Today is my solar return, though according to the Christian calendar my birthday is tomorrow. I share this day (technically January 19) with three women whom I consider geniuses, cultural alchemists, phoenixes who make art from their ashes so as not to waste an inch of this Earth’s precious resources. Sweet and sour Janis Joplin died young—she burned herself right up at age 27, talk about economical—but Dolly Parton and Cindy Sherman keep reinventing themselves with a pixie purity and a fulsome smarts that I only hope is my true legacy.
I am middle-aged now, and this feels so right. Capricorns aren’t comfortable being young—it doesn’t fit with our old-soul selves—so I only now am becoming truly comfortable in my skin. At this solid age I’ve finally learned enough to be of service to myself and our struggling nation, to get out of the way of the light that shines right through each of us when we’re lucky enough to let it. These days I love more than I hate, glow more than I glower, and leap more than I languish. This is what being a grown women really entails, and nothing—not the Trump administration, not even death—can change it. It is an honor to celebrate my birth the same week as we commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, and the same few days that we collectively protest dark-hearted empire. I am ready to do everything I can, and so grateful that each one of you are marching with me in this great parade called life.
Today is my solar return, though according to the Christian calendar my birthday is tomorrow. I share this day (technically January 19) with three women whom I consider geniuses, cultural alchemists, phoenixes who make art from their ashes so as not to waste an inch of this Earth’s precious resources. Sweet and sour Janis Joplin died young—she burned herself right up at age 27, talk about economical—but Dolly Parton and Cindy Sherman keep reinventing themselves with a pixie purity and a fulsome smarts that I only hope is my true legacy.
This is what being a grown women really entails, and nothing—not the Trump administration, not even death—can change it. It is an honor to celebrate my birth the same week as we commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy, and the same few days that we collectively protest dark-hearted empire. I am ready to do everything I can, and so grateful that each one of you are marching with me in this great parade called life.