I recently found myself on an unofficial fried chicken tour of Kentucky and Tennessee, and as I merrily ate my way through that swath of the country, I had no regrets. A few weeks later, I still have no regrets, for if there is one thing more delicious than eating fried chicken, it is eating fried chicken and really enjoying it. This reaction surprises me. A decade ago, even a few years ago, punitive measures would have been imposed: increased exercise, decreased food, some self-berating, possibly even tears. There would have been mention of the push-up diet, of the increased cardio tour of Savannah, Georgia. All over a lousy few pieces of fried chicken. But these days, I remain unrepentant. And I harbor a dirty little secret: If the rare treat of really good fried chicken presents itself again, I will eat it and I will enjoy it. This is my manifesto.

I clearly underestimated the power of hair.

Regular readers know that I have decided to go grey. It started at Chris’ request, and I struggled at first. There was questioning and tears, denial and anger, reluctance and acceptance — sort of a short-lived and condensed 12 Steps, tonsorial version.

I now love it. Love it! You know why? Nobody really cares what color my hair is. Nobody.

Well, nobody but me.

When your hair has spent the last 14 years trying to remain at a holding pattern of making you look 35 years old, you realize several things. Mostly, what a weather-beaten 35 year old you really are. How nobody believes that you’re really 35 since your children are 18 and 20. And how maybe you don’t want to be 35 anyway. Yes, the age involved good knees, and unlike this year, it didn’t involve scheduling an appointment with a primary care physician solely to get a prescription for the really good anti-inflammatories to quell your arthritis. (Shout out here to Mobic!) But 35 brought young children, confusion, exhaustion, overscheduling, and (at least for me) a sort of slow, angry simmer from being torn in so many directions all at once.

It wasn’t easy, being 35.

But now when I look in the mirror, I have abandoned all pretense. The salt and pepper hair is a very clear reminder that I am a woman nearing 50 — lines, wrinkles, and all. It explains why crow’s feet appear when I smile. (Shout out here to a lifetime of smiling!) I like how the dimple on my left cheek looks more pronounced with some deeper lines, like back-up singers, to reinforce it. Mostly, the hair serves as a visible reminder to be kind to myself and to respect my age.

Here is a recent picture of me. You cannot see the friends who surround me; you cannot hear the music I hear. You may think I look better or younger or prettier in other pictures, all of which is undoubtedly true. But in this picture, I look exactly like myself:

And I love that.

While I was abandoning all pretense, I decided to revamp my exercise routine. What would you do, I asked myself, if you really didn’t care if you were a size six ever again and cared only that you were healthy and happy? And I replied, I would walk every single day.

And that is what I now do. Every morning, I put on my sneakers, and plug in my earbuds, and I close the door behind me. I walk onto my street just as the sun arises, and for 2.5 miles, I go. I walk under the arches of the old sprawling trees, through the fresh air and into the green, and I smile at neighbors and avoid cars and occasionally stop to talk.

I also listen to podcasts. My new favorite is “Dear Sugars,” whose two hosts read letters from often heartbroken listeners and dispense advice. Surely you have seen the Facebook posts telling you how to determine your Harry Potter wizard name or your entertainer name or a Shakespearean epithet tailored just for you. If you haven’t, you typically choose something from each of three or four categories and go. This is how the letters on Dear Sugars sound — slightly categorical, slightly implausible, slightly bizarre. Who are these people? I walk and wonder. Are they making this all up? For part of the letter holds together, but there’s always a big surprise or a major omission.

Mostly I think about how very sweet my life is indeed for not having to flesh out these type of problems with “Dear Sugars.”

The best advice I have received lately has come indirectly, from the results of a study about sleep and marital relationships. If both partners sleep enough, there is typically little marital discord. If neither partner sleeps enough, there is typically a lot of marital discord. But if only one partner sleeps enough, that partner can hold it together enough for the both of you and avoid marital discord.

Let us just say that I have never been the partner described in that last scenario. After 25 years, I clearly have a big pillow to fill. So I have been really working on getting more sleep. I think the walking helps, even with that.

But “Dear Sugars” featured a letter in a recent episode that no doubt tanked in the ratings, for it was altogether shockingly normal. An accountant hated her job; she wanted to be a writer. She asked how long she had to continue accounting before she quit, and what she needed to do to pursue her dream.

The call-in guest was a writer and a college professor. One of the best things about the call-in guests on this show is that they uniformly try to sound surprised that the hosts are calling them. No doubt it would be much more interesting endeavor if the surprise were genuine. Alas, the surprise was not genuine, but the advice was.

