Beautiful

Beautiful

Beauty depends on what you think is beautiful.

Beauty, to me, is a wrinkle.  Or many wrinkles.  I remember looking at the hands of my grandmas and noticing the wrinkles and the stretchy, worn, smooth skin and admiring them.  Because you can truly tell a person by their hands.  You can tell if they are a gardener, a nail biter, a carpenter, or a helper.  You can tell if a manicure is a weekly occurrence.

Beauty is a wrinkle next to your eye.  When you smile, it crinkles and your eyes twinkle.  Your forehead has thought lines and you have smile lines alongside your mouth.  Wrinkles tell a story, your story.  If you smiled, if you laughed, if you had the time of your life while you had your life to live.  I celebrate wrinkles. I celebrate that you can keep your wrinkles and who cares if people know you age.  Who cares if they know you didn’t have time to put anti-wrinkle cream on your face.  If you look your age when you are 81, like my friend Jo Ott does, then you are blessed.  She looks as though she has lived a life of glory and kindness and happiness.  You can tell that she was beautiful as a young woman and that she is beautiful now, because of the life she led.  And the wrinkles tell that story.