Faces

I have long been fascinated with faces. Just think about it  after you're done chuckling! Aren't they amazing? They tell such stories, such mysteries. As I've become older and I see my own face beginning to take the shape of its next stage, it makes me think of the time line. I look at pictures of people who have made the full circle here on earth, and now have begun the spiritual circles that will never end. 

The ones that were physically shattered and damaged here and will forever be beautiful and healed. I see the hopes and dreams of young people before, as Jackson Browne so poetically wrote in "Too Many Angels", "And upon their angel faces, life's expectations climb, where the moment has preserved them from the ravages of time". I also wonder how the photographs freeze us and perhaps in a way that was just one sliver of a moment but not the full moment. We then thread our dreams and thoughts into the photograph that is before us.

I see the infant in her Mothers arms totally dependent on her for her very survival. The teenager who has so much and yet still needs the wisdom that only comes with time. I see the 20 somethings geared and set to take on the world and to leave their mark. As the next stages came to me and I began to father my children, I found them teaching me much about myself or at least what I thought I knew about myself. I love the peace and contentment of my elders who have learned to let go of what isn't important and to embrace what is. I saw the hollowness in my Grandfathers face in his last days. I was looking at the shell of a man scared yet preparing for the fuller journey. 

I'm not really sure what all of this means. Perhaps it's a reflection that time comes for us all. That maybe we are to make the best of each day we are given. To understand that no matter how much we think we aren't taking this life for granted, the acute clarity of life will reveal itself in our own crossing over. 

So no worries, for what good do they do. Engage, love, and relish in the beauty of it all. Those are the steps for me although I fail daily, but it is no reason to stop walking or finding love in the faces in my life.

GS