How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you - you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences - like rags and shreds of your very life.
~ Katherine Mansfield

I suspect we all have places we love. Locations that mean something to us. Where we feel most like our authentic selves. Cities. Countries. Towns. No place. Every place. Wide open spaces. The beach. The mountains. The desert.

I had occasion earlier this year to spend an extended amount of time in my most favorite place in the world – Manhattan. While the weather was less than cooperative (blizzard, anyone?) just being in the city and embracing the pace of it, the feel of it, the essence of it was good for me. Deep down to my soul. I wrote and thought and rejuvenated.

So, here’s this week’s Bodacious Point to Ponder:

Went to a concert last night. Rodrigo y Gabriela.

Great show – amazing musicians (both highly accomplished guitarists), with technical skills like I don’t think I’ve ever seen.

But what really struck me, especially about Gabriela, was the passion and joy with which she played. It radiated from her. It was infectious. In the way she played. In the way she moved. In the way she smiled. In the way she interacted with the audience. You couldn’t help but enjoy watching her perform because she was so damn delighted to be there. Doing her thing.

Got me thinking. Thinking bodaciously, that is.

So here’s my question of the moment, Bodacious Ones: What activity that you do/did/want to do gives you unbridled, gleeful joy? What’s your “thing?”

Don’t be shy. Don’t be embarrassed. Just be yourself. Let your light shine and share YOUR joy. We can't wait to hear about it.

WHOOOOOO!!!

You know you've morphed into a Woman of a Certain age when...

*Sleeping on the couch makes your back hurt.

*A $5.00 bottle of wine is no longer considered "the good stuff."

* You go to the drugstore for Tylenol, Pepsid and anything with SPF in it, rather than condoms and pregnancy test kits.

*"Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn!"

* "I just can't drink the way I used to" replaces "I'm never going to drink that much again."

*You suddenly realize, while watching Leave It to Beaver that Ward Cleaver is a handsome son-of-a-gun.

When did this happen?

At what point did old Ward become really rather hot? And snarky, too.

At first I chalked up this rather unsettling opinion to sleep deprivation and exhaustion -- after all, it was dark o'clock in the bloody morning when I was tuned in. But after catching a glimpse of a LITB episode this afternoon, my new perspective was confirmed: Ward's kind of a DILF.

He's tall, dark, and charmingly dapper in that '50s suburban dude way. And had a bit of a wise-cracking side that I never noticed before -- it was very subtle, but evident in his interactions with June. Sure, he's uptight -- what man in that era wasn't (and Maynard G. Krebs does not count) -- but when he'd sport that cardigan sweater in his bookcase-lined den and light up that pipe... well. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

I'm a little disturbed by this -- it's frickin' Ward Cleaver for goodness sake. Does this mean I'm going to start finding Lou Grant a little alluring? Or Mike Brady dishy? See what Maude saw in Walter Findley? Look at Mel Sharples with a lascivious eye? Imagine an intimate tête à tête with Oliver Wendell Douglas?

Maybe. At this point in my hormonal evolution, nothing would surprise me. After watching a suddenly rather hot Ray Romano on Men of a Certain Age earlier this year, well...

I’m one of those people who dreams. A lot. Both the day kind and the night kind.

And while I can control the day kind, the night kind is more of a renegade. Those dreams. A different beast. Sometimes silly, sometimes inscrutable, sometimes crazy. Those I can process. Then leave behind, save for recounting the most interesting ones.

It’s the scary dreams I have a hard time leaving behind. Especially the ones with recurring themes.

And I have one in particular that haunts my very soul.

It involves Will. Dying. Young.

The moment I realize what’s happening in my subconscious is a tough one, as I fight like hell to wake up to stop the tragedy from playing out. Sometimes I’m successful. Sometimes not so much.

I had one of these dreams the other night. Days later, I happened to mention it to The Mister in casual conversation.

He got very quiet, then told me he had a similar nightmare. Except it involved us dying, leaving Will alone. Uncared for. Homeless and vulnerable.

Sent a shiver up my spine. Pierced my soul. Careened tears rolling down my cheeks

Even now.

And while we’re taking steps to prepare for Will’s financial future – a will, a trust, prudent planning – the future in general is daunting and frankly, a little terrifying from this perspective.

We do not know exactly what Will shall be as he matures and grows older. But I am realizing that our less-than-standard issue path is going to continue. And while I privately mourn little things that I once took for granted, I know I need to check all my guilt of the past and my uncertainty of the future at the door for the sake of Will’s present. So that his issues of the past can be handled in order for his future to be as brightly maximized as possible.

It’s not easy.

It makes me pensive.

And more than a little blue.

But it is what it is.

I hate the elephants in the room. Hate them. Wouldn’t wish them on anyone. And it seems addressing them doesn’t make them any more pleasant.

I just need to resign myself to the fact that they’re there. Get prepared to clean up the shit that they drop (and boy, do elephants shit a lot.) And figure out how to carry on. Bravely.

For Will.

Always for Will.