- Gwen the Beautiful celebrated her 50th
birthday last summer. She did it in the traditional way.
-
- By not celebrating it at all.
-
- Oh, we had a nice dinner out, but that's
not much of a celebration for half a century of life. Which was fine with
Gwen.
-
- In the months since, however, it's been
bugging her that she didn't look her age squarely in the eye, and a few
weeks ago she formulated a plan. "I'm calling the Almighty Women of
the Universe together," she said. "We're going to meet and do
more than just accept our years. We're going to take pride in who we are."
-
- The Almighty Women of the Universe is
the name of a group of five women who've been pals since their twenties.
-
- There's Gwen, and Margie, her best friend,
a driven career woman in L.A. And Abby, a happily married schoolteacher
from Oklahoma City; Geri, an artist who lives about an hour down our road;
and Katya, the earth mother of the group, from Austin, Texas way.
-
- Katya's the oldest of this particular
posse, at 55. Gwen's 50 years make her the baby, but she's always been
the one the others turn to for support.
-
- The women jumped at this chance to be
together. They gathered here for three days, during which everything ceased
to exist for them but each other.
-
- The weather was unseasonably warm, and
they camped out in the Cloud Creek clearing, with a couple of side jaunts
over to a nearby commercial cavern and another place where a friend of
Geri's has an elephant farm.
-
- This was the women's show. They invited
me to hang around, but I knew I didn't belong. I stayed as far from them
as I could except for one cookout dinner of stir fry.
-
- As a result, I don't know all that went
down, but I can say safely that they strolled through the woods and went
down to the creek.
-
- And ate a lot of chocolate.
-
- They kept a big bonfire going the whole
time, and danced and sang. Geri played the autoharp. Katya and Abby drummed
on some of the drums I've picked up over the years from places like Taos
Pueblo, Mexico, South Africa, and the South Side of Chicago as well.
-
- The last morning they were together,
Gwen and Margie made breakfast in the house and brought it back outside.
This time, when they invited me to join them it seemed right. The women
were in such good spirits that even Belle, our oversensitive, snakebit
dog, was calm and friendly with them. And Emmy and Decker kept trying to
get on their laps.
-
- As I sat with these sisters/daughters/mothers,
I felt warm and proud. I felt their wisdom and tenderness and love. They
were comfortable with themselves, and their newfound peace enveloped me
so that I was filled with the sense of being safe and at home.
-
- That morning, as I gulped down my eggs
and sausages I knew I was sitting with the most beautiful women in the
world.
-
- After the other Almighty Women drove
off, Gwen and I spent the rest of the day in each other's arms. In the
days since, a new sense of openness and acceptance has pervaded our ranch.
-
- Belle still is being calm, if not downright
affable, with strangers. And even the Annex - I swear! - has gotten into
the act. The inexplicable aroma of strawberry shortcake I've mentioned
before has vanished from the premises, and it smells more strongly of stir
fry each day.
-
- Yesterday at the Paradise Supermarket,
I noticed a pretty young woman smiling the smile and walking the walk of
the flirt.
-
- She did her best to make sure everyone
looked. I smiled back at her, but couldn't bring myself to take part in
the rest of the game.
-
- Sure, she's got a fine figure and a seductive
air, but all I could think was, "What? Do you really believe I'd be
interested in you? You're like a little girl, and I've got a real woman
waiting for me at home. A woman who's beautiful not only outside but inside
as well. A woman who's deep and knowing and wise."
-
- Then I thought something else, and came
this close to telling her: "You know, if you play your cards right
and learn from all the living you'll do, you can become something special,
too in another 25 years."
-
-
- Copyright C 2006 by Larry Brody. For
permission to reprint this column, please write to LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org.
-
-
- ******
-
-
- Author Larry Brody's weekly column, LIVE!
FROM PARADISE! appears on his website, www.larrybrody.com. He has written
thousands of hours of network television, and is the author of "Television
Writing from the Inside Out" and "Turning Points in Television."
Brody is Creative Director of The Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts, the
world's first in-residence media colony. More about his activities can
be seen on www.tvwriter.com and www.cloudcreek.org. He welcomes your comments
and feedback at LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org. Brody, his wife and their dogs,
cats, horses and chickens live in Marion County, Arkansas. The other residents
of the mythical town of Paradise reside in his imagination.
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