ALOHA !
today's song-
"How old would you be
if you didn't know
how old you were?"
~Satchel Paige
"You can't hide your true colours
as you approach the autumn of your life."
Author Unknown
"It's sad to grow old, but nice to ripen."
Brigitte Bardot
I always knew that, with luck,
someday I'd be 50.
But never really believed it.
(No, today is NOT my birthday - yet :)
"I'm not old, just not young anymore."
said ex-screen star Alexandra Del Lago
in the film Sweet Bird of Youth.
One day in my early thirties,
I realized that I was the star
of every commercial, movie, TV show, magazine.
Everywhere I looked, things were being sold to me,
or by a woman like me.
We value what is hard to get.
A young woman like I was then
is awash in testosterone.
(And perhaps hard to get)
Men are everywhere
and she can read their minds,
because they all think alike.
If you read my novel, you know
that I have some familiarity with the sex industry
which is, after all,
the trafficking in beauty & desire.
But I remember too the longing
to be more than a sex object.
Too bad we can't bottle youth's surplus
of beauty & attraction
for days of scarcity!
Those days when we become
largely invisible
middle aged women.
And some of today's invisibility
would have been a comfort back then!
Joan Collins said,
"The problem with beauty
is that it's like being born rich
and getting poorer."
I still remember that time (years back now)
when I put on my make up and didn't see
the glow,
the magic in my mirror.
All I saw was me wearing make up:
the wealth was spent,
the illusion had fled!
Now I'm discovering the power
that comes to a
reasonably nice-looking
older woman;
The power to bless.
Younger people can act tiresome.
Young women can seem vain & shallow,
(just like I did.
I can read their minds, you see.)
But I smile like Buddha or Kwan Yin
or Mary,
blessing the people around me.
Sincerely.
I hope I look savvy,
kind,
and approachable
as I broadcast:
"Celebrate your beauty,
your choices,
your mistakes.
That's the text of your life
out of which
you will tease the meaning
of
your personality & problems
from a wiser shore.
"The years teach much
which the days never knew."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I want them to see
that growing older is wonderful,
not a tragedy.
They need that gift
in our youth obsessed
"culture."
"Look at me, I'm old but I'm happy."
sings Cat Stevens` Father in the song.
Regret is futile, ugly, and soul crushing:
for you and everyone else around you.
And besides,
I don't want to look back from
real "old age" and regret
that I began to feel 'old'
in my comparatively young 50s!
After all:
"Fifty is the youth of old age."
~Victor Hugo
And there is still much adventure ahead!
Besides:
"Everyone is the age of their heart."
Guatemalan Proverb
And
"We turn not older with years,
but newer every day."
Emily Dickinson
Besides,
denying one's age
merely alienates one
from one's self. . .
Kindly leave a comment:
How old do you feel today? cloudia
