Bare-ing Arms
Crepe Paper? Where’s the Party?
On My Upper Arms . . .
Crepe paper is for parties, so why
is a party happening on my arms? I shouldn’t have been surprised when I looked
in the mirror recently and spied some dreaded crepe paper skin. Well, I wasn’t
surprised. I was dismayed. Isn’t it enough that my near-sixty body has
protruding veins, horrid age spots, and so many broken capillaries on my thighs
that they look like Manhattan street maps? The list could go on, and it
does: glasses that get more powerful with each visit to the optician, hot
flashes, moodiness, and forgetfulness. To top it off, I also have what I call "Michael Jackson disease"—vitiligo—so white spots dot the parts of my body that
don’t have brown (horrid) age spots.
I suppose I should be grateful my
upper arms don’t flap in the breeze. And, I am. Years of yoga and before that,
years of schlepping babies and toddlers mean that despite what my nay-saying
bench-pressing son believes, my arms do
have the teeniest bit of definition.
However, the crepe-paper look is
not one I want to cultivate in the climate in which I live. Florida starts
getting toasty in April, morphs into hot in May, and then stays at so-hot-I-can’t-stand-it
from June through mid-September.
Floridians keep cool by wearing as
little clothing as basic decency permits. Maybe not all Floridians adhere to that standard, but I do. Being
self-employed means I can skip office casual and go straight to
summer-work-inside-my-home casual: flip-flops, shorts, and tank tops.
Tank tops do not cover arms. Baring my arms that recent morning, the light shone
just right—and I saw crepe-paper lines, scrunched-up skin. My first impulse was
to grab a long-sleeved shirt and to hide my arms, like I hide other less-attractive
features, but it’s July. Crepe-paper skin isn’t something I want to advertise,
but there it was, and I will not wear long sleeves in July, August, and
September, and maybe not even in October. The tank tops stay on and I’ll just
have to bare arms.
What to do? Crepe paper is for
parties, so why not throw a party for my arms? What will my arms and I
celebrate? We’ll celebrate the following:
- · Sixty years of balancing me and directing my hands
- · Carrying five babies, toddlers, and small children
- · Hugging. My arms have given, and received, thousands of hugs.
- · Cooking. My arms have made thousands of meals; my hands helped, of course, but would be useless without my arms.
- · Planting flowers, food, and herbs
- · Dispensing medicine as well as treats
- · Carrying thousands of bags of groceries
- · Waving to loved ones: hello and sometimes goodbye
- · Years of yoga, mountain pose, warrior, child pose
- · Driving—thousands of miles
- · Carrying towels, sunscreen, and drinks onto the beach
- · Reaching
- · Holding a loved one, even past the toddler stage
- · Leaning, falling, and helping me to stand again
If every eye wrinkle comes from a
crinkled smile, then I suppose I can celebrate my arm wrinkles in all their
crepe-paper party finery. I can celebrate where those wrinkles came from and
look forward to celebrating and welcoming more of them. Bare these arms? You
bet! They deserve it!
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