The very talented Thalia Took at Amused Grace has brought forward a meme that I can really get behind. 

Here’s the deal:

1) You have to have a blog to participate in this.

2) The first three people who sign up in the comments will receive some sort of kindness from me.

3) Those three people then blog about it at their place and offer the same to the first three people who sign up, who blog about it at their place, and offer kindnesses to the next three, &c., &c., &c., until the Kindness Revolution is unstoppable due to Newton’s Second Law, where f=ma.

4) The act of kindness can be whatever you like; it can be a little gift you mail to someone, or it can be something more intangible; whatever fits your circumstances, budget, or personality. It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant, certainly; just something to put a smile on a stranger’s face.

5) Link back to this post in your post.

I will post later on both the kindness I receive from Thalia (a reading from her new Goddess Oracle Deck) and the kindness I send to others.

I am by no means a Crone yet.  In our community, “crone” is a title of wisdom, respect, and (I believe) well-earned eccentricity.  I have a few more years. But I have been thinking a lot lately about the stage of life I am in — no longer a Maiden, but not really a Mother in the conventional sense, since I don’t plan to have children.  I find myself in this strange betwixt and between state where I have some experience, a few years, and a lot of responsibility to others.  Three sizes of Maiden, Mother, Crone do not fit all! 

Today, Holly Witchey at the Cleveland Museum of Art writes with wit and wisdom about the life stage she finds herself in career-wise in Mine is the Cronedom: 

For the past several years I’ve been not-so-easily transitioning, in my working life, from being one of the Bright Young Things (BYT) in this field to being one of the crones.   For better or for worse, women in this field turn into crones while men seem to turn into the “grand old men.”  Fair or not fair, this is what it is and just in the past few months I’ve embraced my inner “crone” and found life considerably easier by following a few rules:

–speak when I have something to say and not just to hear myself speak

–tell the truth

–don’t get angry

–never ever be harder on others than you are on yourself

On the whole, it’s easier being a crone than a BYT because the only pressure is the pressure I apply to myself.  Crones are, on the whole, invisible and that allows one to accomplish a lot more behind the scenes. 

Today is my 38th birthday.  Usually I love my birthday — a day all about me with presents and cake!  I’m a big believer in the miracle of cake (with lots of icing).

But here I am wondering how I got to be 38.  I don’t “feel” 38, whatever that is supposed to feel like. Almost 40…I don’t really feel mature enough, on the inside, to be “middle-aged.” And given that the women in my family usually expire around 80 to 83, then I’m about at the middle of my life.  I don’t feel young, but I don’t feel old, and I certainly don’t feel “middle-aged” — whatever that’s supposed to feel like.

Sometimes I wonder if it is because I don’t have children. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel fully adult (and here I am 38!).  I was 15 when my mother was 38.  I can’t even imagine having a 15-year-old, let alone a 5-year-old, let alone caring full time for a baby!  I wouldn’t know where to begin. At my age, my mother was working 2 jobs, caring for me, and starting a church.  Well, I am pretty busy myself with all I’ve got going on, but…

Is it that I don’t feel like I’m doing enough, or that I feel like I should have done more with my life so far? Will I still feel silly and awkward and unsure when I am 60? And yet, I have done many things in the last 10 years/20 years, things that have generated positive changes in others’ lives and brought people together.  Things that don’t “seem like much” to me, primarily because I did them, but I know that they took a lot of effort and impacted the community.

Anyway, happy birthday to me. Here’s what 38 looks like on me.

And here’s the new kitten that is currently bringing me loads of laughter and joy.  His name is Hermes.