Stepping Out of My Own Frame

Midlife Elsewhere · The workshop, not the gallery. Letting you in before I know.

The blank page is where I come to do my thinking (I think through my fingers) and these Midlife Elsewhere posts are where you get the present, unresolved and the messy middle, in hopes that my thinking might help yours. A weekly dispatch from a midlife in motion, with the thinking still wet on the page. These posts are a benefit paid subscribers who want access to the workshop, not just the gallery.

It’s Thursday morning at Water’s Edge and I am living my Midlife Elsewhere on the edge of the ocean. The ocean has been as still as a lake all week. I’ve had a lovely week of work, writing, and husband time spent swimming in the pool, swimming out to the beach in the ocean, and reading with cups of tea on the patio watching the salmon pink full moon rise in the sky, casting a silvery trail to our bare toes.

I started estrogen patches about a month ago on the recommendation of my friend Nic (who I am constantly sending thankful thoughts to across the ocean), and I seem to have my mojo back. The hot flashes that I have been struggling with for five years, and was dreading would continue into the Bahamian summer seem to have taken their leave. I also seem to be more present and able to put my 2026 word “savoring” into action more easily than the first 4 months of this year. Even with a number of personal worries that have been absorbing much of my brain capacity, I am experiencing small moments of total contentment, and in another strange development seem to have my super-sense of smell back. Olfactory memories are popping like fireworks. Estrogen, maybe? Talk to your doctor. :-)

On the work front, a major development shook everything up this week. I didn’t feel the need to announce it to the larger (free) community, because it was an organic growth moment for this publication, but I wanted to let you in on it.