A Tribute to Late Bloomers
If a human life could potentially span 120 years, what might I do with the fifty ahead of me?
I have put off writing this because I can't find the book I need for an illustration. You'll just have to believe me when I tell you a retired surgeon devoted his sunset years to... cutting paper snowflakes with surgical scissors. Then mounting them, framing them, and traveling the country with the resulting show.
The book I can't find is The Twelve Days of Christmas with paper snowflake illustrations of each day. Imagine, if you can, eleven tiny lords-a-leaping meticulously cut into an immaculate sheet of folded thin white paper. He went on to illustrate (I am not making this up) the Book of Isaiah. This retired surgeon poured his creativity into a new endeavor and took the result on the road. Thirty years later, I still remember driving to Van Wert, Ohio, to see it.
I curate a private collection of this sort of thing. For instance...
After a life of farming, child-rearing and housewifery, Grandma Moses took up painting at age seventy. She painted more than 1,600 rural scenes before she died, a world-famous artist, at 101.
Jimmy Carter left the Presidency and started Habitat for Humanity.
On a recent tour of Italy, Marvin and I saw the Tower of Pisa, the Coliseum, the Castelvecchio. But maybe my favorite sight was a one room, one man museum in the tiny town of Riola. The museum's elderly creator, clad in a spotless, sleeveless undershirt, displayed on a burlap-skirted table a working grist mill he'd built with his own hands. His much-used tool collection was arranged behind it. Then he turned a tap and water gurgled around a channel built onto the table, making the first mill wheel turn. A Rube Goldberg series of events followed as the water flowed under hand-made bridges, past hand-carved animals and people and buildings, finally reaching another wheel that activated a hand-made hammer that ground oats and wheat and coffee beans. The proprietor beamed, proud as a new father.
I collect these stories - people who regroup in later life, pick up a pencil or a chisel or a guitar pick or an appointment calendar, and make something happen. My delight is not so much in their success or initiative or genius, but in their wilingness to immerse themselves in something for the joy of it, and to persist past possible ridicule, self-doubt, and the sheer cussedness of old age. Their courage inspires me.
More items from my collection:
A retired counselor friend writes books chronicling her husband's hilarious childhood shenanigans, at the same time teaching children of the digital age what life was like just after World War II. Her books are well-received in classrooms all over the country.
Another counselor friend shut down her practice and developed a charity to support persecuted Christians, accomplishing, through simplicity and low overhead, results that are the envy of large, well-moneyed charities with similar goals.
I've mentioned two friends who left counseling. I have two others who left stultifying jobs to take on work just next door to counseling: literary editing. (Because writing, or trying to write, is a personal and intimate endeavor. Being an editor is akin to midwifery, helping to birth a new book.) My friends love their work.
A retired executive I know formed a community of artists out of the raw talent in rural Northwest Ohio. He arranges art workshops, art lessons, art shows. His willingness to encourage art and artists has kept him busy, and opened doors for local folks, many of whom never thought to dabble in paints or pencils or pottery.
Then there's my friend who took up the hammered dulcimer and joined a band;
An acquaintance who made a career of painting portraits after decades of factory work,
And my husband, a retired realtor, who makes insightful short films, exploring thoughtful subjects.
These are people who took a quirk in their makeup, a talent in their talent stack, mixed in a stash of spare time carved out of their latter decades, and did something for the love of it. These makers/doers found a vein of endeavor to tap. In previous decades, they were busy supporting families, attending the kids' games, mowing suburban lawns and trying to get some sleep. Precious few hours, in those years, remained for discretionary interests. Most of us have been one of those people, doing things because they needed to be done. But decades later, time opened up and creativity flowed.
The projects, whether whimsical or profound, put a bit of delight into the world, like wildflowers popping up in a gravel lot to brighten an otherwise dreary scene. Life finds a way to manifest itself in the midst of adverse circumstances, like those brave blades of grass that emerge from a sidewalk crack. The projects in my collection emerged through the challenges of their creators' old age, pushing through the rigamarole of the necessary and putting something special in front of people. At any stage of life, creativity pushes for an outlet, but later years provide precious commodities the early, busy years lacked: spare hours, supplemented with experience. In a world of adverse circumstances, something that pops up and supplies delight is not to be sneezed at.
Many of the makers were inspired by a nudge from God. Whether their projects reached millions - or made millions - was, for them, beside the point. They had an inspiration and some energy, and the point was expressing it with love. They left the results up to the Giver of the nudge, and breathed easy in the joy of the work.
For any of us who've had one of those nudges, I write to say, Move forward! Try it! Make it! Do it!
Readers may know my own endeavors (check out Feathergill's Fabulous Emporium and my other books.) And, as always, thank you for reading.
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