The writer told the accountant that the benefit of the artistic life was that it forces you to pay attention and bring a certain precision to your circumstances and surroundings. You become a writer because you write, not because you merely think about writing, and you tend to write about what you know. The writer cautioned that it was easy not to write because of a fear that you wouldn’t be any good, but that that the fear plagued everyone. It was a fool’s game to wait for extraordinary experiences or a large block of time to write since those things rarely happened.

Ultimately, it was not about the outcome, but about the endeavor, because life offers no guarantees of success.

My walk and the podcast ended at the same time, and emboldened by the writer’s words, I decided to sign up for a week-long plein air painting course next month at an art school in the Great Smoky Mountains. I had eyed this course for at least six months with a great deal of longing, and I had many times imagined myself at an easel learning how to paint landscapes. Unfortunately, I had imagined even more times how I would be an utter failure at the endeavor, too inexperienced, untalented, green. I had not signed up, but that day was the day. I went to my computer to register . . .

. . . and the class was full. The art school was taking no other applicants.

I licked my wounds for a few days, and then Chris and I spent 24 very fun hours with some long-time friends a few hours away. We had that picture taken, talked a lot, ate even more, raised a glass or two, and heard a wildly talented husband and wife duo, Shovels and Rope. One of their lyrics jumped out at me:

I need more fingers to count the ones I love/This life may be too good to survive.

I realized that that, perhaps, was the greatest real problem in my life: I needed more fingers to count the ones I love. If I am being honest, I have run out of toes, too.

Which is not really a problem. Not at all. Get over yourself, girl, I counseled. Don’t just think about it. Really live.

So in this great big electronic world, I offered to paint custom oil paintings of houses, just in time for Christmas. I touted my rock bottom rates, my love of color. Gauguin was a stockbroker before he sold everything — even his friend Van Gogh’s sunflower painting, which held the pride of place over his bed — to move to Tahiti to paint naked women. I have no dreams of moving to Tahiti to paint naked women. But I have dreams of small works of art, created in moments of intense focus and delicious happiness, hanging in homes of friends and strangers. I have fear, yes, but I also have grey hair. Surely I am wiser now. The mirror tells me so.

I have a generous handful of commissions, enough work to occupy my evenings for the next few months. I dream of my own home, my back up against my favorite chair, brush in hand, Buddy nearby. I can smell the paints and the linseed oil, and I can hear Chris puttering in the kitchen. I will sometimes paint with my daughter, sometimes paint while talking to my son. I will walk, and it will help me sleep. We will maintain the peace. And I will be grateful about my bold, sweet life, about the lovely predicament of needing more fingers to count the ones I love.

ALC

The second hardest thing in the days leading up to a major hurricane is figuring out what things to take that will contribute to your happiness in the new home you’ll undoubtedly have to build. On Thursday, I thought hard about what I wanted that home to look like. Instead of the current three story Colonial, I imagined a home that filled a single floor, complete with a massive front porch, an enormous screened room, and a loggia wrapping around a small pool and hot tub. If the insurance money held, there would be an outdoor shower and a treehouse. Other than the realization that I intended to live almost entirely outdoors in my new home, I had no idea what that house would look like. I suppose there would need to be a kitchen, some bathrooms, and living space, but my mind did not go there. As a result, the bare necessities that I needed for Home Version 2.0 amounted to this list:

a few photographs of the children

my grandmother’s sterling (because my mother would never forgive me otherwise)

a lot of clean underwear

a few books on my nightstand

my knitting

a couple of canvases, brushes, and my toolbox full of paint and

my Hermes scarves (which felt entirely frivolous, yes, but was entirely non-negotiable).

With those things, I could begin anew in the company of Chris, our daughter, and Buddy.

Buddy necessitated his own brand of hurricane preparation, which led to an appointment with the vet on Thursday. Storms are hard on the old man, and bespoke Thundershirts aside, he engages in behavior that I would not wish on anyone. This includes my in-laws, to whose house we intended to evacuate. (This even includes me, but as his person, I have no choice.) After discussing his litany of issues with the vet, I asked if there was a sedative or tranquilizer that he could prescribe for Buddy. As I asked this question, I flashed to “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” a staple of 70s TV.

Did anyone actually like that show? Or was it just that television was so meager that we had no other choice? I watched it faithfully, never entirely convinced that it was good, which may explain why my only real memory of it seemed to be Jim’s firing tranquilizer darts at large animals.

You know that Buddy’s situation is bad if I was willing to fire a tranquilizer dart at him as he roamed the savana.

