Bonja the Bodger

Sacred space…

I’m at the point in my life where cashiers younger than I am call me “Sweetheart”. Thankfully, I’m also at another point in my life: the one where I can graciously accept it. For a while, I wasn’t sure about this whole getting older thing. It was all kind of weird, actually – sort of a second teenagerhood. I was too young to fraternize with the Elders, and too old to hang around with the young’uns.

But sixty-two has proven to be something of a magic number; almost a kind of sweet spot. My body certainly doesn’t lie; I’m sixty-two not twenty-two. And I occasionally have to rest between rounds of yardwork…especially when the heat index approaches anything north of ninety-five degrees. But instead of catching myself thinking, “Shit, I must be getting old,” as I often used to do, now I simply smile and think, “Well, it’s not like I have a deadline…“

Those of us with garages or sheds that double as workshops understand that free space is a privilege. Mine, for example, is packed to the rafters with odd-sized lengths of various kinds of wood, tubs of billets waiting to be turned into spoons, carving tools, a meager but appropriate assortment of power tools, a lawnmower, a couple semi-retired bikes, a rolling shop table, other bits of assorted stuff too numerous to mention, and a nearly ready-to-braid harvest of this year’s garlic. I’ve gotten used to walking – and working – in there through dedicated practice. It’s easy for things to pile up after a while. Still, with a bit of adjustment, I can find the room to put my feet up with a craft beer or a cup of coffee, look upon my work, and call it good.

There’s a sacredness to the spaces in between things. They’re little doorways that allow the Medicine in. They give us time to rest and breathe, to harvest what was planted in the action, to take it in and let it nourish these bodies of ours which move, perhaps, just a little bit slower these days…

Ben Jezierski

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4 responses to “Sacred space…”

  1. That’s a great attitude and better way of looking at things. At literally half your age, 32, I’m already doing the same: I’ll think, Damn, I’m getting old...lamenting the way I used to stay up until midnight writing without a problem, conveniently forgetting that I was taking a lot more drugs then (legally) and woke up incredibly tired the next day. There’s always a give and a take, even if we don’t realize it at the time.

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    • Yes, there is. Back in my hell-raising days, I could stay out until 2AM three or four nights a week, work a full day, and party like a Roman on the weekends. I used to believe I was indestructible. When I eventually started pulling away from that lifestyle, I felt I was losing my edge. As the years (and decades!) passed, I’d watch myself and the people I hung around with getting older, heavier, angrier, sicker. So many of us seemed like we had something to prove. Perhaps the truth of it all was that we had something to deny. Which, I guess, is ultimately why I walked away from most of them. I knew if I didn’t, either I’d end up hitting the wall, or worse, the wall would end up hitting me. At any rate, now that I’ve come out the other side of those years, I’m more than happy to settle into the 9:30 bedtimes and – mostly – clear-eyed 5:30 mornings.

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      • I truly wish more people could come to that conclusion naturally, but I think it takes a lot of introspection. That’s a luxury not everyone is afforded for various reasons not worth getting into—but people like you sharing your story makes it easier for the message to disseminate. (It might sound like I’m kissing your ass or blowing smoke, whatever that phrase is, but I’m really saying that because I need it to be true for me and my “message” too!)

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      • Thank you for that. All we can do, really, is take our truth into the world and carry it. If other people get something out of that, great. If not, there’s nothing we can do. The hardest thing, at least for me, is staying out of other people’s paths and letting them heal in their own time and in their own way; especially with people I love. But that’s on me. Best thing some people ever did for me was to walk away and let me fall when I needed to. I would never have made it to where I am now if I didn’t learn how to get back up. Maybe that’s trite, but experience has shown me the truth of it…

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