After writing about heavier topics the past couple of Fridays, I wanted to write something lighter this week and I really felt like it was time for another fashion related post. Earlier in the week, I was still thinking about what to write when Pam Lutrell shared a link to an article on her blog, Over50Feeling40, that caught my attention.

If you’re like me, you might be familiar with the children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, but what I didn’t know was that the author, Judith Viorst, has published at least 50 books, many for children, but some for older readers. In fact, I didn’t really know anything about Viorst until I read the article, At 94, I’m Still Worth Looking At.

It was fun to read about her “looks” throughout the years. There was her Greenwich Village Girl look in her 20s followed by her With-It Mommy look in her 30s. Later came her Hat Lady years when she seldom went out without a hat from her vast collection. Hats, she says, flattered her face, drew attention away from her aging body, and hid her hair on bad hair days. I can identify with that! Now 94, she says she’s not finished finding new looks yet. Her newest look is Tattooed Grandma. No, she hasn’t gone under the needle. Instead, she wears a temporary tattoo of a rose on the side of her neck, slightly below her right ear. Each tattoo lasts about a week.

I hope I look half as good if I live to be 94!

But what really resonated with me was what Viorst had to say about aging and invisibility, something I’ve written about before on the blog. She asks, “Why does it feel so important to be seen? Aren’t there more meaningful things to think about, to read about, to do?” She writes about people who feel that attention to looks will “obscure and distract us from what is truly significant”. In response she writes, “But the people I love the most embrace what’s playful and fun as well as what’s profound. Celebrate as well as cogitate. And are willing to discuss, without apology, both eyeliner and the meaning of the universe.”

I love that! In times like these when the world seems upside down and sometimes tragedy hits close to home, regardless of our age, let’s not forget to embrace both the serious and the fun side of life. Right now, I’m looking for joy in the little things. In the coming of spring. In the tiny green shoots coming up in the garden beneath my kitchen window and the teeny, tiny buds forming on the trees.