December 2

Yes, youth passes behind us, but we are blind so often to what we are gaining and to the beauty of what we become as artists. There is not a note of silvery sound or a hair turned silver that isn’t perfect and beautiful. It is difficult not to rage at the passing of physical beauty and strength, the exquisite daring and dexterity we once possessed, the turn of a phrase or a haunch as perfect as a ripe peach—of course we miss these things. But we gain in beauty. We gain in tenderness. We gain in longing and desire and in satiation if we get the chance—not merely or only exquisitely in our sexual and our physical selves but our creative selves as well.