How to age gracefully: A short story and poem delivered by nature

My days return me to the forest, not as part of a stay-fit regime or a habit that must be upheld. But rather in the way that the ocean keeps drawing in her waters after every spill onto the shore. They visit the periphery only. They belong in the depths.

On a recent walk, it must have been autumn I think, or the ending thereof, I discovered a great many decaying leaves. Skeleton leaves. Just the bones of the leaves are visible for all their flesh has been nibbled away for sustenance or has decayed into soft tissue – earth food.

I thought about my mother. I thought about many women I know and the remarks they’ve made about aging. I picked up every skeleton leaf I could find, still thinking about women. My thoughts wandered to actresses I’ve watched growing up, who’s faces seem to torque and bloat over time as they pull and stretch and inject and fill out the lines on their faces, changing from the familiar faces of comfort, comedies, and romances into these plasticated dolls or gaunt figurines.

I can’t say I understand what they’re all going through. I’m in my mid-thirties, neither a mature woman bearing the lines of time nor a face of fame subject to the scrutiny of relentless media.  And yet, even I’ve noticed crinkles and curls of laughter remain tucked around the corners of me eyes long after the belly aches and chuckles have passed. Or that little furrow of consternation that is beginning to etch a fold on my brow, like the way a familiar hollow on a couch begins to form over time, revealing the habitual tendencies of someone’s of heavy burdens finding somewhere to rest.

But I see nature age all the time. She ages everywhere I go. In the mountains, her long, nimble grasses turn grey. Her plump protea buds turn into silver-grey roses, little gravestones of the life that was that crumble in your fingers at any moment. All that remains from the petals of fynbos are sinewy husks that offer a semblance of holding the bony fingers of the reaper come calling.

I lay down on the forest floor, smiling as my hair tumbled into oneness with her carpet of fallen pine needles. One by one I placed skeleton leaves on my face, the way we see women in salons stick anti-aging gels under their eyes. I wanted to immerse myself in her decaying.

“Ssshshhhhwwweeeeeeshhhh.”

There in the forest, I heard Her voice begin to blow.

“Can you aaaaaage like the woodssss?”, she whispered to me.

It sounded more like a brush of branches than human voices, but in them, I discerned the language we humans speak.

This the poem I scripted after that encounter.

Can you age like the woods?

Can you age like the woods?
Seeing lace rather than lines?
Finding your freedom in maturity
Rather than restrictions and confines?

The closer you get to ME, the more you’ll become like YOU
The nearer you are to your SOUL, the dearer you are to us ALL

Can you age like the woods?
Leaving your hair to be fully alive
Hues of fallen pine rather than ‘bright’ but box “died”

I’ll tell you a secret, I tell very few
In the dusk of your years
Your vibrance renews
Like silt, it will settle into the depths of your soul
Your beauty turns inward when your body grows old
Because the body you see, you cannot take with
To dimensions of light beyond the fifth

I Will wait for YOU here past time’s shoulds’ and ‘coulds’
Waiting for you to turn inward & age like MY beautiful woods

– Andrea Fedder

Shall we practice living by Her wisdom? I hope her words inspire kindness towards us all in our own aging. 

Images are my own.