This Is What Sixty Looks Like

At fifty, I was doing one-to-one coaching with Diane Ericson and one of my assignments was to make a collage of the woman I was becoming. I made it for the years 50-70 which means I'm officially half way through today. 

I would doubt there is anyone who has arrived at a milestone like this with their life looking just like they had imagined. I'd have to wonder if they were lying. Life has way too many twists and turns to follow any plot line. My life definitely doesn't look at all like what I imagined and that's okay. It is what it is. I've been excited all week. Sixty feels like a significant shift... and a wonderful one.

The collage was made in three parts to fit above my desk top and below the cabinets. This is the top section. Looking at them now, I'm struck by how it got more serious as the parts came together, perhaps more realistic. Since making this one, I've made a collage every year about what the new year holds and each collage seems to hold some secrets that reveal themselves over time. This one certain did and probably still does. 

Yesterday, I drove an hour an a half to a salon that I knew for sure had MY hairspray because I haven't been able to find it here, my hair was looking horrendous, and I'm too vain to turn sixty with bad hair. That's been consistent my whole life. I like things, definitely my hair, a certain way. Other aspects have really shifted, matured, emerged, evolved, and come into being over the course of my life. They've been a complete surprise. I also bought some crazy pant fabric. I used to be very plain. It's intriguing to look at the woman I was then, the woman I am now, and to think about the woman I am still becoming. 

 

I decided I wanted to spend today playing in the studio and then tomorrow go to an arts & crafts fair nearby. This morning, I'll finish the waistband on the pants I want to wear to dinner tonight and then play with a bag. It started as a textile art piece, became the big bag I took to the retreat in March, and is now cut up into 1 1/2" squares waiting to become a different bag. I started out a rigid, step-by-step, follow the pattern exactly, type of person and have become a slightly eccentric, start and see what happens, I don't really want to know what I'm making yet, kind of creative. And I quite like it. 

Happy sixty to me...
Happy sixty to me...
Happy sixty, dear me...e...
Happy sixty to me. 

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - delightful milestone moments