This is my horoscope for today. According to the stars, I've been brilliant for weeks and everyone is amazed at my every word. Terrific. But the part I'm interested in is "Who am I in five years?"

Since I'm already the 'Oldest Woman on the Web,' five years out I'll probably not be a CEO or starting yet another career. I may "retire" to someplace new to live; or I may "return" to some former location like Maine or New York City. But it's unlikely that I'll "start over" like I did seven years ago when I got up one sunny fall afternoon and moved from Portland, Maine, to San Francisco. People told me I was brave but it took years of struggle in the Bay Area before for me to realize how really brave I was. At the time it just felt like a natural gesture, an expression of life and vitality. I never gave a thought to a down side of packing up my things, moving three thousand miles to a place where I knew no one my own age, without funds and without a job. So much for my youthful fifties.

On the other hand, if I should live to one hundred, it might seem perfectly natural to have, in the middle of my life, "started over." The horoscope tells me to get a really good picture of "that person you see yourself being five years from now. Imagine it as clearly as you can, because that's the blueprint you're going to work from."

We've all heard something about "visualization." I have a friend who imagines a new table in her front hall and the next week her brother drops off something he's discarding and she has a new table in the front hall. I myself need only to be driving to a destination in the city and I find a parking spot, usually in front of the building. But I have had trouble visualizing and manifesting any kind of husband or three weeks in Hawaii.

And yet, I can do it. I once traveled all the way to Eastern Siberia. I was standing alone on the shores of Lake Baikal, the largest inland body of water in the world. The surrounding shoreline looked a lot like my home in Maine, 10,000 miles away. It was late spring, sunny, about 50 degrees. The water was clear and the bottom sandy. I took off my shoes and walked into the lake and stood there for a few minutes.

Suddenly I recalled that four years earlier someone I knew in Maine had been telling me about her friend, a professor of marine biology. He had just returned from a study trip to Lake Baikal and I had exclaimed: "Oh that's where I want to go!" I had never thought about it again and I only remembered the incident when I was in Siberia, but I knew the comment had driven the event.

Five years from now: My hair is white. I am still tall, maybe even taller. I am more slender than I am now, more like I used to be. I am living in a pink stucco or adobe house, a Spanish style building with tiles, porticos, large indoor plants and a courtyard. I have a beautiful simple Spanish style room where I write. I am a writer and I turn out weekly columns and essays which are sent via the Internet to various sources. I also write and illustrate my own website where I use humor to communicate serious issues.

I write about accomplished women so that their stories get into the mainstream and their lives can serve as role models for younger women. I write about awesome events on the frontiers of science and knowledge, but I am telling the story for lay people. And I write about art and creativity.

As 'The Oldest Woman on the Web,' I appear frequently in public as a spokesperson for people over fifty, for women, and especially speaking for people who need a little push to get in touch with their creativity. I talk about values and forcing ourselves to look at and consciously determine our own values and then make them play out in our lives.

And above all I paint. I have an indoor/outdoor studio. My canvases are large and my palette is the same as it is now. I have finished a major series of paintings about corporate life. Most of my paintings are recreated in a digitized form and put on my website and printed in fine editions as Iris prints. When I am painting all the internal processes are going on that allow me to talk, speak and write in the world of behavior, values and ideas. It is the process of painting, as though I were swimming in a great river, that brings my vision to the surface and offers me a lens to view the world. Painting is my great meditation.

And in five years I am happily entwined with a male companion, a mate, an 'other.' He is like me, part of me, and totally separate. Our minds and hearts overlap and exist separately. He is a creative thinker; he is accomplished; he contributes to society and the world. He laughs at himself and at me. He expresses the highs and lows of life. He has grown children. Above all, he supports the enthusiastic, animated, overly exuberant side of me. His energy exceeds mine by miles.

Together we help many people and we offer a haven where belief is suspended and new ideas can begin their torturous journey into consciousness. And all of this activity finds its way into my writing as a means of being shared with people out there, on the net, anywhere. I'm expecting you to come visit us, in five years.

©1998 Sherry Miller. All rights reserved.
For reprints and permission, please contact Sherry Miller.

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