I have taken my own advice and gotten serious for a minute. This is a portrait of the famous W. Perhaps his own children won’t recognize him, but that’s okay. I’m rather proud of this labour of love.
When I showed it to him he knew who it was and laughed. I took that as a good sign that I hadn’t traumatized him for life.
Yesterday W came across a picture on Facebook of someone we haven’t seen for over thirty years and remarked that he looks awful. He doesn’t really, he just looks old, because, well, he’s old. We see our own changes gradually, and are often shocked at the changes in other people with whom we’ve lost touch. Inside I feel like I’ve never left my thirties, but the mirror tells a different story.
So this is not the face I married, although he’s in there somewhere. I’m going to hang on to this until we’re in our nineties and then show it to him again so we can both see how handsome he was way back in the day. This is of course supposing we both live that long and can still see and remember where we put things.
I was looking at celebrity high school yearbook pictures on some Facebook site (yes, we both have way too much time on our hands these cold dreary January days) and the captions were statements of disbelief and what happened? Well, time happened, you idiot caption writer.
Here’s to time and the wonderful changes it makes to our life-well-lived faces.
Definitely a labor of love – it shows. And you’re so right about how we view ourselves and how others surprise us with their own aging.
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Our kids do that too. I look at mine and see a spirited little girl and a sweet tempered little boy and it’s still hard for me to take them seriously as adults with kids of their own. The years just run away on us.
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Great sketch and impressive art work!
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Thank you mihrank. (Your name just autocorrected to migrant). I once typed Roderick and it autocorrected to roadkill. Okay, strange things amuse me. I do appreciate your comment.
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Now that’s a picture drawn with love.
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I didn’t realize how much fun i was having until about halfway done when it started to actually look like him. So happy with the end result.
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It’s odd how much difference love makes to the pictures, isn’t it? The best likeness I’ve ever drawn was a quick sketch of my late partner… tiny, with a ballpoint pen of a scrap of lined paper. Just a doodle, but it caught him.
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Oh Lin! The drawing is AMAZING and your post gave me chills – like three times! I completely get it and am there too. I look at my hubby, and it’s hard to believe that face and body is the same I married 32 1/2 years ago, and then I look in the mirror, and I don’t know whose reflection that is staring back at me. But inside is different, and the longevity and comfort of a married relationship is so precious. Oh, and by the way, your drawing makes your husband look completely and stunningly handsome to me! 🙂 But I’ve never seen him 🙂
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Well he has turned in to a rather handsome old geezer! 😄 His good looks were once very important to me when I was young and much more vane. I know what you mean about mirrors – I will catch sight of my reflection in a shopping mall or somewhere and think is that really what I look like? and shudder and look away and think about something else. Yes, there is something to be said for the comfort of long relationships. Best friends forever if you’re very lucky.
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This post reminds me that what I see in the mirror each day is very different from what appears in a picture…why is that I wonder. The mirror me looks nothing like the random picture me. Hmmmm……
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Isn’t that weird? Once I had a really good hair and makeup day and decided to take a selfie. It looked nothing like the mirror me. There must be something wrong with my phone. 😄
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I immediately knew it was W even before I read that it was. One of your better ones definitely!
A friend at a 30 yr high school reunion (the only reunion in 30 yrs) walked into the gathering and thought who are all there old people? And she said “And then I realised I was one of them” Lol.
Alison
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Ha! I know that feeling. My dad liked to tell people when he was in his 80’s that he never imagined himself being married to such an old lady.
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Time wounds all heels.
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Exactly.
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Love the picture of W. Definitely done with love. He looks like someone delightful to know. He’s lucky to have you capture that for posterity!
I finally figured out that all the people I ever was from infancy on still live inside me. Makes for a fun group most days. And if I don’t like how I feel today, I just return and watch me when I was having a better time! Young people are so impoverished and haven’t got a clue about the riches we carry around within us. I wouldn’t trade, because I can go back and be them inside my memories, but they can’t come forward and enjoy my treasures.
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That’s a beautiful way to look at life. Plus we all develop selective memory and the really crap stuff tends to fade away. I didn’t know old people were so smart until I became one myself. 😄
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OKay here goes: I wrote you the best comment…and I really hate to brag…but it was almost too good to be true. It wasn’t true actually…but was so good it sounded true. It was my response comment to a post you wrote in 2011…remember that far ago? Called “The One That Got Away”……geez…you just kill me. Anyway…
I wrote it whilst on the MAX (train from downtown Portland to east side of Portland across the river but through no woods where I live) and it was so good I almost read it aloud to the other riders. Most were sleeping or trying to quiet screaming babies…so I went on to Plan B…which was to “send” it to you NOT read aloud but just written. Then my stop came up too fast, and I dropped my glove, the package of frozen biscuits that Mary made me fell to the floor…not the biscuits themselves but the pretty little fancy-schmancy bag they were in, and the doors were closing on the MAX train and I had to hurry and get off or be taken to some other part of the city that wasn’t where I lived and it…it…became a race against time. A matter of life and life moving too quickly. To make a long story short (it’s not too late is it?) I didn’t send that almost too good to be true but wasn’t comment. Forgive me.
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I forgive you. Even though that first one was obviously perfect, this one makes up for it.
I reread that post because it came up at the bottom of this one, and I was wondering who the hell I might have been talking about. Good pic of Johnny Dep. ❤️
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Makes me happy you remember who Johnny Dep is.
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We grow in to our faces!
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I guess we do. Better learn to live with them. 😄
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yes they are not going away!! 😉
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I always still expect to see that teenage kid in the mirror I got to know when I was younger. Then I walk into a casino and the guards don’t even bother to check my ID, and realize, “Shit, I must really look like I’m 39…. heck, maybe older!”
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Ah, yes, 39 was a very good age. I liked it so much I stayed there for about 5 years…. Hey, it’s how old you are on the inside that counts, right? Some days I’m six. 😄
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I’m quite often still in my terrible twos!
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LOL!! Good for you. xx
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I admire your artistic ways…we all get old, what with the grey hair and all.
I tried to draw a unicorn last night and everyone laughed. 🙂
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I’m sure they were laughing WITH you. It’s not nice to laugh at people who are getting grey hair. In fact, it could be dangerous…..😄
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What Eileen said, ’cause she said what I would have, and likely better. But for appearance’s sake, in light of recent remarks a certain someone made about a certain someone else’s comments, shall we pretend that comment was mine? Or instead that I issued a more flowery version of same?
My favorite philosopher of my childhood, in “The Bible According To Peanuts”, uttered words most appropriate for our decision this Sunday morning:
“There is no heavier burden than a great potential.”
–Linus
(The drawing and W. are warm and wonderful, Grandmalin, and he is a handsome man, you lucky woman!)
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Linus thinks too much. But I know what he means. Every time I finish something and realize it’s actually pretty good, I think – well, I’ll never do anything that measures up to that again. Might as well quit. But the beauty of an old forgetful mind is that I don’t remember what the hell happened yesterday, never mind what I was thinking. Or where a comment was going when I started out…..lol. You only have to carry on being you.
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Those eyes, Gran. You’ve certainly captured the windows to the famous W’s soul.
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Aww, thanks Mary. Eyes are the hardest part to get right. Plus I gave him too much hair, but that can be our secret. 😄
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“Inside I feel like I’ve never left my thirties, but the mirror tells a different story.”
That’s exactly how I feel, except that a part of me is still twelve years old. Honestly.
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Your husband/partner/friend is handsome. You are a wonderful artist. I love to draw but being able to draw faces eludes me. I haven’t drawn for quite some time, I need to get back doing it. The blogs have stolen my time.
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