Boxing With Babushkas

“Owen! Noa! Theoooooo! Let’s go. FAST! C’mon. We are in a hurry. FASTER. PLEASE.”

These words, in various sequences, are tersely snapped so often they’ve hit semantic satiation-status. (At least that’s what I’ve surmised by the frequency at which they temporarily lose all meaning for the listeners.) But on this particular day, while my two boys grumbled yet dutifully obliged, my daughter stood stock-still, looked me straight in the eyes, and said with cavalier, crone-like confidence: “Fast is NOT my favorite speed. Try slow. Slow is my favorite.” 

This. This is the energy I’m bringing into 2024. 91-year-old woman energy. That intoxicating IDGAF-spirit that only emerges from truly not giving any. To be unapologetically yourself. To unflinchingly speak truth to power. To move through the world with certainty and conviction. To let them. And somehow, my 4-year-old daughter tapped in 87 years early, which I find equal parts hilarious, maddening, and inspiring – and earnestly want to channel in my own life. So naturally, I shared this revelation with two trusted confidants: could we unleash our inner Margarets,* Mamies, and Esthers today? One responded: “[son] knocked a chair over and hit an 80+ woman, who whipped around and exclaimed ‘And how the hell are you?’ Life goals.” The other replied: “Help me do that!!!” then recommended I make this my Boxing Day topic.

So here we are dear friends, we’ve made it to Boxing Day #19 (which has formally morphed into a state-of-mind, not a day, based on the scrubbed send-date data). And whether you’ve been a ride or die since “high fives in ‘05” or landed here after googling “champagne chalet” and mistakenly slipped into this vortex of formulaic fortune cookie wisdom and wordplay, I’m happy you’re here. For real. Considering we’re firmly in that lawless, cheese-fueled state of nothingness between Christmas and New Year where time exists only in mimosa units, I’d recommend you pour yourself a flute of time and stay. Slow down and savor, even. Become the couch. 

Slow is not something I’m great at. Those who know me well or have had the pleasure of traveling with my “arrive at the airport with just enough time to walk on the flight”-archetype will appreciate the understatement. Japan’s Shinkansen bullet train reaches speeds of 198mph. It earns every accolade thrust upon it and is truly an exhilarating way to travel. Shortly after leaving Tokyo Station, you start whizzing past the bucolic Japanese countryside and before you know it, almost impossibly soon, you’re at your destination. What you missed in between? No time to know – you’re onto the next city, whizz. Next adventure, whizz. Next challenge, whizz. I lead a Shinkansen life – complete with a team of people managing my schedule and optimizing my routes to support it. Exhilarating and accolade-filled? Sure. Also, almost impossibly soon, Owen is 10. Whizz! We are conditioned to do more and get more and have more and be more. To hustle. To grind. Grit and tenacity were tattooed on my brain in middle school as the definitive markers of strong character and success. And at a time in my life when demand for my attention comes at an all-time premium, slow feels like a luxury I can’t afford. The timer never stops running, right? All you will regret is not reaching harder for the things you actually wanted while they were still in front of you, right? But what passes by as I’m hurling toward my next stop at 198mph?

I know I will miss these caricatured versions of the growing faces in front of me. I’ll miss the lasts as much as the firsts: the last bedtime story, the last bubble bath, the last mispronunciation (RIP leggybugs, marshpillows, hanitizer, and “hold you”). “Mommy” certainly is not long for this home’s nomenclature. They too are hurling at Shinkansen-speed toward their destinations, with stops at each next stage of their own becomings, leaving outlines of their smaller versions behind at each station. I was reminded by a friend during a particularly hard week that in 20 years, I’d give anything to be this age again, exactly this healthy, and airdrop into my life just as it is today. To savor the senses – the sights, smells, sounds, touches – that will all fade with time no matter how tightly I grasp. A core sentiment of Japanese culture is mono no aware. Literally “the pathos of things,” it describes the bittersweet appreciation that everything is temporary as it’s the ephemera itself that makes life so infinitely precious. (Irony not lost that the pioneers of the world’s fastest train also pinpointed the poignant emotion of transience, the beautiful sadness in the passing of lives and objects.) Whether experienced on a figurative park bench or whizzing by at 198mph, seasons in life are not to be mourned, but cherished in their impermanence. My friend reminded me this too shall pass, whether I want it to or not, then urged me to “go do more main character shit before it’s too late.” And no one does main character shit like old women.

