By the time I met her, she had already full on grandma-ed into her Elsieness, (the aproned belly, the Thom Mcann shoes) so to catch glimpses of her just being Elsie is such a delightful and necessary surprise.
We’re all guilty of it I suppose, seeing people from a single vantage point. But the full story is never really just the single page we plop ourselves into. These softened grandmas that we rest our youthful heads against were once sharp and angled women of the world.
I look at the few photos that I have. There is a girlish mischief from the start. So young and beautiful, with side-eye glances that said she probably knew, but didn’t feel the need to actually come out and say it — no, that was reserved for her smile. And then in middle age, already rounding, she still had the wide eyed willingness, the joyful audacity, to wear plaid. Head to toe. Vested and pantsed in full-on, still daring, still hopeful, youth-angled plaid.
I mention it because I want to paint her soon. And I want to capture it all. She was so much more than the woman in front of the sink. In front of the stove. And I have to laugh, because looking beyond the keyboard where I type these words, I see my plaid pants. And I can honestly say, it only just occurred to me, that this is what she gave to me, the “audacity of hope.” The little angles that say, she is relevant still — I am relevant still. Isn’t it what we all want? To be seen? To still be possible, with all of our softened edges?
So I offer you this — be bold in your choices, bold in your love for others and yourself — with all the certainty of today’s angles, dare the plaid!
