North Beach, 1978

Yes, that’s me  – the one in the middle with the sensible hat and Hollywood sunglasses – with my daughter and son enjoying a beautiful day at the beach over thirty years ago.   I’m sure  there was two-piece bathing suit underneath my shirt. 

My journey to becoming a crone has been a slow one day to day.  It has been a bit like T.S. Eliot wrote in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”: “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”    Then at the end Prufrock confesses, “I grow old…I grow old…/I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled./…I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.”

 DEFINITIONS OF A CRONE:

1.  an offensive term that deliberately insults a woman’s age, appearance and temperament (insult)

2. a woman aged over 40 (approving; used by one woman to another)

3.  [14th century.<Old N French carogne “withered old woman,” literally “carrion” <Latin caro “flesh”]

4.  hag

5.  a withered, witchlike old woman

The Wikipedia gives a more detailed description of a crone throughout history.

There seem to be good crones and bad crones based, rather like witches, on how one chooses to use her knowledge and experience.  I prefer to think of myself as a modern crone who has survived women’s liberation, menopause and the realization that some  dreams may never come true.  But I can’t complain as there is life still to be lived!  There are relatives and friends who died young and will never have the sweet pleasure of growing old with someone, and  I will never know what they would have been like at my age.

So I will use this format to write about tales, trails and connections  to almost anything that washes up on my coast and hope that perhaps some will find it worth checking out!

The Coastal Crone