To Helen on My 50th Birthday
Me: Hi Helen. It’s Carolyn Jacobs. I was just watching your beautiful recent video on Instagram. I’m heartened to see what you’re doing with the work and your travels — an admirably full and adventurous life. Any chance you’ll be in, or close enough to, Los Angeles in May to join me for the lowest possible key gathering I’m having for my 50th birthday?
Helen: Oh Carolyn. It’s so nice to hear from you, and 50 – boom time flies. I’m pushing 70. I will be in L.A. in June. Maybe we could celebrate you while I’m there?
Me: Celebrating me per se makes me cringe… celebrating what you mean to me feels more like it.
Helen: Ah, well at 50 one must begin the celebration. If not, when? I did some of my best work in my 50s.
I was 18 years old when I met Helen. It was my freshman year in art school and Helen was my professor. She was smart, confident, funny and at ease in her craft. There was a warmth and heartiness to this woman, artist, teacher, mother that I admired for reasons I didn’t yet understand. I was drawn to Helen. She inspired my effort as a student and my trust as a human.
Recently, as I exchanged love and ideas in the text messages above with Helen, an ache welled up in my chest and I cried. I was overwhelmed with a mix of longing and gratitude. I’ve spent some time considering what was stirring in me. Was it simple nostalgia? Was it appreciation for Helen’s encouragement in the vulnerable time of my life that she appeared? There was the career fostering job to which knowing her had led and then launched me professionally – was there something in that youthful adventure for which I was longing?
In the days after these messages with Helen, I would think of her and the tears would swell again. I stayed more and more still in each visit from those sensations and then I got to it the way you finally realize to what time or place a flavor or scent is taking you. I was not longing for Helen or the time of my life when she first appeared. I was feeling something about myself now as related to my ideas of her always. There was a way about Helen as she moved in my world that I found beautiful, grounded, and hopeful and as I reflected on that I began to see myself. I let that longing become present joy, spreading over me like warming sun.
Reaching out to Helen as I process this poignant birthday was some wise and elegant work by my subconscious. The most positive, resilient parts of me knew that what she’s about has always buoyed me. Helen connects me to the best things I’ve known about others and myself. These are the feelings and ideas that keep my north star shining bright when the water’s feeling choppy. My mind and body were spot on to process her messages as the mix of longing and gratitude that was swelling from my heart into my tears. I have found my way to being my version of the things I admired in Helen – and, importantly, for reasons I do now understand. The tears come in that more mature knowing.
I mentioned that Helen inspired effort and trust. I’m proudest of my most vulnerable choices because they require the most courage. I inspire this effort in myself – I am my own Helenosphere. And there is no better feeling for me than having earned someone’s trust – the way Helen had mine. I’m clear that happens most easily when I offer myself or approach someone from a mindset solidly aligned with my values. Earning trust requires listening with compassion, responding with humility, and moving thoughtfully. I work at this every day – personally and professionally. Some days I do better than others. Learning how to acknowledge the faltering and reset is the work now. Compassion, humility, integrity, connection, and resourcefulness – these are the touchstones filling in my hands when I am being the me that earns trust and regenerates my effort.
I offer this personal reflection in this professional space for the reason I was moved to publish Leap. This is to say, that if anyone reading this finds a kernel of themselves here then my hope is that we’re connecting through this piece. Maybe it will even buoy you in some small way. Who along your way has been a subtle, but meaningful guide or inspiration? Are you able to tell them so or pause on their memory with new insight or appreciation? If these aren’t your kernels, perhaps I’m offering you a way to see or accept someone in your life who might be struggling with these questions.
I have every reason to believe I’m going to “do some of my best work in my 50s” too – as a mother, writer, friend, co-parent, daughter, coach, and all the other things at which I work. There is a unique glimmer of joy in the sense of synchroneity this puts me in with my unassuming hero.
If not, when?
If not, when?
If not, when?
Now.