Just something to ponder...

I was cleaning the kitchen after dinner (I cooked fresh green beans and potatoes, grilled red and yellow and orange peppers, baby cucumbers in balsamic vinegar and sliced tomatoes--a vegetarian meal--except for the massive amount of bacon that was in the beans!) when a song came on the radio, sung by a beautiful soprano voice without accompaniment, except for a bridge to the last verse on a mandolin.

Here are the words to that song--you probably know them already:

I peeked in to say goodnight
And then I heard my child in prayer:
"And for me some scarlet ribbons
Scarlet ribbons for my hair."

All the stores were closed and shuttered
All the streets were dark and bare
And in our town no scarlet ribbons
Not one ribbon for her hair.

Through the night, my heart was aching.
Just before the dawn was breaking,
I peeked in and on her bed,
In gay profusion lying there,
Lovely ribbons, scarlet ribbons,
Scarlet ribbons for her hair.

If I live to be a hundred
I will never know from where,
came those lovely scarlet ribbons,
Scarlet ribbons for her hair.

When the mandolin came in for the bridge to the last verse, I burst into tears, so full of joy and wonder I doubted I could breathe.

***

This is about what happens when we age. The popular opinion is that we get more conservative as we age--draw in on ourselves, as it were.

That's not my opinion. I believe as we age we get more like we are already.

It's true for me: I get more liberal and open every day. And more weepy. I've always tended toward tears, but the older I get, the more I find myself weeping at the least provocation. More often tears of joy and wonder, but listening to a radio report on what's happening in Gaza the other day, tears started running down my cheeks at the awfulness of it all.

As you age (and you do every single day!) pay attention and ponder whether you're changing or just becoming more and more who you have always been. My money is on the latter....