Tag: timelessness

Within

I’m sitting here in a hotel room, in a hotel that was born in the same year as my eldest son. So this is a 28-year-old hotel room. Its current “look” seems to be a whimsical, boutique-y look, with prominent colors and unusual off-centered placements of mismatching artwork. I’m sure that this square room has had many variations over the years. The rule of thumb is that the average hotel changes and updates its decorations about every seven years. So this hotel is probably on the end of its fourth cycle of “changing it up”. I wonder if people are generally on the same 7- year cycle of updating our appearance, our homesites, our mindsets? Some hotels appear like they have never had a change-up. Some people are the same. When I was a college textbook sales representative back in the early 1990s, my main point of contact were the departments’ administrative assistants. There was one administrative assistant whose office remained stubbornly and firmly in the 1960s. She had a beehive hairdo, wore brightly colored cats-eye glasses, she smoked in her office (even though you weren’t supposed to), and all of the furnishings in the office were mid-century (before mid-century became cool again). It was like entering into a time warp. I found her office oddly fascinating and sometimes even reassuring. That woman was not about to let trends, nor time, take her away from surroundings that made her feel the most at home.

My husband read a story recently about one of our country’s earliest magnates. In an enormous romantic gesture, he traded their New York City home for a pearl necklace that his wife desperately wanted. (At the time, pearls were exceedingly rare because no one had yet figured out how to harvest pearls in an industrial sense.) Ironically, the necklace recently sold in auction for $165,000 and the New York City home that he traded it for is worth almost $300 million dollars.

Everything changes. What is valuable to you, or to anyone else, changes. What looks good to you at one time often loses its appeal overtime (to the point of laughing hysterically at you and your friends’ 1980’s glue-sprayed big bangs). Noticing what changes, makes it easier to pivot to thinking about what is endlessly timeless. Feelings are timeless. We all experience the different variations of feelings and sensations that our ancestors have felt for thousands of years. And the many generations ahead of us, no matter what their surroundings look like, will experience the same myriad of feelings and sensations that we do. The timeless stuff is all inside of us. Timelessness lies within.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1506. Do you think you could beat a lie detector test? (Me – no way, no how. I’m a terrible liar.)

Madonna’s Butt

I have to confess that I am not above reading Hollywood gossip, as much as I don’t like that quality in myself. The other night, I found myself clicking through a series of articles discussing/criticizing/critiquing the possibility that Madonna had recently invested in rather unflattering, butt implants. Madonna is aged 60. The overall consensus of the articles that I clicked through, seemed to be, that Madonna takes herself too seriously and that she is not aging gracefully. Many Madonna fans are finding it disconcerting to see her show a level of insecurity that she never seemed to portray before, with her current seemingly unending quest, for hopelessly trying to retain her youth.

Now I don’t know Madonna personally, so I have no idea what her mindset is and I say, if her butt implants make her happy, so be it. But as a woman approaching 50, the question does come up from time to time, “What does aging gracefully mean for me?” There isn’t always a simple, easy answer.

When I was in my 30s, raising small children, I belonged to a neighborhood pool club where all of the other 30-something moms, living in our neighborhood like me, would congregate with our kids. The 30-something moms, sat in the area in close proximity to the kiddie pool, bathrooms and snack bar, for obvious reasons. The 40-something moms had their own area. Their area was closer to shade and the tennis courts. A lot of times, their teenage kids weren’t even at the pool.

I bring this up, because looking back, while the 40-something moms didn’t have our youthful freshness, our sag-free skin and our budding energy levels, they made up for it all and some, with their confidence, ease and comfort level with themselves. They had nothing to prove. While us 30-something moms offered each other a lot of support and camaraderie, there was also a great deal of competition. Who bounced back to bikini body after pregnancy the fastest? Who packed the healthiest snacks and safest pool toys for our kids? Who managed family, marriage, career, beauty, etc. the best? The 40-something moms had enough experience under their belts to know that the competition game was silly and futile. They knew that time was ticking and it was high time to make sure that their own needs were being taken care of, too. A lot of them were excellent tennis players, who spent a lot of time honing their individual skills. They were lovely in their poise and certainty. They were so attractive because of their easy self-assuredness and confidence and their seemingly lack of care about the fleeting things that really don’t matter.

I read a book many years ago, written by a naturopath. I cut out an excerpt from his book and unfortunately I can’t find the name of the source. Still, his wisdom has served as a guide for me, many times, when the reality of aging has reared its ugly head, when I gaze into the mirror on a day when no amount of mental cheerleading makes up for the degeneration that the reflection of the reality of aging, is showing. This is what he said:

“What you need to remember is this: healthy-looking women are way prettier. It’s dumb to think you’re ever going to look young again. You are not. If you set your heart on looking twenty-eight or thirty-eight, you’re going to break it, no matter what this cosmetic maker or that plastic surgeon tells you. Ain’t gonna happen. The best you’re going to do, if you go down that road, is look like a vaguely delusional woman of precisely your age who has gone to a hell of a lot of trouble and expense to achieve a slightly weird look. The real goal is much simpler and easier to achieve. The real goal is to be a terrific-looking woman . . . of precisely your age.”

I think that is what Madonna’s critics are trying to say. Be the best version of yourself at the age that you are currently living, Madge. You don’t have to be young Madonna. You were already her. Be the version of Madonna who has experienced a lot of life and knows the serene value of that wisdom and experience. Be the beautiful image that reflects the irrelevance of the fleeting, and the in-depth beauty of the experienced and the enlightened. Continue to be the renegade to help guide others to what really matters – the inner core of self-awareness and the confidence to let that boldness and fearlessness fly in a way that moves past age and decay. That boldness is timeless. And incredibly beautiful.