Friday, April 16, 2010

A beautiful life

I am 52 years old. This causes one of two things to happen. You either run away from it as fast as your chubby little legs will allow, or you pick it up, you examine it, you turn it over in your hands and hold it up to the light. I am of the latter type. Not because I want to be. I just can't help myself.

Of course, I have to look at the math. Maybe I only have fifteen years left ... maybe twenty ..... maybe thirty, but however much there is, I want it to be especially good. I should have learned enough with my early years and experiences to equip me for this portion of my journey. In gastronomic terms, I'm ready for dessert. In which case, I want my dessert to be rich and creamy. Death by chocolate.

So, more then ever I want this part of my life to be a beautiful life. It seems it should be a balance of experiences and creativity and enriching the whole kit and kaboodle with the people that I want to have around rather then the people that I have to endure, and the icing on the cake should be that it is infinitely joyful.

It will be like the diamond in my wedding ring. The choices were going large, which meant that you could flash around a larger rock but it would have less brilliant color because of the impurities larger stones have. There would be more flaws. The other choice is of course smaller, which was my choice. My diamond, I was told, is about as close to flawless as a diamond can get. There aren't any impurities in the stone making it look cloudy. When the light hits it, the colors that flash and sparkle from the stone are blue and yellow and red. It's small but it is just so pretty to look at .... so close to perfect.

That's how my life should be now. Not a big life, but small and beautiful. Such a pretty thing to reflect upon ... so close to perfect.

Then again, maybe I have forty years left and I'm still eating steak!

louie

1 comment:

  1. Lovely column. You and I have the same aspirations for this time of life. I heard a researcher recently describing the years between 50-75 as "bonus years" thanks to our increasingly healthy later life. I like the idea of bonus years:-)

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