But veterinary medicine has advanced, and Buddy walked out with a prescription for Xanax. We had a discussion about it on the car ride home, Buddy’s head lolling out the back window. “Don’t go engaging in drug-seeking behavior,” I warned. “And if you’re asking to chase it with a bourbon back, I’m cutting you off.” As I had images of Buddy in mirrored sunglasses, going down a slippery slope that ended with his becoming a cooperating witness in a federal pill mill investigation and intermittently unsuccessful stints at rehab, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that Buddy was ignoring me. And I caught my own eyes on the mirror and realized a fundamental truth about myself: I worry too much.

The hardest thing in the days leading up to the hurricane was the anxiety, coupled with a need for patience and flexibility. I have tried to tune out The Sensational Weather Media and focus instead on the dry, matter of fact predictions of NOAA. In the days that Irma gathered force in the Caribbean, there were times that she seemed to be marching straight for Savannah. It was hard not to go into full-on panic mode. It was hard to watch and wait. As someone who adores established plans, firm itineraries, and lists, it was nearly impossible to roll with it. Patience may be a virtue. It just isn’t one of mine.

The Governor declared a mandatory evacuation, and around the time that our area had been scheduled to leave, we were demoted to a voluntary evacuation.

So we stayed. Which (if I’m being honest here) we had intended to do once it became apparent that the brunt of the hurricane would miss our area and offer instead tropical storm conditions.

If you live in Savannah, you are used to storms. The first few took me by surprise. But 25 years later, I know which roads to avoid and when not to drive. I know that the house is on one of the highest points in the city. I know that high winds will drop branches from the enormous pecan tree in the backyard and onto the roof, and that the noise will terrify me every single time.

So it was on Monday. With the dining room table stacked with bottled water, flashlights, batteries, candles, and matches, the storm began. As predicted, it scared me.

It did not scare Buddy. Empowered by Xanax, he barked at the back door, insistent on using the bathroom outside four times in driving rain and gale force winds.

Perhaps some fear is good.

I did not know what to do, so I grabbed my easel and paints. In the dark, I set up the easel by the back door. I chose a very small canvas (it is six inches square) and started to paint. I approached it like a child, not mixing colors and painting straight from the tube. For an hour or so, I attacked, asking myself repeatedly what I saw and what I felt.

When I could do no more damage, I took it into a room with light and saw this:

The muted colors, the bits of light, the red door, the fountain. The garage standing where the pool and hot tub would be in the new house. The bird house, the plants, the ivy covered fence. Cloistered and waiting for me, all still there. It overwhelmed me with gratitude, and l said a prayer for those whose homes and communities had not been spared. For that is another hard thing about hurricanes: not everyone makes it through unscathed.

Something small and red caught my eye. It was the male cardinal sitting with his mate, both birds getting shellacked by the rain yet waiting expectantly for the return of the feeder. This couple chirps at me loudly every morning as if to say feed me, feed me, feed me. So braving the rain, with an unusually courageous Buddy by my side, I scattered bird seed on the ground under where they usually ate. Cold and wet and back inside, I saw a group of squirrels sitting on the amputated spikes of a palm tree trunk, tails hovering over their heads like a mohawk, waiting for the storm to pass. I waited, too — safe, dry, and slightly scared — the rain and wind punctuated by the sound of Buddy’s snoring.

ALC

About a year ago, I began sending a paper copy of each story to my mother. She happily has no internet. She does have a cell phone that she never carries. (She tells me that she keeps it for emergencies; I have surmised that the cell phone is useful only if those emergencies are planned.) I used to think to think that she was really missing out, but after checking my email one too many times on vacation, I wonder if she is actually quite brilliant. I left my cell phone at home today, apparently not planning for any emergencies, and I have found that the world continues its pleasant spin.

Mom gets the story out of the mailbox, sits on her front steps to read it, and tucks it safely in a box with the other stories I have sent. Someone really ought to be saving these, she says. (Something does, I explain, but I love that there is a little nest of print to the right of her favorite chair.) After she safely stows the story, she calls me from her landline to give me her assessment.

Your last story was kind of sad, she said. Are you okay? she asked. I told her that I was perfectly fine and that if we were all being honest, life had its sad moments.

I saw a sad moment in action when I was out walking Buddy Saturday morning. Buddy is clearly a union dog, for he insists on a half-hour walk every morning. It is as if he wears a Timex on his left front leg: It is always exactly 30 minutes. When Buddy was a young dog, we covered a couple of miles. Now that Buddy is decidedly an old dog, we cover a couple of blocks.

