Are you radical?

Sounds like something we used to say back in the 60s and 70s when something was really “cool” or crazy. Radical, man, groovy.

But radical is a real word, and one of its meanings is marked by a considerable departure from the usual or traditional. I think that applies to every one of us who does not have children. By not following the traditional pattern of marriage, motherhood, and grandmotherhood, we are both forced and freed to follow a nontraditional path, to be radical.

This was the subject of our spring solstice gathering of the Nomo Crones childless elderwomen on Zoom last week. These women are definitely radical. Straight, queer, single, married, childless by infertility, illness, partner problems, and sometimes by choice, they had a lot to say. Watch the video. We’re a lot of fun, and I don’t think we’re much like the traditional grandmotherly old ladies you may know.

MC Jody Day has dubbed us “Radical Old Women” or ROW. I like it.

I know I haven’t followed the standard patterns in my own life. A lifelong writer/musician, I never had to give up my vocations for motherhood or wait until my children grew up to begin. I have been writing steadily since elementary school. Now that my husband is gone and I don’t need a traditional job, I often do my writing and music to the exclusion of everything else. I work in my pajamas, and my house is a mess. I make elaborate meals when I’m in the mood or grab whatever’s hanging out in the fridge when I’m not because no one except my dog is depending on me to feed them. I wake up and go to sleep when I feel like it. Of course, the flip side is spending holidays alone and having no family to help when I’m sick or injured, but let’s not think about that today.

I don’t feel my age. I notice the physical changes, but without the milestones mothers experience, I don’t feel old, and I’m far from ready to accept the lives many of my friends in their 70s are living. A neighbor, also widowed and childless, told me recently that she was selling her house and moving to a senior residence. I looked it up. Mt. Angel Towers. It looks like a prison to me.

Another neighbor, age 75, rowdy and refusing to give up anything, agrees with me. No way in hell. If she gets feeble, she’ll hire people to help, but meanwhile, she wants to travel, work in her garden, shop at garage sales every weekend, and make her pot cookies.

A childless musician friend who just turned 80 has declared she’s going to be an “outrageous octogenarian.” She is losing her vision and has some major health challenges, but she refuses to leave her three-story dome home overlooking the beach; if she can’t climb the stairs, she’ll install an elevator. And she will keep playing the piano with a little help from her neighbors and friends.

I don’t live like anyone in my family, at least anyone who is still alive. What am I doing out here alone in the woods? Radical.

My step-grandmother, Grandma Rachel, never had children. Instead, she inherited our gang. She was a terrible housekeeper, dreadful cook. She was big, loud, and opinionated and a menace behind the wheel of a car. She loved to read, write, and paint pictures. The family disapproved, but I adored her. She was my role model, filling my life with books and encouraging me to follow my dreams. She died 32 years ago at age 86, but I treasure her letters and poems. I want to be her kind of radical.

I want to be the old lady with the crazy hats who sits around in jeans and tennis shoes playing guitar and writing poetry, who does yoga and travels cross-country by herself, who is not too old to crawl on the floor with the kids, who will never be old enough for an old folk’s home.

Another definition of radical: tending or disposed to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions or institutions. In other words, we refuse to accept the status quo. One of five women will never have children. We need the parent-people to see us, to accept us, to understand that our radical lives have the same value as theirs. Who knows? Maybe someday parenting will be the radical choice.

What do you think? Want to be radical with me? I welcome your comments.