Garden of Graces

Growing older is a garden of graces . . . disgraces, wild goose chases, closed in places. It is an imperceptible tottering of time on a conveyer belt, where at the end time drops into the slipstream and becomes the mobius . Growing older is wanting to be older when you are young and younger when you are old. You wish away the days, never dreaming that you would give a king’s ransom to have them back once again, treasured, appreciated. In our youth, we squander time, kick it to the curb. In our older years, we try to tie it to ourselves. Age sneaks around when we aren’t looking, spreads its poison pollen and is gone without our seeing. The business of living distracts us from noticing until it is too late, when we look into a mirror, only to behold the ruthless signs smothering us. It is realizing men no longer turn and whistle. You have become invisible, crayoned out until some young man says, “Grandma, the time?” Growing older is smelling of Icy Hot instead of Beautiful by Estee Lauder, seeing people sniff. It is keeping L`Oreal in business long past the time you want to stop, but can’t bear those gray hairs that are the mute testimony to the inexorable decay Growing older is breaking the shackles of propriety Wearing that purple, and at least four sweaters. It is joyously realizing you don’t care a fig what people think or say about you or anything else. You can laugh at the absurdity of fashion, style. It is the delicious capability to say anything you want, vent your opinions, disagree. You say the most outrageous things freely, and are forgiven, because you are getting more than a little fey and just a little dotty. And, oh, growing old is the sweetest blessing, for you no longer are frozen in fear at death and it's coming soon, for your years have worn you out and everything changes so much there is scarcely anything left of your world What does it matter what god you worshipped This earth has been hell enough for an eternity and if there be heaven, it is icing on the cake