Beauty

Myriam’s Muse April 27, 2006
You can only perceive real beauty in a person as they get older
Anouk Aimee

I remember Mother lying in her bed at age 98, as she was being bathed she held out her leg and turned it in a very sexy way and said: I have always had lovely legs.


Age is a funny thing and totally a matter of perception. One thing I noticed is that when Mother reached the age of about 97 when she was asked or talked about her age she said she was going on a hundred. I remember when kids are little they are not 6 or 7 they are 6 or 7 going on 7 or 8. And at 12 you hear I will be a teenager my next birthday. Sweet sixteen is a celebration that indicates that one has gone through puberty and is close to becoming a young adult. Different ages are definite markers of our growing into new phases of our lives. Many may remember in the sixties, the statement was you can never trust anyone over thirty from the youth and the older population would repeat the motto of perception of youth since the writings of the early Greek philosophers: What is wrong with today’s youth?



The further we move from youth to our so-called "golden years" the more our memories begin to cloud with created memories that are made from repeated stories that we tell ourselves. We are constantly repeating our history embellishing some of it for the good and some of it for the bad. I would imagine that most of our memories are as close to reality as rocket ships were in 1906 when my mother was born.


I have discovered one great gift as I grow older, the things that I used to try and guilt myself with and perhaps ignore, I now forgive and often forget. I find that when I felt so old at 30 or 40 when I look at my children I see how young I was and still foolish. But our foolishness and our profound understanding over the years help create who we are now and help recreate who we will be in 20 years or so.


And now I see why my mother had such tolerance and unconditional love, her beauty within grew with her watching her life move through time. As she grew older her tolerance for others grew immensely and she would often point out to me that one never knows what goes on in a person’s life that brings them to the place that they are. I never truly saw the true beauty of my mother until her last year of life as she shared more and more of the stories that she remembered and as she would tell some of the more horrific stories she also shared that she had learned to forgive because it is often just the folly of youth that would create some behaviors.



Today when you look in the mirror, appreciate how truly beautiful you are and how each day with each experience you become a more vibrant kaleidoscope of unique expression that no one will ever match.

Myriam’s Muse
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