The Elastic Life
More than likely, we are aware of our currently elastic bodies—the added pounds/kilos/inches that force us to loosen our belts or buy clothes in bigger sizes that we had before. We are probably also aware of our elastic minds—elastic that may have become a bit brittle and stiff as we struggle with ChatGBT. (What the h—l is that, anyway?) But an elastic life?
Maggie Smith, the poet rather than the remarkable actor with the same name, tells us in her memoir, You Could Make this Place Beautiful, “There is always room for more experience. Our lives expand to accommodate anything.”
In another graphic image she compares us to “… nesting dolls, carrying all of our earlier selves inside us.”
These two ways of holding our decades-long lives give us unlimited space to unfold who we are, expanding our familiar selves as we continue to add new experience. We can do this effortlessly, by simply being open and receptive. We don’t need to do anything special, participate in a particular training, climb any challenging mountain. By simply being who we already are, we grow, we add more dolls to our remarkable, unfinished set of interlocking selves.
Each of the smaller dolls fit into the next bigger one. We carry each of our lives inside who we are now. All the moments we have breathed, all the moments we have worked, played, wept, laughed and slept live inside our biggest doll, the container of all, the present moment doll.
The set of dolls then is elastic. It stretches to accommodate more life, more of the stuff of existence. We are not ossified. We are not a fixed self simply because we have added a lot of candles to our birthday cake. As the numbers increase so does our wisdom, our gift to the world.
What colours is your set of dolls?
What size doll is this one? And this one? And this one?
How stretchy is your elastic self?
How expansive are we, as elders?