BIRTHDAYS

BIRTHDAYS, Jamestown, NC

On the occasion of my October 15th birthday.🎉

“Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”

—Gabriel Garcia Marquez 

The only two birthdays I’ve really acknowledged were my 16th for a driver’s license and my 47th which was my dad’s age when cancer took his life.  I considered that year the beginning of my gifted second life and I don’t count the pandemic years since I didn’t use them, so I’m really only 31!

The birthdays we acknowledge are really just an accounting of the number of times we beings on this planet have circled the sun!  I've observed folks that are old at 60 and others that are quite lucid and active at 90.  Critical life stages would seem to be better key indicators!  Examples might include born, walking upright, conversational, puberty, education, independent living, working full time, partnering, raising children, retired, physically/mentally impaired and assisted living.

Thanks to modern medicine and the miracle of mortal bodies that can heal themselves, God is revealed in our existence.  And we’re not left with imperfect scars, just character lines that validate a life fully lived. 😎

TRANSITIONING BEAUTY

 

TRANSITION

Our bodies have been changing from the moment of conception.  Every character line and scar are testaments to a life well lived.  Resisting those changes only detracts from embracing the inevitable transition to our earned elder status in our circle of influence.  

Growing old gracefully is the best response to the inevitable passage of relentless time.

And somewhere on that journey, the lines of beauty cross as the radiance of the soul eclipses bodily features.

UNIQUELY ME

SOULFUL RADIANCE

UNIQUELY ME HAIKU

I am not this face;

I am the soul that’s within.

I’m uniquely me.

I spent this morning selecting and charging the cost of a replacement Samsung washing machine which brought me no joy whatsoever on this Juneteenth holiday.  As I haltingly inched my way through the Starbucks drive-thru in a vain attempt to improve my demeaner, the movement of a young teen boy caught my attention through the adjacent bushes of a nearby McDonalds.  He was meticulously gathering straw covers and other items that had been cast off by the clueless patrons that had gone before me.  The observation conjured up images of myself doing menial tasks in exchange for minimum pay until the day when I had amassed enough skills in my tool kit to command the means for purchasing household appliances.

I was young and relatively carefree of home mortgages, car payments, credit card debt and all the other accoutrements of life that money buys in exchange for our life hours.  We make good soldiers in those early years since we’re so starry-eyed and bullet proof.   But then the inevitable march of time catches up and we find memory wanes, our chest has lowered, muscle aches and pains arrive with more frequency, body hair disappears from obvious places and appears in too obvious places and our skin begins a gradual loosening process as character lines meander within our smiles.     

The actress Judi Dench has wryly observed some of the characteristics of aging as “Don’t prioritize your looks my friend, as they won’t last the journey.  Your capacity for living in the moment will blossom.  Your instinct for knowing what (and who) is worth your time will grow and flourish like ivy on a castle wall.  Prioritize the uniqueness that make you, you and the invisible magnet that draws in other like-minded souls to dance in your orbit.”

It's called growing old gracefully my friend and it’s a gift denied to many.  So, work on your soul within for that is timeless and where our ultimate destiny lies.  And best of all, soulful character lines are much more radiant than wrinkles.

 

FLAWED BEAUTY

Kintsukuroi, Internet Domain
Weathered Shell, Wrightsville Beach, NC
Character Lines, Jamestown, NC

Staring down at my bare knees as I rode in a golf cart this past weekend on the brink of summer, I noticed that the sunshine had once again begun to highlight the two white scars that dissected my knees. I earned that pair through some tough days and physical therapy. Those “character lines” as I like to consider them, are a bit different from each other. The left knee joint was the first to go about ten years ago and has faint staple marks where they were inserted on either side of a very straight line. The most recent of about two years ago has more character without the staples as it was repaired by sewing the incision under itself. Only recently did I discover that the ancient Japanese understood this concept centuries ago. And they have two primary terms that have evolved over those centuries, kintsukuroi and wabi-sabi.

Kintsukuroi is the art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer or resin mixed with gold dust. The associated philosophy treats the breaks as part of the object’s history, making it more beautiful with its imperfection, rather than something to disguise. Originally, valuable broken pottery was repaired with metal staples. Later the craftsmen began using the golden seams which emphasized the mended imperfections that should be celebrated as a rebirth of the piece!

Wabi-sabi is a philosophy centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. Wabi implies uniqueness and understated elegance while sabi refers to beauty that comes with age, such as a patina and wear or visible repairs. Wabi-sabi acknowledges three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect. Buddhists describe it as the wisdom and beauty of imperfection. I’ve written before about abandoning my search for perfect shells on the beach and instead began looking for uniquely imperfect specimens that have been rolled and battered by the sand and tides. The flawed beauty of these shells is sadly overlooked by many bearers of the footprints in my path.

And as we continue to circle the sun more times than we care to acknowledge, those “character lines” randomly crossing our bodies and the “crow’s feet” spreading away from our eyes are beautiful indications that we have lived and laughed, however imperfectly!

CHARACTER LINES

Vintage Barn Wood, Summerfield, NC

A Facebook friend recently posted the sentiment that a scar shows that the hurt is past, the wound is closed, you have endured the pain and God has healed you. I can certainly relate after open heart surgery, two knee replacements and various small scars scattered about my exterior surfaces. And of course, the sun and years slowly erode the plasticity of your outer shell resulting in random wrinkles forming here and there.

Pat Boone was one of the teenage heart throbs growing up in the fifties who represented the antithesis of Elvis Presley. Pat’s image was that of the straight “A” college fraternity guy while Elvis carried the banner of rambunctious “rock ‘n roll” rebels. Pat crooned Love Letters in the Sand while Elvis rocked You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog!

Pat’s daughter Debby recorded a Grammy and Oscar award winning song in 1971 titled You Light up my Life which was a huge unrivaled success at the time. Debby, bless her heart, is now fifty seven and the official spokesperson for Lifestyle Lift, an organization that promotes facial surgeries that attempt to counter sagging skin and wrinkles. She hosts a 30 minute infomercial promoting the benefits of face lifts while her biggest hit song pervasively echoes in the elevator’s background. She never mentions that she has actually used the services she promotes. Some people light up a room by entering; some by leaving. I’m not sure that a face lift would make any difference.

I personally have absolutely no intention of ever using Debby’s paid for advice. I have always and always will maintain that each of the scars and wrinkles that I’ve acquired over time were individually hard earned. Life happened and I paid for each and every one of them through blood, sweat and tears. I’ve never considered them in any negative way, but as the vestiges of a life well lived and the character lines that they truly represent—like uniquely aged vintage barn wood!