“Once more into the breach my friends…”

Shakespeare lovers will recognize these immortal lines from Henry V, as the king exhorts his men to once again brave the French spears and troops which outnumber them.

The Battle of Agincourt, which gave the British control of Normandy and made Henry heir to the French crown was not only pivotal in war history, but Shakespeare’s telling of the tale gave us some of the best lines in all of great literature.

What on earth does this have to do with life after 60?

Stay with me here.

This morning, in response to an article I had written on how so many of us speak of our sacred selves as elderly, I got this comment from one woman that made my day:

… In just 11 days my husband and I, along with two dogs and a cat, make a permanent move to Central America. Our goal is to live this chapter of our lives in harmony with nature and the local islanders. We will have 400 sq ft of living space until we are ready to undertake repurposing an existing structure that will be not much larger. We intend to live pretty much off-grid and as simply as we can. This project will be the most physical one of our lives and we anticipate it with nearly every emotion on the spectrum.

Oh, How I Would Love to Sneak into Her Luggage!

Sixty and Me published an article a short while back about living as an ex-pat. These folks are poised to do just that, having made this enormous decision to live on their terms, “off the grid.” Suffice it to say they have done their research and know what they’re getting into as best they can.

The rest? That’s up to the gods, if you will.

How Will You Live Late in Life?

The breach, in this context, is life itself.

The “breach,” the way I see it, is an invitation to take on what time we have and fill it with the kind of adventure which enlivens us, makes us youthful again because of the nature of the challenge.

The couple moving to Honduras is doing precisely what I have considered, and may yet still do, albeit my choice is elsewhere. I am still building out a new home in Eugene, and that was plenty enough adventure this past year.

The beauty of it is that the challenges involved with setting up and managing a big new home with plenty of deferred maintenance has kept me fully engaged and delighted, especially as my yard explodes with blooms and birds and breezes. Will I be here forever? Who knows? Another breach may open and invite me to leap in.

The couple moving to Honduras has signed up for hard physical labor at a time when their bodies will probably benefit the most. Not only is such hard work deeply gratifying, it’s also humbling for two reasons. First, that hard work will sculpt them into strong elders, confident of their balance and strength.

Will they injure? You betcha. At 68 I injure all the time because I am pushing myself all the time. AND I heal like a teenager and bounce back because I work hard and eat well, which this couple will most certainly be doing. That is a setup for success.

They have a plan, a purpose, and they are days away from leaping off the proverbial cliff. Oh, how delighted I am for them both.

The Real Battle

The Battle of Agincourt for all of us is the Battle of Aging. It’s the one we will ultimately lose, for we must. However, the skirmishes we encounter along the way allow us to celebrate those small but terribly significant wins which result in quality of life.

Nature will take us, but she doesn’t have to rob us of joy, adventure, deep satisfaction and the gratitude that you and I can feel when we wake up to yet another day. Our battle is to fight aging stereotypes, be willing to leap into life on our own terms, and fly our own flags of a life well-lived.

You don’t have to move to Honduras and live off-grid for that. Not at all. But when you and I choose life, when we are willing to do the work to be healthy, eat well, move much and reach out to friends, we are far more likely to feel heroic every single day.

To that I will end with another great quote from Henry V, which is an even greater truism today:

“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.” – Dauphin

Every single day offers us a chance to go “Once more into the breach.” Right now, my breach is at the gym, where I train to fight another day.

What do you do to add a touch of adventure to your day? Do you have great plans for your later years? How do you build the courage to take risks?

When I was six years old, at sleepaway camp, I wrote my first poem and sent it to my parents in a letter. I was extremely homesick, so writing those words helped me express and release those feelings. The form of my poem was different from those I would read years later during elementary school.

Narrative Poetry

It was informal and formless, and in today’s literary terms it would probably be called a narrative poem. Narrative poems tell a story in the narrator’s voice and are often written in metered verse. Often, they originate from a poignant emotion or image.

For most of my writing life, I’ve written narrative poetry either from a place of darkness or pain or a place of extreme joy. Typically, my poems are inspired by something relating to what is happening in my life at any given time.

Based on Emotion or Life Events

As a child, I wrote poems about my grandmother, who’d committed suicide. During adolescence, I moved on to poems about being misunderstood by my parents and all the restrictions they put on my life.

