I am aging with the aches and pains of the aging, and even more so as a postmenopausal woman. I am overweight, I carry quite a bit of extra fat on my 5 foot 1 inch body, my torso is short and my boobs are way too big! My butt is, well, abundant, shall we say. And it turns out my kitchen apron is not the only apron I wear! And to top it off, my face holds the lines of life, etched in deep. What was my creator thinking when creating this form of my human body???? Awe yes, a masterpiece!!!
I am aging and I am grateful for the privilege to do so. I guess it is apropos to express one's gratitude for the privilege of getting older, while bitching and moaning about the aches and pains, the lines and sagging skin, and a myriad of other maladies that affect the aging human body - and yes, especially for women. During all this I can honestly say that the voice in my thoughts is still the voice of the 16 year old me, the 21 year old me and the wiser 30 something year old me. I can also honestly say that I still see that young girl when I look in the mirror, in the eyes that look back at me.
All that being said my gratitude is firmly in place and I pray to my creator to allow me the privilege of getting even older. I'd like to get at least another 25 years or so out of this body, to continue to have the mind that still talks to me in that young woman’s voice, to continue to have the imagination of a young woman with an eye for color and movement, to create art with the heart of the young and the wisdom of the old.
I continuously see my art style and form evolve, and that makes me a happy artist! I love that I celebrate a woman’s form through my expression of shape and color. I love the concept of the merging of the female form and nature - I mean come on! “Mother Nature” of course there is a correlation. So many times I make a mark on the paper, or drip and dress the paper in color and lines with no rhyme or reason and then step back and observe. And there she is, almost every time.
I can feel in my bones that there is more for me on the horizon, I can sense it in my heart that there is a place in this cold hard world for the soft curves of my art. I pray on it everyday and I trust God when “he” says, ...“For I know the plans I have for you, they are plans for good and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). I so completely believe those words, because the minute I read them, my heart sang, it rejoiced in those words and it rejoiced in the love that I felt that came from my creator.
And that is the only true explanation for the love I felt and continue to feel now that I have placed my faith in the Lord.
So I will continue to age, be it the will of my creator. I will get more lines and my skin will sag even more. The aches and pains will get stronger, there will be more times of fatigue and maybe even some extra grumpiness but through it all, I will continue to create. To draw and paint and to peddle my “wares” to the world and I will revel in the gratitude of my successes and continue to learn from my failures. I will love, I will grow, I will shine under the color of my brush strokes, I will laugh at my (sometimes) weirdness, or shall I say, now that I am one of the “older folks” my eccentricity. I will dress how I want and eat cookies on Sunday on my way to church. I will walk my dog on the beach and marvel at the beautiful madness of the ocean. I will do all this and more all the while wearing the title of “Aging Artist” because dammit I earned it.
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