Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

Stevie Nicks says she never had a family because she knew from a very early age that music would be her life. She’s in her 60s now, and music still defines her. I recently turned 60 and everything that had previously defined me went away. Not overnight, but slowly, over the last six months or so, the things that once made me who I am, or thought I was, disappeared. I’ve suddenly got a clean slate.

For most of my adult life I have been held aloft by four pillars: family, friends, teaching, and writing. One by one, I have seen these things that used to hold me up recede. They still stand, but apart from me, as if at a distance. I continue to love my family and friends, but they take far less room than before. There is an empty spot inside me now and it is not…