I celebrated my sixtieth birthday a couple of weeks ago which is a great milestone in my life. I think it can now officially say that I have fewer years ahead of me than behind me. I still get up every morning feeling that everything that happens after I wake up is a bonus. I still can't sing in tune, dance to any known rhythm or cook like a gourmet.
My birthday has lifted a great weight off my shoulders because now I feel like I don't have the time necessary to learn to sing in tune, dance to a rhythm or cook like Julia Child before the big blackout. Huge relief!
In other ways, being sixty has set a couple of millstones on my back. I think I should be wiser, less impulsive and more dignified in my demeanor. I realized that it just isn't going to happen when I came across a great project to mark my birthday.
In a recent issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine I came across an article on making Prayer Flags. The article is full of inspirational flags and I decided to mark my birthday with my own version of prayer flags...not so much that the prayers would go to God for her help but that they would remind me of things that are important to me.
There are traditionally ten flags in two sets of five colors. My interpretation went something like this:
- Blue = space.. >the final frontier> rocket ship > seek > imagine
- White = air....wind > explosion > breathe
- Red = fire.. burn > cleanse > discard
- Green = water .. flow > wave > sooth > dance
- Yellow = earth.... dirt > grow > bloom
(Oops! Blogger is telling me i have run out of space event hough I am at only 52% of usge.. check out my facebook wall for an image )
Yes, I only did five, but I can see them from my living room window and every time I glance that way, I think of the concepts shown, smile and another millstone falls off my back. Who cares if I am not wise, less impulsive or dignified when I am sixty. After all, I still have a few more years left, and they may come in time...or not!