Brick Roads

Growing up in a small southern Indiana coal town, we had several streets paved with red brick when I was young.  America first began paving with brick in the late 1800s. There was just something about those small town American streets: so picturesque with ancient maples, oaks and the occasional sycamore lining them and the lovely old gothic-looking houses that the streets led one to. But eventually the times caught up with even our little town and the streets got a new coating of concrete and asphalt. I remember my mother lamenting about those beautiful old bricks being obliterated by the ugly macadam. But I suppose people had complained about the bumpiness of the surface and it was very old fashioned. Who can stop the march of progress?

Somehow, in my twisted brain, thinking about paving over those old brick streets makes me think of our aging faces.  We coat ourselves with all sorts of things trying to look better or younger. Then we paint and spackle more layers of products over the top trying to cover up the 'bricks' i.e. the normal signs of our aging. Somehow it makes us feel dressed and 'finished' and pretty. There is nothing at all wrong with that. It makes us feel better about ourselves!  As my new friend MaryEllen* always says, 'It's all good."

Sometimes, though, I think it's a shame that we're often so unaccepting of our own naked faces and spend so much time and money trying to cover it up and make it look like something it isn't. I'm as guilty (if not more so) than anyone else. I can certainly remember the days I wouldn't have been caught dead without at least some mascara. It wasn't even that long ago! Sometimes I suspect I might actually look younger without the layers of paint and spackle. And lately, some of that 'macadam' is cracking and popping off and showing some of the beautiful old "brick' underneath.

Those 'bricks' are my rites of passage. They are my great sorrows: the deaths of my dad and mom in '82 and 2001, a terribly painful divorce,the loss of a dearly beloved friend when she was only 42, the onset of my husband's illness, mine and my sister's cancers, among many other unspeakably sad losses and tragedies over the years.

They are my uplifting joys as well: the births of my children, the great love I found late in life, the awe-inspiring beauty we've found in our travels, the birth of my sweet grandson, the growing understanding I'm developing with my beloved son, my pride in realizing my wonderful daughter has become wise beyond her years, the many successes at my old job, and the forgiveness for other people I finally found before it was too late.

Somehow thinking about all this has made me more accepting of my lines and fissures wrought by life. However, having our human frailties as we do, it's not likely we will stop 'paving over' all those lovely old 'bricks'. We've been 'laying down the macadam' since the days of the ancient Egyptians with their kohl and cochineal; it's somehow ingrained into our DNA, I think.  Well, some of us anyway.  We know who we are! And that's perfectly OK! We know there is a certain beauty in those picturesque old bricks, no matter what we put on top of them.

Till next time,

“Your face is marked with lines of life, put there by love and laughter, suffering and tears. It's beautiful.” 
― Lynsay Sands

*MaryEllenAfter60