When I grow up I wanna be an old woman

Last Saturday a friend (who is about ten years younger than me and whom I haven’t seen in a while) came over to look at my work. She wanted to pick a painting to rent while she put her house on the market to sell. As I was sorting through and hauling paintings around in my studio, she asked me “Leya, how old are you?” I told her, proudly, “I will be sixty-eight next Saturday.” “And you’re still going at it!” I said “Why not!”

This little interchange is replete with admiration for the process of aging as well as the suggestion that sixty-eight is old, and perhaps it is amazing I can still move. To her credit, I think coming into my studio can be overwhelming to people who are not used to it. I do a lot of work and most of it is very large so my studio is quite full. So there is definitely an exciting energy in the room itself.

Most artists do mature well. Like conductors where the physical and mental activity keeps them active, the act of painting is energizing. I think, perhaps, it is the childlike mind that is a generator for artwork. In many ways, painting is play. Intelligent play. Demanding openness to unlimited possibilities. Challenging.

I know I am fortunate, come from a family where youthfulness is common. My one hundred year old (almost 101) aunt is still full of piss and vinegar. My dad didn’t slow down (at all) until he was eighty-four (and lived until he was ninety). My lively, vibrant mother died an early, very untimely death from DDT poisoning, at sixty-five. There are no guarantees.

I do color my hair, but so do 99% of my students (even, especially, the eighteen year olds) and most of the women I know. I’m a fairly active person: paint, teach, dance, read, exercise, play, think, etc. Basically, enjoy my life, live. I was told a quote yesterday: “There is a difference between living and dying and being alive and dead.”

Youthfulness is considered an asset but my greatest pleasure is in the wisdom and calmness that blossoms with age. When I was reading some of the comments on an entry by Ronni on her blog, Time Goes By (whose main theme on her blog is aging) where she was asking people how they felt about proclaiming their age, one man said (and I probably am slightly misquoting, but the idea is right!): “Hell, no. I don’t tell my age. I would never get a date if I did!” I would like to lie about my age. Maybe then I would be able to “get a date.” But the date I would “get” because I lied wouldn’t be the one I wanted. I want to be wanted for who I am, not some number attached to my entity.

I’ve been told I should, when someone tells me I don’t look my age (which I do hear often), say: “This is what sixty-eight looks like.” So………..

Today is my sixty-eighth birthday and this is what sixty-eight (holding a four day old puppy with a two year old mom) looks like!

Posted by leya at November 26, 2005 07:29 AM