Skype call coming in
Black marker on bond paper
8 1/2 x 11 inches
Barbara Muir © 2010
woman speaking. She was 104 years old and simply
loving her life. When the reporter asked the
standard question -- "so what do you like about
being 104?" the woman answered that these are
the best years of her life, that her good times
really started when she turned 100!
I loved that. It made me laugh so hard I nearly
drove off the road. Here we are nattering about
thinking that we can't do this, and we're the
wrong age for that. My students are doing it.
I hear over and over again that someone thinks
he/she is too old to be at college. I know many of
my friends felt terribly old at 25, and were certain
that the future was going to be, "all downhill
from here."
Not true, and the astoundingly great 104 year old
lady made that clear. I put that together with a
supremely beautiful sunset that I saw tonight when
I was buying my groceries at Loblaws. The store
near me has massive windows that look out over
a park. High above the trees was a gorgeous
multi-hued pink sunset resting on dark purply
blue clouds. I was struck with instant joy, and
rushed to my car to get my camera. But by the
time I fished it out the sunset had gone.
Then I wondered how many people would not
allow themselves to see that beauty because it
was in the wrong place? Can the sunset be as
beautiful here as it is in Nova Scotia, Texas, England,
California, France, Italy, Argentina, China?
It can, and it was.
Have a letting-the-good-times-roll-in day.
I feel like Bob Dylan: "Ah but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." When I was 27 I thought I was finally a grownup, and I thought too that that meant something very particular. Now I see it doesn't! I don't think of benchmarks or age anymore, just of time.
ReplyDeleteThank you for another thought-provoking--in the very best sense--post!
Hi Laura,
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean. Maybe it's the distillation of repeated trauma, that in a weird way ends up giving us more balance when we're past 25. We get what artists have so long been trying to recreate -- perspective, and that makes life a lot more fun.
XO Barbara