Culturally, crones get a bad rap. The dictionary’s first entry greets you with pleasantries like “an ugly, evil-looking old woman,” “a sinister, cantankerous witch” or my personal fave and winner of most relatable: “the withered hag.” This is no surprise considering its etymology – crone comes from the early 13c. Anglo-French carione, meaning "dead, putrefying animal corpse.” [i.e. once aged out of fertility and child-rearing, women become gross, useless carcasses. Cool, cool. Long live the patriarchy!] But the second entry starts feeling (less cynically) familiar to my lived experience: “an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman.” “An old woman of great power and strength whose life wisdom comes from both her age and the many things she’s lived through.” There we go – the crone is the matriarch. The babushka. The granny Orca. Moana’s tūtū Tala. The mythologically revered and formidable bearer of ancient wisdom and supernatural vision, ruler not only of regeneration but of the underworld because she has no fear of death – which means, of course, she fears nothing. Native American mythology, including my own Potowatomi tribe, is filled with tales of an ancestor called Spider Grandmother, who weaves the web of creation from which all other living things emerge. She symbolizes the interconnectedness between all things, imperceptible strength and resourcefulness, and the power of mind-body-soul balance (fun fact: dreamcatchers are crafted in her honor). Numerous other myths around the world depict spinning and weaving goddesses like Lauma, a mythological Latvian doula who spins the cloth of life. Like old women, spiders can inspire awe and fear disproportionate to their size. 

To be human is to confuse a satisfying story with a meaningful one, so while society collectively converges around the cultural blight of withered hags running amok and the present danger of glabellar lines to fixed foreheads, I’ve become fixated on channeling my inner crone – the badass old lady who dwells within me, molded by matriarchs, whom I hope to someday fully become, crow's feet and all. In a society that fetishizes youth, I choose fearing nothing over staying forever 21. To be both fierce and compassionate. To bring the strength and discernment to know what must end for something new to begin. To try slow: less doing, more being (it is Noa’s favorite, after all). And to welcome the innate uncertainty of life, not by lamenting impermanence, but by basking in the beauty of change itself. 

There is beauty in life and, so long as we live, there is beauty in death. The cherry blossom blooms intensely, yet only for one week each year. As the flowers die and petals drop, blossoms blanket the ground like soft, pink snow. It’s the profound appreciation of their transience that draws crowds, standing in awe of their delicate nature, capturing their utmost beauty between the precipice of life and death. To be truly at peace under the cherry blossoms is to know mono no aware. We must embrace change as it rises with the sun and whizzes with the Shinkansen because we too are like the cherry blossoms – beautiful not despite, but because of our impermanence. This year more than any other, I’ve learned that while you can’t control the waves, you can track the tides and grab a surfboard.  

I’ll leave you with the babushkas of Chernobyl – a resilient, spirited group of elderly women who defiantly returned to their ancestral homes after the disaster, and who are now outliving their compatriots who stayed behind in the "safe" and "non-toxic" cities. In her TedTalk, Holly Morris explains “It’s not that the women haven’t suffered enormously, or that nuclear contamination isn’t bad (they have and it is), but the babushkas’ unlikely survival raises fascinating questions about the palliative powers of home and the tonic of living a self-determined life.” Tl;dr: these tough old crones are thriving because they’re happy. And they’re happy because they do exactly what they want. That is the level of IDGAF-spirit I aspire to. I can’t help but reflect on the strong women who shaped me – fierce, loving, loyal, force-of-nature-type women – who are so clearly reflected in the company I keep today. Descendants of our Spider Grandmother. They remind me to breathe and to “try slow.” That I haven’t met all of me yet. That there is so much more life left to live. And when I tap into my own inner crone, when I ask myself what my spider grandmother would do, that radiant, ancient being rises, catches me with her fearless gaze, and weaves the same powerful message every time: live.

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*Dedicated to the legacy of Margaret Ann Hilley, who "loved fiercely and without reservation, was stubborn as hell," and shaped some of my very favorite people on the planet. And who, by the interconnectedness between all things, played a significant part in who I am today and who I will become. Thank you, Nana.