Aged Documents

Licked the stamp and lammed down to the post office. I love the post office, especially when you get to be a regular. This was important mail, so it was sent priority and certified in order to have someone on the other end sign for it. The lady worker there is beautiful in an unassuming 1940's manner, hair parted in the middle, rolled, and pulled back into a ponytail. She appears to be in her forties herself, thin, and looks like the secretary in a whodunit film noir production. She has a cat.

The other postal worker I see most often is fond of the ocean and was quite happy when the stamp for Duke Kahanamoku, the man who popularized surfing in the 1920's, appeared a few years back. Knowing these tidbits about their personal lives makes me look forward to stopping by, if only to pick up stamps even though I rarely use them. It's enough, this information, I don't need to know more. Do these two know of their stage roles in my post office vignette? Never.

It's the same everywhere that you go, with the people that aren't friends or acquaintances, but nonetheless people you seen on a fairly regular schedule. There is the Farmer's Market group, the work group, the neighbor group, and the, heck, I'll say the relative group--the ones you only see at serious gatherings. I wonder what role I am assigned in reverse? Who looks for me that I am unaware of; am I a familiar but unknown face for someone?

Don't be afraid of your face changing as you age...live on top of the world as long as you can, but there will be a day that you are unrecognized by another from the circumstances of life. It happened today in the post office--there was a man who I thought I knew as the husband of one of my coworkers, but as he turned to look around, the composite of his face did not match the one in my memory. Our eyes connected, but I could tell he had the same dilemma; who is that woman? We haven't seen each other in over seven years, and he didn't look familiar enough to me to give him a smile and a nod. If he wasn't the alleged husband, it could mean big trouble.

For me, the weirdest element to this aging is the loss of elasticity in the skin. I am getting more like a sharpei by the minute, and have pockets of skin forming in handy places. Now, if I'm working with a polymer clay that needs warming, it gets tucked under a tata and is held there till I need it. Nothing drops. It used to. I had my day.

The tattoos on my back are starting to fold in half. You tweeze a stray eyebrow, and sister, you have to pull farther as the skin now follows the hair on its way out. When you put on make up, your skin doesn't stay in place, but smooshes around with your fingers, stretching in the most amusing ways. That was sarcasm. Well, maybe it isn't, for if I want to travel in disguise, loose skin is very amenable. Think of Marlon Brando stuffing his cheeks with cotton for the Godfather role.

I can hold enough cotton in my cheeks to make a small chipmunk happy. You want white eyebrows? Pull some out and stick it on with Vaseline. Handy. You could do that "who is that, I don't quite recognize her" thing with me if you want, I won't be offended. In fact, that may be the reasoning behind the disguise.

Cool night, clouds are tall and white. You have been blessed with recognition that you are alive, and can make choices about your actions. I have a friend who cries about aging, as if she didn't have anything to offer but her face. She is only in her mid-fifties and looks back, looks back too much, bitter as a pillar of salt. Ah, my one, you are lovely still in other, deeper ways, and your eyes still tell of the warm emotions inside. Come along with me, it will be an adventure, your life is here to live. Cast the day aside, dream of what is to be.