Candling
a vocab word that’s good to look at for my birthday.
I’ll tell you right now that there ain’t nobody ‘adjudicat[ing] my release from childhood.’ I wasn’t a child kind of ever. A very old soul put into a very brilliant brain/body, all added up to a spookily mature kid. Plus I’m Gen X, which means my childhood was …well let’s just say I wasn’t coddled. Now that’s not the same as not loved—I want to emphasize this, amidst all the Feral GenX Discourse™ you’ll find online. Some of us growing up in the ‘70s/‘80s were indeed neglected, ignored, and/or abused. Of course. I was not—my parents definitely paid attention to me and did their best with what they got. Both things can exist concurrently. I’m reminding you of this because of how starkly black and white the Discourse™ has tended to be in these current times of culture (and other) wars. As far as dressing a little nicer? Well, I do own a birthday tiara.
But anyway. I’m turning 53 tomorrow. As such, I choice this beautiful vocab word to allow myself to Muse like the wind about my life…
Candling
I got this word from that supernally frustrating and beautiful book, the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows,1 that continues to make me jealous/fascinated every time I crack it open. The author concocted this word from the farming term candling, which is a technique used to check on unborn chicks: you light a candle and hold it behind an egg, and supposedly you can see how it is developing, or if it’s not. I feel like this image is a profound one, for the practice that he suggests as the definition for this particular use: to ‘take stock of your life on the occasion of your birthday.’ What a lovely thing to picture: holding a light behind my life to see how it’s coming along.
Burning the Candl[ing] At Both Ends
And so. Time to do the thing:
For my birthday candling, I’m gonna choose 3-5 things to hold the light behind and Muse upon (since I’m 53, 3-5. Get it?) on this, my birthday eve. Let’s see, where to begin?
My Marriage
Now that I’ve begun this prompt response, I realize that some of my life bits I’ve chosen to reflect on might sound pretty boring to a reader. Like: I celebrated my 1st anniversary (relationship as a whole: around 8 years. Unless you count when we very first met, which was about 35 years ago) last week, and… well, it’s just great. That’s not very exciting. Nice to be living it, though. No, but like: my husband and I both marvel daily at the level of not only love, but *respect* we have for each other, the support we give to each other for better and worse, in sickness and in health, and most amazing? We simply enjoy each other’s company.
My Travel Adventures
This of course is connected to my lifelong journeys through the issues and puzzles related to money, as so many things are (including many of my Popinations from this past year). This is also related to my marriage, as now I have not just one set of parents to visit, but three. Travels during this year of my Musing birthday reflections have included: Cedaredge and then Crestone for one set of my in-laws, lovely little ‘sea’side town of Empire, Michigan for the other set of in-laws, and of course London for our honeymoon.2
That’s almost a separate item itself—having several sets of parents. It’s new to me, as my first husband was very estranged from his father, and his mother passed away just before we’d met. And I’ve never had children myself, so the extended family thing is not something I’m used to. And because they’re all in their 70s, all of them are undergoing health issues of one kind or another, and so that’s just a constant thing to pay emotional attention support to. So we can maybe call this a third item I’m candling? Here’s the heading, after the paragraph:
My Various Parents
Speaking of family, I must reflect on:
’My’ Kid
I don’t actually have kids; I never have. However, my husband has two. I get along with both of them swimmingly, but I happen to have more in common with the younger kid, and so we’ve had a very lovely stepmom-stepkid relationship, especially this past year as his older brother has moved away to college. I continue to be surprised at this whole parenting thing, and often don’t even think I’m doing such a thing, as I didn’t know him as a baby, let alone he didn’t come from my body, either. But, just like now I have a bunch more parents, now I have kids. Mostly one kid, since he’s the one who’s around. I love admiring his progress in his own artistic pursuits, and some of the nicest lunches out are when the three of us (his dad, him, and me) go out to the Metal Themed Restaurant3 and talk about life over appetizers and the best green chile in Colorado (which is saying something). Is this the pride that parents feel? Is that what this is?
The Arts
Of course, as impossible as it is to make a living at the arts, I remain quite active in especially the performing and literary arts, last year being a particularly robust artsy year for me. My variety show, Blue Dime Cabaret, has put up one spectacular vaudeville/variety show each month, and they’re all so great. I’m proud as punch of the casts I concoct for those, and apparently plenty of our audiences agree, as we won the People’s Choice Award last Spring at Boulder Arts Week. That has been one of the major ongoing projects I’m most involved with continually and it’s just so much fun. Plus, in this society right now? It’s a powerful form of resistance. Oh, and! one of my one-act plays got selected to compete in a contest called Drop Your Shorts. This means I’m acting in and directing it, too.
The other major artistic project I’m continually working on, is, well. This. This very thing. This Substack. It’s been wonderful having such a readership as youse, but so many good brain-food activities within the writerly community, too. Right now I’m starting both John Halbrooks’ Beowulf and LOTR readalong, and Breanne’s LOTR one as well. And I’ve begun an analog literary practice this year, which involves me acquiring at least two print periodicals per month for the full year. So far I’ve found some fascinating stuff.
I’ve also gotten a few essays and poems published on various online and print journals and magazines, AND! My book Crowns of Gold came out at the end of last year!
I’ve also been a spectator at a few things, which is unlike my norm—I like doing the things, but rarely enjoy watching others do the things. But I’ve gone to several ballets in the past couple years, and that’s actually been a lot of fun. Sometimes I take the kid with me and we snark about our people watching, just like his dad and I used to do at the opera.
Welp, that’s 5 things, properly candled (is that how you conjugate that? Must be). Sounds pretty complete. I’m living an interesting life, in interesting times, and not always in complicated or bad ways, either. Not too shabby. Oh, and several new tattoos. That’s worth reporting too, right? Anyway, raise a glass of whiskey or bubbly, or a forkful of cake to me tomorrow, yeah? And I’ll see you on the other side of my new year.
Also Boulder for my own parents but I don’t count that, as that’s only an hour away.