents this year. My favourite is a damiana love syrup, made of honey, apple cider vinegar, damiana, rose petals, schisandra. I want to study, but I don't want to pay 50K for a degree to have any kind of legitimacy here. I'm working out my herbal pathway, but I think it's witchy. I just want to make potions and pass them on. Make food that people enjoy when they are finally allowed to visit. But I want to study still, because I need the intellectual stimulation. That's who I am too.
I'm excited about what's next. I could have ten years, or forty. Either way, that decade between forty and fifty was long, and I did alot. I adventured, I loved, I became. I have many stories. I know things. I have passions. A friend of mine just retired and she has nothing to do. I have everything to do, and more. I'm so excited I'm trembling in my skin suit. Every cell is recognising who I am and who I want to be.
Happy birthday to me.
With Love,
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Happy birthday to you!
Thanks very much!
Wow! Happy birthday to you.
Best wishes
Thanks very much x
You are welcome
The happiest of birthdays to you my friend! Love all that is going on for you at this stage in life. I have quite a few dear people in my life turning 50 in this next 6 months, and I'll be hitting 40 in the spring. I've loved my 30's, but have a feeling this next decade is going to bring even more abundance and growth! There really is something to growing more into our skin as we take in every experience through the days, weeks, months and years of life. 💚
Thanks so much! 40 is awesome. I loved my 40's. It always gets better, though there's always big hiccups along the way.
Many happy returns of the day.
Thanks so much x
Happy Birthday, @riverflows!!!
Thankyou! xx
The best for you!
Thanks very much x
@tipu curate
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Happy Birthday, Beautiful, Wonderful you! I am so happy to have you in my life and I so appreciate you and all that you do, all that you create and share with us on here. I have this dream now of walking to India with a Donkey, once my girls grow up, meet you somewhere on the way?
Traveling is a huge part of who we both are and I can't wait to meet you in the wild someday, sit round the fire and howl at the moon with you. The world is a better place with you in it @riverflows. Big big love and huge respect to you xxxxxx
Oh wow yes I'll be there! That sounds like an amazing dream. A long walk and a howl at the moon together sounds perfect. Love you so much xx This is a gorgeous message to recieve today xx
No partying allowed in Victoria, Australia! Thanks babe xx
Still in lockdown? Sorry to hear. Well then have a drink at home ;). Just read that you were or are taking some time off of Hive. Hope all is well and life is still treating you good. Sending you the best wishes from the other side of the world.
🎁🎂🎈🎼💃🍹🎉
Thanks so much! My mother made me the most incredible orange cake ever, I danced in the garden, enjoyed wine and whiskey, but no cocktails or balloons I'm afriad...
The balloons and cocktails may arrive late according to my crystal ball. Shipping issues.
Happy Birthday!
Happy big 5.0 to you! I love reading your contemplation, a lot of it rings true with me, not everything and that's o.k. that's how it should be. I am sure that if I were to retire any time soon, I'd be like you and not like your friend.
Happy b-day and happy soon-retirement!!
Thanks! Semi retirement is something to look forward to - I'll still have to earn a little something! Maybe just on HIVE haha
Sounds like a very good plan - good luck with it!
Saddening what Australia--what we understand as one of the freer countries there's is--is going on.
Anyways. This is no moment for lamenting; it's celebration time. I want to wish you a happy birthday, full of contentment and dabs of breaking the law (go aglomerate a bit, just don't mix bicycles and wine as we know what happens next \o.)
I would take care of your house with only one condition: I'd need Buttercup's keys.
Oh no, never bicycles and wine. I started to ride again a few months ago and promptly fell off and injured myself. I'm never getting on a fucking bike again dude.
Hahahahahahah you couldn't drive it - too many sticks.
Nooooo! Just when I thought you'd become a cyclist as well. hiihihhhih
That's the fun of driving Butter, figuring out how to tame the beast (without crashing)
happy birthday to you @riverflows. Whish you all the best!
Thanks so much!
Happy birthday! Wow, I didn't know you turned 50 this year ❤️ You seem to have had a nice celebration 🙂
I really like reading this:
I entered my 40s earlier this year and to be honest I feel old. As a part of my life is over, or lost opportunities. But of course, I know I have to be able to look at it in another way.
Anyway, this post sure is inspiring ❤️
xx
Oh it's all about how you see it. I thought the same at 40 but actually quickly realized that there was still adventures to have. To be honest I feel even more excited about 50! I'm pretty young at heart I guess and I know that life is what you make of it. COVID is making everyone feel older and as if life is slipping by - but get outthere girl and live! You are young and beautiful... xx
Happy Birthday to you! What a celebration of what you've become and what you think you might progress to! Just loved this post!
I think back to when I turned 50 and I was still pretty sick, 2 years away from the turnaround to growing most of my own food.
I am delighted that you have your husband and I so hope you have 40 more years together!
@goldenoakfarm, thanks so much you gorgeous woman. It's funny to look back, isn't it, and see what's happened since. And you are so fit and active, a real inspiration for me! I spent a day weeding on the weekend and I'm still groaning!
Geez if you only knew! I am a LONG way from fit and only active for 5 - 6 hrs per day before I die. I just cram in as much as I can before I die. LOL
happy birthday dear friend @riverflows
may all your wishes come true
Thankyou, but we've never met?
You are very right dear friend @riverflows, that is the magic and beauty of Hive, that you can receive a birthday message from the other side of the world
I greet you from Corrientes-Argentina, a place in South America. Have a beautiful week
Happy birthday to you. singing ...always love the humor you slide in there. Dystopian zombie apocalypse. Really hope for the best. I guess life only gets started and when we think we did enough, it's always great to have that attitude that there is so much more we can do or learn. You were born during the brettonwoods collapse? So interesting. Your drive, passion and creativity is inspiring and from the depth of my heart i wish you a very happy birthday. Much joy to you and all your loves ones.