Walking home yesterday I noticed a particularly lovely autumn leaf. I thought about the chemistry involved. Acidity and the starting composition of the leaf vary the amount of yellow and red as the chlorophyl is used up and the green fades. Different densities of chemicals in different parts cause the leaf to change from (to us) a uniform green to a variegated pattern.
I thought about how that variation was always there, but age brought it into sharper relief and beauty.
Then I thought about this meme that’s been going around, where friends of mine have been posting pictures of themselves today and ten years ago.
Meme participation is self-selecting, meaning people whose before-and-afters affect them negatively won’t post them, so it is not surprising that for me, the main take away from the meme has been how much more beautiful all my friends are now than a decade ago. Age has sharpened and brought forth features that were hidden in a blander youth.
“Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve.”
― Coco Chanel
I was in my twenties when I first heard that quote, and at the time, I thought the sense of ‘deserve’ was puni
tive. “Take these wrinkles for your shortcomings.” But now I realize it is a reward. It’s only now at forty that I have a face that really feels like me. By fifty we have faces that truly reflect our uniqueness.
We are like leaves. We start out very similar to each other in life. If one leaf is more green or more round, the subtle difference is not noticeable in a cloud of near-identical green. We are lost in the crowd. All children are lovely, but they are all lovely in the same way. Only when age winnows us and sharpens us does it bring out our colors, the things that make us beautiful on the inside finally become reflected on the outside.
So I wrote this snippet of poem. I hope I can expand it into something longer:
Round and fat and full I’ve been
Unmarked unremarkable working but
Weary with fitting in.
So my gloss is thinning and
Increasingly I pray:
May time sharpen me like
Autumn’s serrated leaves,
Crisp like biting into oak and
May I blaze like them,
Scarlet to my death.
