This is as close as I could get to the precious Dancing picture I lost. Tad, helping Lucy rise from her chair, the prolonged, swaying “hug” while she got her footing, and then always, when she was finally balanced, she would look into his eyes and smile, silently thanking him. A witness to this could easily feel their 60 plus years in love together, with goose bumps and a throat lump….
This is my James (far right), and his off-and-on-for-30 years band mates. Here, they are last year, playing a local festival in Spokane called Pig Out in the Park, held at the site of the 1974 World’s Fair. The song? Their very hot version of “Let’s Dance”! These guys, just Bowie’s age when we lost him, can still rock!!!
Time sped by this week. Time’s up tomorrow for posting on TIME. I had to work up my nerve all week. This will undoubtedly be one of my most frightening posts ever….(really scary for me but terrifying for women under 50 or so…)
I saw the actress Ali McGraw a few years back, maybe on Oprah, maybe along with Jane Fonda and Diane Keaton. The topic was beautiful older women (or over 60 women).
Ali McGraw said she had a secret to keep her face looking young. I’m sure the women watching expected surgical tips or miracle face creams but no. She lifted up her hair and pulled out this weird apparatus that was hidden there. As she slowly removed it, her face sagged more and more. With the faked tightness gone she looked much more her age, maybe older.
The women on stage with her were stunned into silence. It was a dramatic and pretty amazing difference. (It reminded me of childhood when an aunt who would brush my hair into a pony tail so tight, she would tell me, in her well-intentioned way, that I looked like a China doll.)
After a moment, a recovered, non-plussed Oprah said she thought Ali’s action was one of the most “generous” things she had ever seen a woman do.
I hope you see my personal photo sharing as “generous” and not egotistical or even worse, self-pitying. I didn’t think I was even mildly attractive until I was fifty!
ABOVE–Me at thirty, forty, fifty and fifty-five
Then the phrase the ravages of time comes to mind…..
I do not know what happened to the TIME. I do not recognize who this person above is. I don’t know what some of these body parts even are!
(Judy Collins singing in the background here…Who knows where the time goes…)
Here I go. I’m gonna push “publish” now Karuna!
I inherited this amazing treasure a few years back and all I could think about is how much TIME it must have taken for someone to carve the “thousand faces of Buddha” into this walnut shell. The patience…the dedication…the talent…what an amazing person he or she must have been!
And then, I woke up this morning red-faced, realizing I am also that person.
In the last 20 years, for my closest 5 people, I made a “once-in-a-lifetime, just-because-I-love-you” hand-crafted gift. Each craft project took me a lot of TIME.
Here are some samples:
For my best friend-who loves giraffes and is an official Giraffe Project Hero, I made this. It took me about 3 years. It is made with Zen Beaded Embroidery and contains turquoise, copper, shells, assorted beads and several of my grandmother’s old glass buttons.
Next, my “adopted” sister, Lenore’s mother died leaving her these old jewelry boxes with lots of broken bits and pieces from her Mom’s life. Nothing wearable or worth repairing but Lenore didn’t want to let them go. So she gave them to me to play with.
I grabbed the Tacky Glue and did this. Now they sit on the Lenore’s bookshelf as reminders of her Mom.
And this one took the longest. My son has been restoring a classic Porsche…for 20 years! It went to college with him. It has lived, in process, at his Dad’s, my house, his house, his grandmother’s house, etc.
One time, he had almost finished it and someone actually crashed into it in the driveway, leaving it virtually totaled.
It’s a matter of principal now. He is determined to complete this endless project.
So to support him (I’m no good with a wrench) I made this. It took me about as long as he’s been working on the car and is made entirely of my grandmother’s glass and shell buttons, and my old Hippie Beads. It is all stitched except for the white background buttons. In an effort to finish in my lifetime, I finally cheated and grabbed that Tacky glue again.
Time…I wouldn’t trade a minute of it!
Generations
top-my mother, middle-my biological daughter, bottom-me
And the back story is…
I didn’t see a picture of my daughter until after the longest stretch of time in my life…23 years after I gave her up for adoption. The reunion specialist I hired found her high school annual in a library.
I thought she was beautiful but could not see a trace of myself in her. So I didn’t really believe she was mine.
Then I remembered this photo of my mother when she was in the Navy at 21 years old. When I laid the photos side by side, I saw it!
The photo at the bottom is from my high school annual.
Dance