Like Fine Wine

“So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls, why don’t somebody wake up to the beauty of old[er] women?” ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

Have you watched Meryl Streep lately?  If you’re lucky, you’ve seen It’s Complicated or her amazing performance as Julia Child in Julie and Julia, or, better still, both…

Because she’s gorgeous.

In both these roles, she is so comfortable in her own skin that she’s able to fully let go.  She embodies such joy and love of life that I couldn’t help but be swept off my feet by her grace and beauty.  Whoever decided that women don’t get better with age?

I know some phenomenal older women who give me hope for what I might become someday, women who’ve taught me what it means to be true to who you are…

After her first session, on her way from my room to our chiropractor, one of my clients, a grandmother of three, swept past me wrapped in a sheet, her bra swinging from one finger.  “I just couldn’t stand to get dressed,” she said to me with a wink, “I feel too marvelous!” We giggled madly, and off she went.

My mom, after a lifetime of feeling unathletic, has taken up hiking and kayaking in the last decade and now she revels in her strength and capability.  She also went back to school to become a teacher, graduating with her Masters 2 years after I graduated with my undergrad, and has been known to go swimming in her nightgown… ☺

And then there’s Sara, our Executive Director and Life Coach Extraordinaire, who is the epitome of poise and eloquence, and is one of the kindest, most generous people I know… and this spring she’s finishing a degree and is easily the best, most committed student I’ve ever seen.

Somewhere along the line, someone convinced us that “letting it all hang out” means being… sloppy… as if owning and making no excuses for who and what we are is akin to having spent the night drinking vodka and Redbull till we’re blind.

But Meryl, my mom, Sara, my fabulous client, and all the other wonderful, wild women I know all prove that there is nothing more gorgeous than a woman who is holding back nothing of herself, who is giving her all, and taking life’s challenges and opportunities as they come, with style, and humor, and no apology.

Oh yeah, I know who I want to be when I grow up…

“A succulent wild woman is one of any age who feels free to fully express herself in every dimension of her life.” ~ Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK)