"There's this youth culture...it really discards people once they reach a certain age. I actually think that people are so powerful and interesting - women, especially - when they are older. We've got so much to say, but popular culture is so reductive that we just talk about whether we've got wrinkles, or whether we've put on weight or lost weight, or whether we've changed our hairstyle. I just find that shallow." ~Annie Lennox
Not so in this neighborhood where I live surrounded by so many incredibly elegant, talented women. They are so beautiful in so many different ways. It is because of how they have lived and what they have lived through. Their beauty radiates through their eyes and in their smiles. They have accumulated wisdom that only life can give you. I find great comfort being around these lovely women.
I have been walking in the early mornings with a few of these 'girls'.
January can be cold when you live so close to the mountains, but we get up early and get ourselves moving! One of our group has had a stroke, two have pacemakers, one of those nearly died before she got hers, and I couldn't breathe for three years.
We have always cared for each other during those times, and also during emotional upsets.
And so we marvel that we are out walking at all!
We notice the blue sky, the sun when it comes out from behind the mountains.
We notice every beautiful thing as we walk, because we have lived and we are so grateful for each other, for our surroundings and for the fact that we are actually walking! Oh, what a wonderful world. How much better to be on this end of things. To know what we know.
It's almost like having a glorious secret. We'd like to share it with our younger sisters, friends, daughters... but we can't.
For they must live it.
Then they will know.
"Growing old is a mandatory process. For women, for a period of time, we might even resist aging as we try our hardest to fight off wrinkles and hang on to the physical beauty of our faces. Yet, getting old is a natural process where things are slowing down, and you'll begin to see that the sparkle in your heart and the twinkle in your eyes make you beautiful in a way that's not achievable in youth. 'Age' is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years."