As a rebellious teenager, most of my poems were in the form of rants, except when writing love poems about and to my boyfriends. When pregnant with my first daughter, I was ordered to bed rest, so I wrote poetry as a way to help me cope during those lonely months.

I again turned to poetry as a young mother, in an effort to let my voice be heard while focusing on the trials and tribulations of parenthood.

Poetry for Healing

Using poetry as a way to be heard or to heal is quite common. An icon in the field of writing for healing is John Fox, a poetry therapist and lecturer. He teaches in the California Poets in the Schools Program.

Fox’s book, Finding What You Didn’t Lose, helps readers get in touch with their poetic voice and its ability to heal. Fox teaches about metaphor, image, sound, and rhythm while helping readers tap into their inner psyche.

He also poses questions that could serve as good prompts or seeds for poems, such as: “What scares you? What saddens you? What delights you? What intrigues you?” and “What do you appreciate about the person you are?”

Poetry in Medicine

Using these questions as prompts for a poem can help us tap into our emotional selves. Poets and those in the helping professions tend to be in touch with their deepest emotions. In my years as a practicing nurse, I learned that the most gifted physicians were those who are able to tap into the deepest parts of their psyche, as they had the innate ability to connect emotionally with themselves and their patients.

Over the course of history, there have been a number of physicians who were also poets. William Carlos Williams comes to mind as someone who wrote poems in between seeing patients in order to put into words the agony and ecstasy of his work. He wrote on the prescription pads he kept in his pocket. Other physician-poets include John Keats, Anton Chekhov, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

It is heartening that poetry has been incorporated into a number of modern medical-school programs, including Yale and Harvard Schools of Medicine. A few years ago, in an article in the New York Times titled “The Doctor as Poet” (December 1, 2011), Dr. Pauline Chen explained how poetry (both writing it and reading it) can help physicians empathize with their patients.

Dr. Rafael Campo of Harvard Medical School, who’s also an award-winning poet, talks about poet Marilyn Hacker’s “Cancer Winter,” which helps her colleagues understand a patient receiving a cancer diagnosis.

Expressing Pain in Poetry

In his poignant book, The Call of Stories, writer/physician Robert Coles discusses how over the centuries, poets who became ill were also inspired to share their experiences through poetry. He says, “It prompted them to look not only inward but also backward and forward – to ask the most important and searching questions about life’s meaning.”

Coles is an advocate of all narratives, and in his book he notes how much he admires poets and the merging of poetry and medicine. “Like patients,” he says, “poets are probably holding on for dear life to some words.” And for writers like myself, the use of language sustains us, as we have a deep-seated love for language and stringing words together.

In 1966, the Academy of American poets designated April as National Poetry Month, resulting in celebrations around the country.

According to the Academy, the purpose of National Poetry Month is to highlight the legacy of poets, introduce Americans to the joy of poetry, bring poets and poetry together as a form of community, incorporate poetry into school curriculums, and encourage the distribution of poetry books. It is a testament to the poetic form that such a celebration has been in existence for nearly 40 years.

Have you ever written a poem? What was it about? Was it prompted by a life event or deep emotion? Do you have a favorite poetry book? Please share with the community!

Kristin Cavallari’s White Cardigan on Instagram

Kristin Cavallari Instagram Fashion 2021

According to Instagram Kristin Cavallari recently paid a visit with her daughter to Uncommon James HQ where she sported a super cute (and still in stock fyi!) white button cardigan. And whether you decide to pair it with a skirt and booties like she did or jeans and sneakers, I think it’s safe to say that this piece is definitely bound to become the new CEO of spring. 

Fashionably,

Faryn

Click Here to Shop Her A.L.C. Cardigan

Click Here For Additional Stock

Additional Colours:

!function(d,s,id)
var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? ‘http’ : ‘https’;
if(!d.getElementById(id))
e = d.createElement(s);
e.id = id;
e.src = p + ‘://widgets.rewardstyle.com/js/shopthepost.js’;
d.body.appendChild(e);

if(typeof window.__stp === ‘object’) if(d.readyState === ‘complete’)
window.__stp.init();

(document, ‘script’, ‘shopthepost-script’);

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

Click Here to See Her Sold Out Isabel Marant Skirt

Click Here to Shop it on eBay

Click Here to See Her Wearing it in Italy

Photo: @KristinCavallari

Originally posted at: Kristin Cavallari’s White Cardigan