Mother's Day Musings: The Circle of Life is Pretty

Yesterday, was Mother's Day. I can't think of a better thing to celebrate than mothers! If you took a gander at Facebook yesterday, you saw how many people love their moms. There was a lot of love flowing through the airwaves for those we spend our days with, those we have lost, and those we still hope to meet.



To celebrate Mother's Day, I spent Saturday evening with my mother and my almost-nine-months-pregnant sister. We celebrated my sister, because let's be honest, carrying a baby around in your belly is about as "mothering" as you can get. We celebrated my mother, because she is fantastic and motherly in every way. If all children could be blessed with a mother like mine, I am certain the world would be a much happier place. To continue our Mother's Day weekend, we spent Sunday with my grandmother, celebrating her. It was a weekend of mothers. (Dolce Vita Evans didn't even get me a card. That little stinker.)



I was thinking about what I wanted to blog about Mother's Day. Talking about how great my mother was seemed redundant. Those who know my mother think she's great. And those who don't, probably don't care to hear about how lovely my upbringing was. Boring. I started thinking about the circle of life and how we as women go from child to mother and often to child again.



My sister will soon come home to find a warm human sleeping in her home. That little human will depend on her for food, shelter, love, and a good lesson in proper manners. My sister will soon be both child and parent. What a beautiful thing.



My grandmother has lost her ability to remember dates and which medicine to take. After decades of cooking, cleaning, and driving my dad to baseball practice, she now depends on him (and my mother) to buy her groceries, take her to the doctor, and balance her checkbook. My grandmother is now both parent and child. This part of the circle may not appear beautiful at first. Witnessing the struggles of aging can weigh heavy on even the hardest of hearts. Oftentimes, it does on mine.



I have struggled with my blog recently. First, I was advised to talk only about things that were pretty. Then, I was advised to blog less frequently. I have gotten out of the rhythm of blogging about what's on my mind, and in some ways, I feel I have lost my voice. Today, I think I found it again. Blogging about Mother's Day inspired me to think about mothers in a new way. When thinking about childbirth, aging, and the circle of life, I was able to look at the life of a mother. And when viewing the whole circle I realized how beautiful that circle is. (Even when some of the individual pieces seem unnecessarily painful.)



The idea of returning to the place you began is beautiful. From a thought to a child to a mother to a child to a thought. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.



Happy late Mother's Day.

Aging: Am I still pretty?

Here at Bon Lemon, we say, "when life gives you lemons...blog about something pretty." We have dedicated our blog to all things pretty. (Which might not always be what you expected.)

Lately, I have been thinking about aging. I am 30. My boyfriend, 6 Par Farmer (who, apparently, we may have to rename 8 Par Farmer after a few not-so-good rounds. oopsie. :), is 42. My grandmothers are in their eighties. My parents in their late fifties. My friends range from 6-96. I have always found age to be a very relative thing in terms of maturity and beauty.

Women really get the short end of the aging stick. Men are praised for becoming sophisticated and distinguished looking. Women are praised, only if, they seem to escape aging altogether. (Think Demi Moore.) If you have been blessed with the genes to be a woman that looks like a girl, we will praise you. Otherwise, um, no.

I might be the only one, but I find 20 year olds, usually, quite boring to look at. There, I said it. You can not distinguish a vibrant soul from a beige one, because they are all wrapped in the same airbrushed package. It takes some weather to wear off all that shiny. What's pretty about shiny? It's kind of like looking at the sun; sounds nice, but you can't really see anything.

My forty something friends think I don't know the first thing about aging. They think I haven't even begun to realize what it is like to be double crossed by your face. Or betrayed by your thighs. Who knows when you really start to feel old. It is probably relative. All I know is, I think women in their 40's or 70's are much more interesting to look at than women in their 20's.

I don't want to sound like a feminist hippie. I don't think it is pretty to stop brushing your hair, forego exercise, or forget to put on fabulous accessories (perfect at every age :). I think women become more interesting as they age, because it takes work. It is the same reason we are more impressed by self-made millionaires than heiress billionaires. We are more impressed by Kim Cattrall's rockin' bod than Jessica Alba's genetically perfect butt. Aging takes work. And aging gracefully is most definitely pretty.

The definition of pretty, "pleasing or attractive in a graceful or delicate way," is summed up by Vanessa Redgrave. At 73, she is one of the most beautiful women I have seen recently.

So yes. You are still pretty.