Moments

Our friend Becca told us about a special exhibit she wanted to see inside the National Theatre in London.  We decided to go with her and I'm so glad we did!

The exhibit was titled Infinite Variety and featured an artist who has photographed older women.  It was an amazing experience.  You can click on the picture below to read her vision of the exhibit.

My favorite was her belief that "if a face is allowed to age naturally, we see the child, young woman and present all at once like the rings of a tree trunk.  Individuality is preserved, not ironed out."

I adore the idea of wrinkles being compared to the rings of a tree.

I also loved the quote above these photos (recognize Annie Lennox?)

"We account ourselves then old when young men's eyes leave looking at us."

I had this moment during the exhibit, looking into the lined faces of these older women, where I could see my own face reflected in the glass and it truly brought me to tears.  We are all beautiful.  Our beauty is as diverse as the sands of the sea but not one of us is less beautiful than another.

I also had this most amazing moment in Montmartre.

We were walking up to the Sacre Coeur and passed the windows you can sort of make out just to the right and ahead of Becca, Cherie, and myself.  They were open and the most beautiful opera music was pouring out of them.  I had to stop and close my eyes and savor that here I was, in Paris, walking through Montmartre.  I don't know how to explain that moment for me.  It was almost this out of body experience where I felt so alive, so happy, so grateful.

I realized on this trip that French women, who have a very sensual reputation, are no more beautiful than women anywhere else in the world.  The difference is in the way they carry themselves.  French women believe they are beautiful and so they are.  Our world bombards us with reasons to think ourselves ugly but the world is wrong.

Here I am, feeling beautiful, on our bike tour the day we left Paris.  Yep, I rode a beach cruiser, in a skirt, along the Seine.  Amazing!