“The great thing about getting older is you don’t lose all of the other ages you’ve been.”
Madeline L’Engle
It’s another beautiful day in SW France and I’m sitting on the terrace at a rusted iron table bought a few years ago from an antique store in a nearby village. Its discolored burnished top, warm from the heat of the sun stretches 10 feet in length. I can easily picture family and friends gathered comfortably around it’s honey hued rim enjoying a leisurely repas on a summer afternoon. I love this table and wonder where it’s been and what dramas its been the center of. Its patina, now rich with flaws and character, bespeak our ability to appreciate aging in our possessions, but not in ourselves.
Crossing in front of an old mirror I glance at my reflection. I am slowly acquiring the patina of age. Delicate wrinkles soften the contours of my eyes, laugh lines caress my cheeks and the softened skin of my neck has stretched beyond its ability to resist gravity. After so many years of holding my head high and proud in youth, it’s now relaxed and confident with age.
Aren’t we beautiful like our possessions, our skin warm from generations of human touch? If I just choose a different perspective I can fall immediately in love with myself like I do with the faded colors on a ruins’ walls or the worn edges of a terra cotta pot left outside with benign neglect to become part of the natural landscape. Aren’t we part of the natural landscape?
I look intently at myself. I have a past and it shows and I don’t care who can see it now. I’ve lived long enough to know that life is a gift. I’ve known too many people who never got the chance to wrinkle, to have their value increase with age, to weather with grace. I am content to age naturally, to be mellowed by time and love, to grow old happily and gloriously imperfect.
