Changing Bodies, Changing Perspectives

 

Yes, I’ve been painting again, because I’m at a stage in my life when I can happily ignore chores and the approaching festive season and indulge myself in what I want to do. I wanted to paint, and so I did. 

I marvel at how much less ‘guilt’ I feel now when I ignore the ‘shoulds’. And I think yes, it’s partly because of the age and stage of life I’m in, and the realization that I know myself so much better now and can acknowledge that I’ve never been really good at any of the traditional domestic-related tasks and I’m okay with that. It’s not who I am. I’ve worked for many (many!) years, pay my taxes, raised my child, try to be a good citizen, and now I find I want to spend my time writing, creating art, playing, connecting with people who inspire and ignite my curiosity, and ... keep on learning.

I’ve signed up for a series of watercolour painting classes next month. One might think – you really should first try and master acrylic painting, but, no, why wait until I ‘master’ anything? Because that day may never come and my goal is (or should be) not to ‘master’ anything, but to explore. I want to try something new, learn how watercolour techniques differ from acrylics (which I’m not sure I know anyway because it’s all self-taught). But if I find I like it, then I want to keep on trying it.

Because . . . living is learning and trying, trying and learning. And I’m not done with that yet: Learning to paint, to write better, to read better, more deeply, to speak a foreign language, to understand art better, to ponder and discuss issues with friends, to learn more about how we approach aging, how others view it, what their routines and comforts are, what their perspectives are.

We were talking in one online session about our bodies, and how our perspectives have changed over the years. How the focus from the outer body has shifted to its inner workings. And how, no matter what your body type is/was, each and every one of us was dissatisfied with some part of our body at some point. And wasted much time lamenting that. And maybe still do. Because that is what society imposes on women – the need to constantly strive for not looking old, for not looking ordinary or average (spoiler alert, the majority of us are and do, and there’s beauty in that too if only we could see it). If every woman simply refused to try and ‘improve’ their looks to some predetermined standard, we would all breathe a collective sigh of relief and get on with other important things in our lives. But that is never going to happen. And yet, most men spend almost no time on their appearances. At least, not the average man of my generation.

But I’ve gone off tangent, from painting to our bodies, although, many world-renowned paintings in museums are, in fact, about bodies. And they’re usually of the voluptuous type, none of them perfect, but all of them interesting. In my opinion, interesting is preferable to blandly beautiful. Beauty fades. Interesting does not. At least, not if you keep feeding your curiosity and zest for life, your willingness to be engaged with it.

Off now on another tangent to the little annoyances this month that have irked me:

- waking up one morning to five fraudulent Uber charges to my credit card while I slept, which necessitated phone calls to my bank and Uber, blocking the card, and dealing with the aftermath. Inconvenient and frustrating, annoyingly boring and tedious, but not a major disruption.

- trying to replace the lever on my toilet tank. I’ve replaced the flapper before and thought I could do this quite easily. Wrong. What should have taken maybe twenty minutes took almost two hours, punctuated by lots of swearing and cursing. And, worst of all, the realization that my fingers do not have the strength or nimbleness required to twist and turn and tighten small parts. Another little blow in the aging journey.

- Same with putting up my minimal Christmas decorations. Trying to replace tiny light bulbs in the one strand of lights I use for my tiny twig tree, took a lot longer than it should have.

These little reminders that our bodies are not what they used to be can cause moments of dismay and defeat. Until I remember, these hands can still type (pretty damn fast) and can still wield a paintbrush and a tennis racquet. And not being quick and efficient at changing a toilet lever or a tiny light bulb, or putting up the perfect Christmas tree, is one of those domestic-related things I was never good at anyway. And I’m okay with that.