As an old gal, I noted with some disdain...and then humor that my arms now wave before my hands do. When did this transpire? If I'm honest, I'll admit this to be the very reason I rarely take a gander at myself in the full length mirror of my bathroom. Once upon a time I was svelte.
Now, and I say this with a deep, heavy sigh, I have become "buxom." But not with the woo-hoo, I'm Barbie expression. I AM Aunt Bea from the "Andy Griffith Show!" Or, perhaps, I am my grandmother - in so many ways. My mom and I surely had our differences. She was elegantly trim and epitomized charm and grace; a lover of literature and always was a pianist. Her marriage to my father would probably have provided a great backdrop to those damnable romance novels. Those ditties have caused more than a fair share of angst in expectation.
However, my grandmother cherished great written works and music and still worked her farm with a hand-held plow behind her mule, Nell, well into her 80's. Although I have no farm, I moved to Montana many a moon ago because the land and her culture's style of individualism drew me.
These ladies have provided amazing lessons that I am only now beginning to truly appreciate. Granny loved deeply and this found expression through her country style cooking and open hearth to any guest. Mom, too, offered love from a well spring of depth; and although not the open nurturer of my own thoughts on idealism and patterns I have worked to provide, she brought beauty and dignity to her table of living.
When my oldest daughter asked to accept my offer of moving herself and her two little men into my tiny home, there was adjustment. I adore my grandsons and have seen all three of these amazing beings grow magnificently over this past year. During this same trek of time, my youngest daughter married a terrific fellow. All are gifted with intellect, humor, talents galore, and utter style - unique and uncanny as they navigate this plane of existence.
My oldest daughter has found a gentleman counterpart to her road of discovery and will be moving a couple of hours' drive in the months ahead. At first I (and my youngest daughter) found ourselves in a bit of shock. We tightened our family ties and battened down the hatches when our loved one and the children were abandoned by her ex-spouse whose biography is a litany of irresponsibility and grievance about his inability to make an accountable life. The upset wasn't that we wanted her to remain stagnant. For me, it was not only change, but now, altering my "identity."
With the passage of a small segment of chronological moments, my youngest adult daughter and I have pulled back into our own worlds - still including those we love. Each being not only has a right to experiment with this grand fabric of experience, but to undertake amazing exploration. I believe it defines us.
I forever remember the line from the movie, "The American President." "It's ALL about Character."
I just located a marvelous presence from author Craig Johnson's books, Sheriff Walt Longmire. The streaming TV miniseries, "Longmire" came into my awareness and I am in love. Because "character" is the byword of this most unusual persona. Human with frailties, baggage, trials and tribulations, but forever a host to a distinctly complex set of the attributes of decency and integrity.
Even the "old broad" I now am KNOWS that I want to be "Longmire" when I grow up.
"Talents are best nurtured in solitude.
Character is best formed in
the stormy billows
of the world."
Johann Von Goethe
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