Sparkle! Time Is the Best Editor

Rev. Karen shopped at the Santa Barbara Saturday Farmers’ Market in full regalia: sparkling silver eye shadow, body glitter, silver-studded jeans and jacket, dangling jeweled beads woven into long strands of braided hair to accent her short red or blonde or brown spiked haircut. She sparkled. Not only physically, but energetically. It was hard not to notice her. A walking conversation-starter, she worked it. Her Sunday morning metaphysical talks were right-on truth – sometimes delivered in a prom dress and tiara. She knew accessories. Once when I visited her home, I saw her wardrobe room (second bedroom) filled with racks of clothes, a full hat tree and colorful feather boas.

She loved to tell stories about the impact of her appearance on the people she met. Once, at a gas station, another customer asked her if she were going to a party. “No,” she replied, “I go everywhere dressed like this.” Another of her answers to the same question was “I am the party,” which became the title of her subsequent book. Perhaps it was her Hollywood background as a Jewish therapist formerly married to Norman Fell, “Mr. Roper,” the neighbor on the T.V. show Three’s Company, that influenced her clothing choices.

My favorite Rev. Karen story, shared one Sunday morning during her sermon, described a recent plane trip she had taken. All aglitter, as usual, she sat across the aisle from a man, obviously quite taken with her (did I mention she’s also quite pretty and has a knockout figure?) After many appreciative glances her way, he worked up the courage to speak to her. Leaning conspiratorially across the aisle, he said quietly, “I like your look.” She replied, “I’m 60 years old, and I’m a minister.” As her audience laughed, she shrugged her shoulders, palms facing upward, and said, “What? It was a short flight!” to more laughter. Get to the bottom line. Cut to the chase. Tell the truth. This either works for you, or it doesn’t.

“Time is the best editor,” a favorite quotation my sister-in-law shared with me, is a less colorful way of saying the same thing. She and I, as parents of adult children with cancer, faced with our own aging, have become exquisitely aware of the precious value of time. Time to live. Time to be with those you love. Time to express your creativity. Time to spend with dear friends, in nature or traveling. A deeper appreciation of the value of time seems to arrive with age and life-threatening experiences.

A week ago my household goods and furniture arrived at my new Rio Grande bosque home in Albuquerque, NM. I have stepped into instant community. And I’m thrilled. I’ve already met a number of the neighbors. My next door neighbor, Betsy 1, has published sixteen children’s books. She is currently teaching a class on novel writing and taking two writing courses herself. Betsy 2, who lives next to her, I have not yet met. Judy, who lives in our same group of four attached adobe homes, is a painter and art teacher who taught for several years on the Navajo reservation. Her students included relatives of the famous Navajo painter, R. C. Gorman. She welcomed me the night the movers and I arrived to offer help and food, to drive me to a restaurant and to say, “Let me help you make your bed before we go to dinner. You won’t want to afterward.” Shirley is a retired elementary teacher involved with senior community theatre. Betty, who informed me today she's 93, is legally blind, and has a home health assistant four days a week. Arana is a retired therapist, a very direct communicator who knows the value of time and doesn’t mince words…or tolerate fools. She is also a musician and a gardener with 80’ long row at the nearby Los Poblanos community farm. She was very clear with me about the fact that my front porch light shined into her bedroom at night. She asked what time it would be going off. “What time do you go to bed?” I replied. She wouldn’t say, but stated she was fine with knowing my porch light would not be left on all night. “Don’t you have curtains?” I inquired. “Yes, but the light shines through.” “I want to be a good neighbor,” I said. “Likewise,” she answered. This was a cut-to-the chase conversation. Honest. Direct. When I relayed the details to Judy later, saying how much I appreciated Arana’s directness, Judy said, “That’s one of the benefits with people our age.”

Time. How do you want to spend your “one wild and precious life?”* With whom? Sparkle! Let your light shine. Cut to the chase. Be transparent in communication. Tell the truth. We don’t have forever. Time is the best editor. Why waste it?
* Poet Mary Oliver