When I'm Sixty-Four

I am a bad blogger, but I am back. I enjoy the process...still, I tend to drop away. Lack of discipline.

When The Beatles entered my consciousness at age eleven, Paul was ten years older than me. Five years later we heard him sing When I'm Sixty-four on the Sgt. Pepper album and it was very funny because it was an inconceivable notion at the time.

I was moved to see a lengthly article in the latest issue of The New Yorker all about Paul's upcoming June 18th sixty-fifth birthday and the fortieth anniversary of The Lonely Hearts Club Band. I still have my original vinyl record and I am listening to it now. I have not read the article, but I will.

Tears streamed down my face when I saw the gorgeous photo of a weathered Paul McCartney at sixty-four (nearly sixty-five). This response has nothing to do with Beatlemania. It has everything to do with the heartbreaking beauty of reality. Despite the dyed hair with just a splash of silver at the temple, there is no denying the passage of time on Paul's face. He wears a dark high-collar shirt and the pose is reminiscent of the Meet The Beatles cover.

A line from The Velveteen Rabbit speaks well to this...

Real isn't the thing you were born with. It's what happens to you.

Life on the planet seems to have a way of shaping us. The eastern Wabi Sabi defines true beauty as rooted in the mark of imperfection. It does not reveal itself until the winds of time have had their say. True beauty is in the cracks, the worn spots, and crooked lines.

I seek a little grace in my own weathered crooked reality.