Two Pictures on a Monday in July

For the past months, I have been busy with a project that I have kept to myself until now. It's still not a fait-accompli, but hopefully it will be very soon. I am purchasing a sweet house in the nearby town of Phoenix and very much looking forward to moving there. For now, I am calling my new place Casa de las Flores. It has marvelous old gardens. The whole enterprise has taken much longer than I wished, but I have to keep the goal in mind and relax about the delays--which can be rather challenging some days. The transaction should be finished by July 22nd. Oh, patience is a virtue. Mother always told me that. This is certainly giving me some practice.

Rather than regale you with photographs of the boxes that are accumulating chez moi, I thought I would share these two images instead. I find this one rather idyllic. An elder gentleman sitting under the tree reading, surrounded by ripe fruit that has fallen around him. It has a wonderful fairy-tale like quality, rather timeless, as if he has been sitting there for ages. And perhaps he has.The second picture captivates me, too. I love the easy intimacy it portrays-- two unique older people simply enjoying a moment with each other.


I am always on the lookout for great images of elders for Sage's Play. I also search for photos for Medifecta Healthcare Training, to use on the covers of DVDs the company produces. It is much easier to find interesting photographs of elders taken in other countries than it is to find interesting images of older adults in America. The photos of older adults widely available in America tend to be terribly stagey and stereotypical. You have the blissed out older couples walking on the beach or bicycling or dancing. Or the other extreme, an older person in a wheelchair being tended to by a solicitous caregiver. Should I mention those abysmal images we have to endure on the internet or print of older adults looking completely foolish and laughable? Those pictures are totally ageist! Take my word for it, it's slim pickings in terms of artistic images that show the range of experience of older adults, depicting real people in the midst of their real lives.

I searched and searched but I never could find a suitable image for the cover of our A New Wrinkle promo CD. So the other day I hired photographer Helga Motley to take some great photos of an about to be 85-year old elder woman named Jonnie Zheutlin. I'll share a couple of those images in my next blog post. I know, promises promises... I will. Promise. We should be finishing up with the recording for A New Wrinkle's promo CD soon, too. Dave and Laura both took off-- for Hawaii and Europe respectively-- but they are headed back home soon. It will be wonderful to complete that project. Why does everything take so darned long? For a variety of reasons, it seems.

There's actually a lot going on here in the midst of the packing because I am working on developing a fall-winter program for Sage's Play that will include a series of salons and workshops. That is going to be a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, the trees shine green in the sun and the pool at the hot springs beckons me. It is utterly beautiful here.