Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
How wonderful to love yourself completely enough to set your own style away from conventionalism, to not worry about what others think of you, to establish your own sense of yourself, they are gloriously, completely.
I shall have to work on this.
I think that is what is happening to us, Leafy. In the end, it turns out to be about awareness. About choice. The beautiful dell' Orefice lived poor, as a child; suffered a broken nose and a year long bout with rheumatic fever. Danced with Ballet Russe as a young girl. When she was well again, her muscles had atrophied to the point that the dream of ballet was over.
Yet you see the grace of that dream in the way the woman carries herself to this day.
She lived as she lived and made a pot of money and lost everything in the Bernie Madoff swindle. At 74 or 77 or some other impossible age, she went back to work.
She has had both knees replaced; she suffers from arthritis.
A beautiful woman, and a fortunate one...but how did she create of herself what she did? What must her self talk be, and how does it compare to our own?
http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG3364006/Carmen-DellOrefice-eternal-grace.html
Though she was pregnant more than once, she gave birth to only one child.
A daughter.
Her relationships sound as difficult as our own ~ with our children and even, with our men. Yet, she is, or at least, portrays, someone not defeated, but vibrantly alive.
That is where we are going, next.
Vibrantly, beautifully, lovingly alive.
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A quote from the cited article.
"While she may have enjoyed close friendships with the men she worked with, the same can't be said of her relationship with her daughter, now in her early fifties and working as a therapist in California. Things were never going to be easy for a girl who had a goddess for a mother. As Laura has put it, 'My mother always said, "You have your good looks in your own right," but I never believed her. Because why didn't I have those long legs? And how come my hips and bosom weren't in proportion the way hers were? She was like a Barbie doll to me, and I was just not there.'
'She was coloured by everyone's attitude towards me,' says Dell'Orefice. 'And yet I always said to her, "Your mother's just your mother."' Over the years there have been periods of estrangement, and what sounds like horribly fraught, sporadic contact.
All of which would be enough to etch the face of even the most resilient mother. Dell'Orefice has her share of wrinkles, but she is an intelligent, thoughtful woman who has somehow made peace with her tumultuous past, absolved herself of any feelings of guilt and retained a calm equanimity that shows in her face. Her clear-eyed radiance must surely be underpinned by a long, arduous skincare regime, involving many different unguents and potions. How else would she look so good?"
***
Just for the record, this model goes in for silicone injections routinely, has had her skin abraded almost to the final layer, and has had whatever else that could be done, or that needed doing, done.
But she is still a beautiful woman.
This is where we are going, everyone. To paraphrase: Intelligent, thoughtful women who have somehow made peace with our turbulent pasts; absolved of guilt (can you imagine) and retaining a calm equanimity that shows in our faces.
Cedar