Getting older is a little like a fun house. There’s something waiting for you around every corner, and frankly, it’s not always all that much fun. Colonoscopies, endoscopies, vericose veins, arch supports, and sensible shoes, lumps and bumps and dowager humps. It’s like Dr. Seuss! And who the hell do these feet belong to? Creaks and leaks, grunts and groans. Thinning hair and thickening waistlines, peeing more, seeing less….Seeing more, looking harder, wasting less, creating more. Working harder, needing less. Strength and wisdom and courage and gratitude. Not always fun, but often funny. Boo.

Trick or Treat carynjune

It’s very easy to fall into the “it’s too late” trap. Whether we feel we’re too old to change jobs or husbands or we’ve invested too much time and money on that house or that school to start over. Well, let me tell you, I pride myself in my “now you see it, now you don’t” approach to just about everything. Sometimes you just have to start over. About a hundred years ago, my very dear friend, Annette commissioned a piece depicting the masks of Comedy and Tragedy. This was the first incarnation:

Ooh. Aah. How interesting! Now what? It was huge. It was flimsy, and I couldn’t figure out where to go from here. So you know what I did? Nothing. I put it away for a year or so and got a stomach ache every time I realized my first customer was patiently waiting for her work of art. About 6 months ago, I was playing with this piece if silver, (see “Hiding in Plain Sight” from Feb 25) and I came up with the idea to do the masks in a smaller scale and mount them on the silver. I put a bail on it and this was the result:

Beautiful! I loved it! Annette loved it! I thought it might still be a little big, so I sent her a pic of me wearing it:

I look like Snoop Dog.
Annette’s reaction? “Maybe it’s a little big…”
Back to the drawing board. So, I cut my beautiful piece of silver in half, took the masks down in size, again and attached a pin back to it. And we finally have this:

I think I like it. Annette seems to like it. One thing I know for sure, it is the last incarnation of this piece. While I firmly believe it’s never to late to start over, Sometimes you just have to let it be.

I have a friend, 10 years or so older than I, who seems to have come to terms with this phase of her life. She has achieved a kind of peace that I just do not get. I am not getting old. Just not going to do it. I have been blessed with good genes so people tell me I don’t look my age, and I’m sticking to that story for as long as I can. I dress in a loose, funky way that covers up the lumps and bumps but still makes me look cool. Or crazy. Perhaps in reality, my uber cool nieces are secretly rolling their eyes and wondering why I don’t just act (and dress) my age. Nope. Not gonna do it.

Woman with Beehive Sings in the Rain carynjune

How do we know when something isn’t working for us? I mean truly, down in your gut, know. I did a craft fair yesterday, which I had done before with less than successful results. Now, I knew this particular venue was not the right place for me, but it’s sort of local and I decided what the hell, I’ll do it. Maybe this time…needless to say, the results were less than successful. But this time was different. This time it wasn’t fun. I was overtired and cranky, I had given up a paying gig to prepare for it, we forgot one of our display items, setup was harder, just the kind of stuff that sometimes happens. And all around me I hear brisk sales of Mexican Pottery that some guy bought in bulk and resold, and soy candles, and hair accessories, and sand art. And I’m getting advice from family that I need to be on my feet the whole time, bringing people in, hawking my wares like a fishmonger. Good advice, certainly. But quite possibly advice I’m not willing to take. And there’s the problem. I love what I do. I create pieces that tell stories, reflect experience, look into my sometimes quirky head, show my heart. My work has been called beautiful, unique, really amazing, interesting, clever, wow!, “HOW much is it?!?” There is no place in my particular world for as my brother put it, “talking people into doing something they don’t want to do.” So how do we know when something stops being a potential viable business, and becomes just a hobby? When what we love to do becomes what we have to endure. Or is it possible to do what we love on our own terms and believe that “if we build it, they will come. ”

On the Fence carynjune