On midlife vulnerability and custard

Where's the fucking zest?

Group IV, No 7, The Ten Largest, Adulthood, Hilma af Klint, 1907

“There is no greater power in the world than the zest of a postmenopausal woman.” Margaret Mead

I just went to the post office, my first outing in weeks after a long, miserable (supposedly non-Covid) illness. Driving there, I felt like a naked baby bird, possibly not yet ready for the chilly, spring world. After weeks of rain and budding, it’s gorgeous out there, leaning lush. The greens are popping and the sky is particularly big and wet, all conspiring to stir awe in my raw, post-sick self. I drove, gape-mouthed and slow, into the tiny town for my big adventure, shaky like a shut-in with a day pass.

Midlife has been a study in vulnerability, in ways I didn’t see coming and still don’t totally understand. Whereas vulnerability was a bug of my youth, it’s been a feature of my midlife. It was situational before, showing up in challenging circumstances or prompted by difficult people. I’m a little ashamed to admit that, in the before times, I viewed vulnerability as a sort of weakness. Now, in the after, it’s the default, the landscape of the highly sensitive person. The universe has a way of punishing me for stupid opinions.

Have you heard of the highly sensitive person? We’re called HSPs now and it’s a whole thing, though I’m torn about the need to name and pathologize everything. On one hand, it’s good to find research and guidance, good to find others. On the other, hasn’t the world been stuffed with sensitive people since the beginning of time? Haven’t we been the unwitting beneficiaries of their art and innovation forever? Aren’t we just nice, quiet folks who feel our shit (and yours) a little too much? We’re everywhere and we just want everyone else to sit down and shut up. We’re having a very sane reaction to an insane world.

I’ve always skewed sensitive, but life was big and busy and that part got sidelined. When we were falling in love, Steven called me a ‘tough chick.’ He recently read about HSPs and suddenly realized that he married one.

“Have you heard about this HSP thing?”

He’s adorable.

There’s a tough chick in me who wrestled the HSP to the ground, hog-tied her while the big life was built. The two-marriage, four-kid, big mortgage, big stress life. The tough chick did all that, she showed up with her mask and armor every day (still wrestling the HSP, who got no attention and little respect).

At midlife, when things on the outside calmed down, the shell-shocked HSP in me stood up and said, “Excuse me, we need to talk.” And we’ve been talking ever since. We are, emphatically, NOT calm on the inside. Maybe we never were. I have no idea what happened to the tough chick, perhaps she’s gagged and bound in the basement. She’s not showing up, and I’m waiting. I could use her.

(Also, are we worried about this we business? Who are we, the tough and the sensitive? Is this the beginning — or the middle — of madness?)

All of which brings us, happily (weirdly), to custard.

I think a lot about custard. Conditions are ripe for it — there’s a chill that won’t let go here in upstate New York, I’ve been sick for weeks, the stresses are numerous and uninteresting. The gray and the waiting cries out for custard. Whipping up a batch of basic custard is always a balm, and eating it is bliss.

I make the American Baked Custard, from Christopher Kimball’s Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook. I’ve tried many others, with interesting variations, but this one is my favorite. A reliable, unfussy choice. Kimball says this about it:

This is a simple, all-purpose baked custard that is tender and delicious, and makes a nice gift for a neighbor who is feeling poorly and needs a little nourishment.

That feels like an attack. I’m not the poorly neighbor, though I will admit that it’s the best boost when poorly is the state of things. It’s exquisite in happy times, too.

I used to put it in little ramekins, but now I just dump it all in one big baking dish. It’s nursery food, pale yellow and silken, perfect comfort.

Custard isn’t just a treat, it’s not simply food. It’s a state of being. A dish of custard fresh out of the oven, or in the fridge the next morning, is the very embodiment of contentment. A state of peaceful joy. Custard asks nothing and provides everything. It’s nourishing and strengthening, so gentle and kind. It’s a soft blanket, feet up, nothing to do but be. Custard cures all.

We’re, all of us, vulnerable. To so much, to everything even. Viruses and accidents, cruelties and crises. Unmet need and unrequited desire. Sadness that shows up unbidden and incomprehensible, the kind that makes you weep and robs you of sleep. And also, the kind that just sits next to you and leans its heavy head on your shoulder when you’re just trying to get through. We’re vulnerable to the burdens of living in a mad mad world.

We’re vulnerable, too, to big love and noon suns. Naked baby birds in high, happy winds. Vulnerable to life.

Vulnerability — uncertainty, doubt — helps us keep it real. The tough chick was full of bluster and bullshit, and she got so tired. So so tired. Sensitivity breaks you open and lets you feel it all. Yeah, too much sometimes, too like a naked baby bird and not equipped so much for the post office, but still. Sensitivity asks questions, and may find an answer or two.

I took a tentative, ten minute walk down the road, after the post office adventure. After weeks of housebound affliction, the world is new. I am rough — uncertain, vulnerable, full of doubt — but somewhat ready. I ate all the custard.

Margaret Mead also said this:

It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.

I want more play and all the zest. I’ll make another batch of custard while I wait.

Cheers!
Lisa 🌸

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Things to share:

• I felt seen by Susan Cain’s Quiet and am looking forward to Bittersweet.

• What did the critics who trashed Georgia O’Keeffe have in common? See if you can guess.

• I’ll never get a tattoo (HSP), but FTS is tattooed on my brain. Because Fuck This Shit. I love Abigail Thomas so much.

• “Once she was born, I was never not afraid.” Joan Didion’s Blue Nights, a sort of tragic sequel to The Year of Magical Thinking, is a haunting and moving memoir about death, aging, life, memory, and mothering. Perfectly Didion.

• I can’t wait to read Claire Dederer’s new book, Monsters. Dederer is a longtime favorite — I’ve pressed Poser and Love and Trouble on everyone around me, and sent that Paris Review essay to anyone who reads. (I even sent her a fan’s mash note once, how embarrassing.)