When I was growing up a crone was an old hag and sometimes was associated with witches and magic. Magic always fascinated me as I’m sure it did most small children. Later I encountered “cronies” that seemed to be a bunch of old men hanging around together for the seemingly illicit act of drinking and swearing and playing cards together. Mom would say about Dad, “Oh, he’s down at the fire hall messing around with his cronies.” And so I never thought much about me being a crone because, well quite frankly, I didn’t fit into either of those categories.
And then, as the boomers got older and the boomer’s mothers got older we needed a moniker that would in some irreverent way honor our ancient bodies and our ancient and supposedly wise old minds. And so lately, The Crone, has become simply someone very old and maybe very wise. Especially a woman. Men are not crones. I can think of a lot of other names for old men, but crones just isn’t one of them. We can get into that in a later blog if we are still speaking to one another.
So. here we are stuck with the label of “The Crone” after you are fortunate enough to have passed some magic point in your life. And, I have concluded that it must be the miniute, the very, exact minute after you turn 70-years old. I think it is an honorable age where any woman can hold up her head high and come to the realization that she has lived longer than most people and will probably live even longer yet than most people. Here is the Crone who has finally fingured out that she has enough experience under her belt to write story after story about the vagaries we call life. The good times, the bad times, the sermon times, and the wondering times, the funny times, and the really comical times, and at the end of a particularly long day, perhaps even a bit of really deep wisdom will surface. If we wait long enough.
Being the Crone sounds absolutely fabulous, freeing, a freshness of expression that may have been held in bay all this time because mommy would’n like it, or the children might be upset, or one’s brother or father would threaten to take you out of the will, and you know what - the old crone, “don’t give a tinker’s damn” as my mother would say. Maybe more modern follks might have a different way of expressing it, but it is really up to each on of us to hang onto the crescent moon and swing for a bit.
Being the Crone is the time in your life to let your hair down, put on your favorite outfit, a light puff of your best perfume, and maybe a hat, but then maybe not. Go out and throughly enjoy all that God has in mind for you to truly love and experience. WooHoo – what a feeling – free as a bird, soaring, gliding, able to sing my own song! Hope you come along for the ride.