Karin, I loved this letter. Yvonne sounds beautiful and I loved reading about your mutually beneficial relationship and the laughter and what sounded like pure joy in each other’s company when you did exchange words.
I knew a musician and beautiful creative who sadly took his own life and he too told me and a friend that elbow was his favourite word and so your letter has reminded me tenderly of that conversation.
On a lighter note, my daughter, Alice, now at age 22 still giggles when she remembers the slang word for the skin on one’s elbow called “weenus”. She took great joy in telling me this when she was about 12 as pubescent girls do 🥰 x
Hi Penny. What strange turns conversations take - how poignant that this one, about a beloved friend who is no longer around, reminded you of a friend who is no longer here - because of 'elbow'! That is just wonderful! Also: my children also went through a period of giggling about 'weenus'. Now there's a silly word 😂
So here I am in my faded and uglified condition, hoping I’ll end up being more like Yvonne! I remember you telling me about her when you once visited me to bring the tent. Sorry, I didn’t know she had passed. But to tell the truth, I feel more myself, more authentic with my grey-white hair than when I was colouring it - I hated that time.
I recently also thought about African drumming and how that used to be a thing before mealtimes in hotels when I was a child. I suppose it has become ‘too colonial’. I loved it. I miss it.
The thing is, I don't actually think of people who have gone through the uglification as actually ugly. I often find them – like I found Yvonne – beautiful in ways that can't be expressed. The word was used as both a judgment of myself and a judgment of the judgment of myself as I was going through peri-menopause. So many people I know allowed the grey to happen during lockdown and all around me now are the heads of shining stars in the firmament of my life. Maybe we who become 'uglified' and 'ghostified' become visible to each other more wholly, more clearly, once we have gone through the process. Maybe we see ourselves better too, by the light of our shining silver heads.
Karin, I loved this letter. Yvonne sounds beautiful and I loved reading about your mutually beneficial relationship and the laughter and what sounded like pure joy in each other’s company when you did exchange words.
I knew a musician and beautiful creative who sadly took his own life and he too told me and a friend that elbow was his favourite word and so your letter has reminded me tenderly of that conversation.
On a lighter note, my daughter, Alice, now at age 22 still giggles when she remembers the slang word for the skin on one’s elbow called “weenus”. She took great joy in telling me this when she was about 12 as pubescent girls do 🥰 x
Hi Penny. What strange turns conversations take - how poignant that this one, about a beloved friend who is no longer around, reminded you of a friend who is no longer here - because of 'elbow'! That is just wonderful! Also: my children also went through a period of giggling about 'weenus'. Now there's a silly word 😂
So here I am in my faded and uglified condition, hoping I’ll end up being more like Yvonne! I remember you telling me about her when you once visited me to bring the tent. Sorry, I didn’t know she had passed. But to tell the truth, I feel more myself, more authentic with my grey-white hair than when I was colouring it - I hated that time.
I recently also thought about African drumming and how that used to be a thing before mealtimes in hotels when I was a child. I suppose it has become ‘too colonial’. I loved it. I miss it.
Keep elbowing.
Love,
Annette
The thing is, I don't actually think of people who have gone through the uglification as actually ugly. I often find them – like I found Yvonne – beautiful in ways that can't be expressed. The word was used as both a judgment of myself and a judgment of the judgment of myself as I was going through peri-menopause. So many people I know allowed the grey to happen during lockdown and all around me now are the heads of shining stars in the firmament of my life. Maybe we who become 'uglified' and 'ghostified' become visible to each other more wholly, more clearly, once we have gone through the process. Maybe we see ourselves better too, by the light of our shining silver heads.