So I've made it to an age...

...the number of which I typically round up to sixty rather than round down to fifty.  I guess I'm lucky to still be alive.
Doesn't feel like it.  Except for this--

Dancing At the Edge of the World             Essays by Ursula K. LeGuin

Worth the price of the book for the Bryn Mawr Commencement Address alone.  She makes us stop and think about the three languages we learn--the Father Tongue, the Mother Tongue, and (if we're lucky), the Native Tongue.   The graduating students whom she addresses have heard the Mother Tongue from their earliest days.  They were once fluent in it, yet it is in danger of vanishing from their hearts as they pursue the future--success in a man's world.  The university education will teach them to speak the Father Tongue and thus parrot the whole set of values that go along with it--distancing of self from object; the importance of primacy, rule by might and the assumption of right.

But the Native Tongue is one they must learn on their own-the language of life that can only be felt and heard and smelled and sung.  It cannot be described--to me it is "the singing voice" but to you it may be something so different, it's best not to name it.

The rest of the book is lively with essays, writings, travel logs and book reviews.  You can pick and choose as your fancy flies.  I loved the flow-of-consciousness-style description of her journey across America.  It reminded me so well of the places I'd seen.  And the trip through a section of England made me remember of why my life list must include a trip there, just to amble through the country lanes and stir up the dusty footsteps of my cultural ancestors.

 I was shaken out of sorts by the feminism--no--call it womanism--of The Left-Handed Commencement Address.  The theme of this address might be to "be at home on the night side--the side of life that is the opposite of success, domination, power."  The night side, the dark heart of the forest, the origin of humanity.

 I'd not have missed these essays for any number of calendar years.