​My Life

My late husband and I built a log cabin on Mesa Poleo in the early 70s. We did not inhabit it too long, just over two years but that time is an indelible part of my existence all of these years later.

​Lynn Zotalis, Hippie at Heart

Cerro Pedernal, the infamous northern New Mexico landmark…
the mesa peak I always wanted to hike up
but in the years I lived so near, just a few miles away
past Youngsville between Coyote and Gallina,  I never attempted it     and now?
The peak requires a steep hike on very loose rock, a short, Class 3 wall,
and a narrow, exposed trail eight miles up and back.
 
I just may have missed this one
now bowing to my muscles that require continual preservation
or maybe it’s conservation, nonetheless,  definite constraints
undeniable but not ready to admit defeat.
Certainly limits that can be quite unforgiving at this stage of my life,
for instance, I’m resigned to no more cartwheels. Well, pretty much.
 
I’m forced to be reasonable, sensible,  oof, I do not like that moniker
but now I often have conversations with my peers about mindfulness
exhorting them  and me  to watch where we walk to avoid missteps, to stay upright.
DON’T FALL! especially when I consider the consequences,
how traumatic brain injury may result.
 
Aging is not for sissies. It is a shock, that gut check
noticing the changes now so blatantly undisguised.
Drooping lids, jowls, neck waddle following down, down, down
to these appaloosa legs, one might say roan. Mottled, spotted, splotchy,
red and purply stippled. Could be reshod?
Arms peppered, freckled brown spots like a connect-the-dots puzzle.
The gray streaked mane, tow head to platinum, even though gradual
it was notable the year it morphed.
 
Did you know that green chili synthesizes collagen,
reduces inflammation for healthier aging?
Now that’s the best reason for consuming vast amounts of my favorite stew.
I’m truly not that obsessed with the decade’s effects upon this body,
I continue to take notice, to appreciate the days,
the waning years as they take their toll, unescapable father time.
 
I reevaluate what’s treasured, and of course, family is paramount.
Precious photos in my faded albums, innocent, tender faces,
the imprints etched deeply upon my heart. Those old albums are stored
with easy access, staged for rescue from any disaster.
Possessions are one thing, I’d relinquish them all, save for those memories
stored in 3 x 3 images. I take some comfort in the fact that I live in the middle,
New Mexico, far from rising oceans,
oceans that possess too much melancholy for me personally.
 
I ponder all of the ones that have passed on,
try to make sense of loss and I must resign questions to fate,
a conscious effort to let go and release those to the other side
submitting to the seasons as trees shed their leaves
transmogrifying back to the earth.
 
What’s happened to my face, my body, tells the story of experience,
the love, the laughter, the tears   I speak gratefulness to the lumps and lines,
the hues and patterns that weave history and memory together
in one unique crazy quilt, blanketing my shoulders, wrapping it around
absolving       absorbing the imprint every single thread holds,
the elegantly designed material of life
resonant in wakening waves
of understanding.