Skin Deep?

A friend related to me recently how her daughter had earnestly held her face in her hands and said ‘Mummy … why are there cracks in your face?’ Children are an amazing wake up call – how many times have you spent the day looking at their peachy skin and plump, lithe little bodies to catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror for the first time that day and suddenly see a tired old crone looking back? However accomplished you are at overlooking the imperfections age brings, your kids notice everything. The flipside to this was a lovely: ‘I do like hugging you Mummy … you are squishy.’

I’ve always admired people who have survived the everything that life throws at you with panache – I love people who age with spirit and interest still burning in them. As a teenager, my pin-ups were less boy-bands and more Lucien Freud photographed by Beaton, or Chet Baker. When you look at the images at the start of the post maybe you can see why - brilliance and beauty are a pretty devastating combination. I’ve always loved artists like Beatrice Wood, Georgia O’Keefe, Eve Arnold, Elsa Peretti – brilliant, iconoclastic, challenging. It seems ludicrous to me that in the west at least, we focus on a brief, fleeting youth as the ideal of beauty to be chased when there are so many interesting changes and stages in a human life - each with its own particular beauty. Freud is well known for challenging our notions of what is beautiful - his models are often large, flawed, human - his paintings are unflinching but beautiful nonetheless.

When you look at the wisdom and confidence of the faces below, you wonder why on earth people succumb to extreme plastic surgery. People say you earn your face - why give it up? I’ve always felt the one thing you cannot eradicate is the age of the gaze – you have this old soul staring out of a taut face that does not look thirty, but just looks beyond age – bizarre and with the warmth and character of a mannequin. Challenging fate, making something ageless – perhaps the best way to do this is through our work? When you see the older faces of Freud, Wood, and O’Keefe, can you imagine yourself there? All the defiance of 'Only the good die young!' seems foolish. 'Better to burn out than to fade away' ... is it really? Le Carre has just published his latest at 77 - we are lucky in our career that we have no sell by date. I hope we will all be writing into our dotage. When you reach the glorious ages of these artists (Beato was 102 when she died I think and looking pretty incredible still), what would you like to see when you look back over your life?

TODAY’S PROMPT: Where does your identity lie – in how you look or how you think? What is in a name or face? Have you chosen to be yourself blogging or have you appropriated a famous face, cartoon, animal, name or pseudonym – what lies behind your choice? When you define yourself in your profile and you list the books and films you love, are they ones you loved once, love now, or think say something about you? Imagine yourself at 80, 90, 100 years old looking back at yourself now – what advice would you give yourself? Why not take a few minutes with your notebook to write a letter from your future – let your aged self give you some good advice. Or why not dust off that favourite book or movie and take some quality time with yourself this Sunday and enjoy something you really love for a change.