Time Makes You Bolder

And I'm getting older, too.

“Take care of each other. Save the world. You can!”

This is how Stevie Nicks closes out many of her shows, after singing “Landslide” as an encore, including Live In Concert: The 24k Gold Tour, the double vinyl that begins most of my mornings, but especially my natal day.

In the mists of time (the early aughts), two friends and I would convene in their room, draw crescent moons on our faces, and lie on the floor listening to Stevie Nicks for hours. We were the gypsies that remained, we were just a wish, we were sisters of the moon, we were on the edge of seventeen. Around this time The Chicks announced they would cover “Landslide,” and we were aghast.

“Nobody should cover Stevie!” we lamented. One late evening a few months later, wandering the aisles of the Blockbuster video that used to shine its neon lights onto 94th & Broadway, we heard the cover on the radio piped through the store. Dramatically, we shielded our ears (we were teenagers studying theatre, after all) and waited it out.

While I have grown to appreciate that cover, in general I stand by what we insisted all those moons ago. Stevie’s songs are more than music and lyrics. They are memories and they are spells. Only one can harness their power.

And so, every year as I’m getting older, too, I sit and ponder those lyrics, and ask myself the same questions:

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

My senior year of high school, I completed a college-level astronomy class, which was as much philosophy as it was physics. Although I explore the evergreen questions of humanity through art, what a delight it was at seventeen to sit as a peer with those using science to understand our place in the Universe. I realized then what I’m rediscovering now: science and art are requisite companions through space and time, holding hands on the journey to seek the most elusive answers. As Camille Hernandez noted, “Both are pursuits of wonder.”

While I mostly rely on the arts to bring me whimsy and magic day by day, on my most recent solar return, four poets and star sailors were circling the moon, in a mission named after the goddess Artemis, reminding us all of the beauty of humanity and our spinning blue orb.

Astronauts have taught us that time is relative, not absolute, proving Einstein’s theory. There is no universal now. Time belongs to each of us, and our own personal path through space. My relationship with time, and aging, has evolved over the years. Growing up in the entertainment industry, I was terrified of the number creeping upwards. Funny that age itself, paired with a few instances of life-threatening trauma in my case, is the only balm.

What a gift it is to have sunshine, and birdsongs, and morning coffee. How lucky are we to have today and hopefully tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. For all my sisters who returned to stardust far too young, I carry you with me, and getting older is an honor.

To the gypsy
That remains
Her face says freedom
With a little fear
I have no fear
Have only love
And if I was a child
And the child was enough
Enough for me to love
Enough to love
Stevie Nicks, “Gypsy”