His glacial pace is good for observation, and so it was on Saturday morning, leash slack and Buddy sniffing on the side of the street. Out of nowhere, I heard the opening of an R.E.M. song from college, “The One I Love.” I expected it to be blaring from the stereo of a car driven by a prosperous driver about my age. But I saw instead a rusty bicycle, boom box strapped to the front, with a rider of indeterminate age. Between the sun, alcohol, and hard times, he could have been anywhere between 55 and 412 years old, and with a defeated mien, heavily lined skin, and uncontrollable hair, the rider cycled by with these words drifting in the air:

This one goes out to the one I love.

This one goes out to the one I left behind.

A simple prop to occupy my time.

This one goes out to the one I love.

Fire.

It seemed less like a college radio hit, more like a personal manifesto, and I realized that perhaps my version of sad was far overstated. It was rolling heartbreak.

Still singing the song, I drifted home with Buddy. Although age has taken away walking speed, it has not stripped him of his ability to eat and nap like a much younger dog, and I left him to his two greatest pursuits while I took my own walk. In a podcast, I heard this interesting tidbit: Sanda Bernhardt, the comedian, is the daughter of a proctologist and an abstract artist. As I wondered whether that unusual parental combination would always produce a comedian, I heard a loud wolf whistle.

It was the parrot.

There is an enormous parrot that lives in an enormous cage on the front porch of a house six blocks from my house. The house itself is like one from a cartoon: It is always erupting in some fashion. The owners have raised the roof, added a floor, built a massive front porch, and laid a brick driveway. Between the construction and the bird, I am glad that there is a considerable buffer between our houses. But I always like hearing the parrot.

When I was a kid, most of my dreams revolved around loud noises. I wanted to learn to play the drums, take tap dancing lessons, use a jackhammer, turn the music up to 11 and dance, perhaps all at once. A large part of my little body wanted a parrot who would sit on my shoulder, eat saltine crackers on demand, and chatter away. My mother, that perpetual killjoy, said no.

My own children have had their own noisy pursuits. My son played the violin, an endeavor that sounded at first like torturing cats. My daughter, emboldened by “The Simpsons,” insisted on playing the saxophone, a folly that set us back $306 in rental fees in the fifth grade, all for a barely comprehensible rendition of “Hot Cross Buns.” Sppprt, sppprt, spprrt.

I get where my mother was coming from with noise in general, and I really felt it about parrots specifically when I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about parrot ownership. They are not pets for the weak, let me tell you. Some parrots can emit shrieks that can be heard five miles away. They live forever — usually between 60 and 100 years — and a parrot rescuer told of caring for birds that had come to him after they had bitten the earlobe off of a prior owner or part of the tongue of a woman who tried to kiss the bird through the cage.

With facial features intact and hearing unmolested by a loud shrieking bird, I now pause to offer thanks to my mother’s wisdom in not allowing me to fulfill my dream of parrot ownership. That bird would now be about 40, just hitting its prime, bloated from consuming too many saltines, saying not Polly want a cracker but I am filled with ennui.

I kept walking.

The morning ended at Chick-Fil-A, where I consumed a fried chicken biscuit to undo all of the health benefits of a walk. Chris and I show up there late most Saturday mornings, barely skidding under the breakfast wire. It is not an eat and run proposition. At our favorite high top, Chris reads the news on his phone while I — desperately trying to break up with mine — paint, knit, or write in a journal. There is a woman named Joan who works there, and thanks to her long skirt, impeccably coiffed hair, and regal bearing, looks like she belongs in a much classier place. Joan smiles at me and refills my tea, but for the first time this Saturday morning she offered more than just pleasantries. I like your green dress, she said. When I told her that I had made it, she asked, Are you a designer? I laughed and told her no, but on the way out, Chris told me that I had answered Joan’s question all wrong.

I have tried to really listen to what people are asking. Almost a year ago, I went to a  birthday party at a wine-and-paint place, and finding the finished product powerfully dumb, I set out on my own path and painted something entirely different. My friend Amelia asked, Are you a painter? I was not, but with that question roiling around in my head, I signed up for painting courses in January. It has become one of my life’s pleasures.

I have even painted a parrot:

With Joan’s question in my mind, I came home and set to work. Am I designer? Who knows. But on Saturday afternoon, I made a cape:

And with pliers and glue turned Goodwill jewelry into barrettes and earrings:

And finished a painting:

So, mom, to answer your question: Despite the sad moments, I am okay. More than okay. I am walking, and I am making things. For once, I am actually listening and taking people’s advice, even if that advice is implicit. I am watching my hair turn salt-and-pepper in the mirror, straddling the line between old age and youth, and I have a clump over my left eye that makes me look like I’m always having a great idea. That great idea is to live, create, and connect, and to make my very own small way in this very big world.

All unburdened by parrot ownership, yet enjoying one’s catcalls from a safe distance. For which I am tremendously grateful.

ALC