“Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”
Excerpt of “Ulysses” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
My favorite commercial goes like this: a middle-aged woman who was once a ballerina is watching her former self dance on stage. The woman who’s watching still holds herself with strength and grace but she also has wrinkles. Her bun is not as full, and it is gray. The camera goes back and forth between the memory of who she was, to the reality of who she is and I watch assuming—empathetically—that what I see in her eyes is a yearning to do what she used to do; to be who she used to be.
I am wrong. It is not yearning I see. It is anticipation. The camera pulls away to show that in fact she is not a former ballerina; she is on stage, too, waiting to begin. The two dance together—the same steps, the same routine—she is not the girl she once was, but she is not a memory, either. She is strong. She is beautiful. She is here.
This is how it will be for me, I determined after watching the commercial (that I think is for eye cream). Not literally, but maybe.
Read the rest, here.
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