The streets are filmed with rain; and in the gleam of the neighborhood Christmas lights, they glitter in the darkness like a movie set. I slept in till 6 this morning, and now the first streaks of day smudge the sky, the houses hunch black-windowed and quiet in their tiny yards, the cat is out racketing among the bare shrubs. 

This will be a peaceful weekend, I hope. Today I'm going to go into town to do some holiday shopping with my neighbor, then finish up the housework I didn't get done yesterday and spend time with poem drafts, maybe rake leaves if they're not too sodden. After being sick and traveling for much of October and being sick and on the road or entertaining for most of November, I am pleased to be beginning December at home and in good health. No traveling next week; then an overnight to Monson during the following week; then Christmas in Massachusetts with Tom's family. Compared to my recent schedules, this month's is almost civilized. And that is not a thing I often say about December.

I feel as if I need to halt the clocks, stop and take stock of where I am and what I'm up to. This year has been a windstorm of family emergencies, a close friend's death, other friends' sufferings, job upheaval, and public anxiety--and not just for me. So many people are enduring their own versions. Yet it's also been a year of revelation: learning that it's never too late to develop generative new friendships; building confidence in my skills as a teacher and mentor; writing the best poems of my life; strengthening bonds with old friends; basking in the affections of my children. These days, I am beginning to recognize that I'm on the cusp of old age. How do I want to enter this era? I want to stay physically viable. I want to be as loving as I can. I want to ponder the definitions of rest.

Here's one definition I've figured out. Over the past year, I've taken to doing a small thing that, oddly, has helped me out a lot. When I catch sight of my face in a mirror, I smile. At that moment my aging skin, my graying hair become immaterial. Despite my jaded, judgmental eyes, the smile transforms. It steals my attention from complaint; it reaches out, self to self, in pleasure and anticipation. Vanity is not the point. The eagerness of connection is all. Hey! my smile says. Nice to see you!

How is this rest? On the simplest level, the smile exchange slices away tension. It is a pause. It resets my default busyness; it stops me in my tracks. But the smile also reminds me of how easy it is to exude dissatisfaction and how often the public display of unhappiness stems from anger at fate: How have I gotten old? How could this have happened to me? The thing is: when I smile at my aging face, I stop thinking of myself. That seems counterintuitive, but it's true. Instead, I begin thinking about the pleasure of receiving a smile. No matter how old I am, I love it when a face lights up at the sight of me. In those moments, I never think, Gosh, that smiler has a lot of gray hair, and I bet their neck used to look so much better. I'm absorbing the electricity of their presence. So if I give myself the gift of a smile, I'm also reminding myself to give it to other people. There are worse things to be than an old lady who smiles.

I apologize if this post comes across as an annoying self-help sidebar. Feel free to ignore it, to go on with whatever better ideas you've figured out. Because that's all this is: just a little idea I figured out for myself that helps me forget to mourn my shiny youth. My shiny youth had plenty of sorrows--love angst, vocation angst--that time has smoothed away. Being old has its compensations, and one of them is compassion: for all of us.