Late in Life Surprises By Vicki Levin

Late in Life Surprises
By Vicki Levin
Born to old-world, depression-era parents, I was a shockingly late surprise. In 1958, forty-year-old women didn’t have babies, but my mother did. I am pretty sure that the family portrait of three children was already on the mantle when I came along. My sister swore she had poked holes in my mother’s diaphragm as she was tired of doing the dishes alone (her favorite story). I was doomed to be the afterthought.
But it paid off in my favor.
My siblings were mostly or completely out of the house as I was growing up and I had all the attention and intelligence of my parents to myself. I clearly was a bit spoiled. I learned many things from my slightly conservative parents that have served me well. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of one of my ancestors and some gift they gave me.
For example, I have my father’s nice, fluid swim stroke. He would roll from side to side, much like a dolphin in semi-slow-motion. Now I swim that way as I glide through my dawn ocean swim at Ho’okipa (Welcome) Beach on Maui’s North shore. I’ve also held onto my mother’s acumen for finance. I still understand that pennies don’t accumulate accidentally. Both of my parents taught me that a ‘job worth doing is worth doing well.’
Raised in the foothills of Silicon Valley, California, I escaped to the coastal town of Santa Cruz just over the mountain at age nineteen. Before that, I was an award-winning student for three years in high school and then promptly flunked out of the honors program at San Jose State University in my second semester. Apparently college had many distractions…none of those being books.
Following my mother’s second career, I worked my way up the ladder of real estate and finance, eventually becoming a mortgage broker in Santa Cruz for a few years. I bought a home, remodeled it and then sold it and moved to Maui’s North shore at the request of a man I thought I knew. I was thirty at the time.

Fast forward twenty-two years: Done with career, done with marriage, done with assumptions of how one is supposed to behave. In Hawaiian we call it “all pau now.” So I tossed aside the old life and began dreaming up a new one; one that included peace, space, time and getting reacquainted with my sensibilities.

A long-haired, bad boy showed up in the picture frame when I didn’t even have his paint color on my palette tray. I planted my food, he planted a kiss. A muse was born, and writing Just Keep Your Panties On: A Playful Book about Food and Erotica for the Bedside Table began in earnest. Late in life surprises—aren’t they just something? www.vickilevin.com www.molokaicondorental.com Represented by Loiacono Literary Agency www.loiaconoliteraryagency.com