wrinkles

(*names have been changed)

we were sitting together in her loungeroom watching mamma mia for what seemed like the thousandth time. daphne* loves mamma mia and we watch it together often. and by often i mean often. like the number of times you’ve eaten toast this week, that’s probably the number of times i’ve watched mamma mia this week.

i loved mamma mia the musical when i saw it in london a few years back, and i enjoyed mamma mia the film the first time i saw it, but by its thousandth watch it loses some if its magic. you begin to realise (probably around the first viewing) that pierce brosnan, although lovely to look at, isn’t a particularly gifted singer. so i sat with daphne ­– bunkered down ­– ready to enjoy the sensation of my ears spontaneously bleeding to the tune of brosnan massacring SOS.

daphne is a client i work with regularly when i am at home in australia topping up my adventure-fund (you may have heard this referred to as a savings account by real adults). you’re not supposed to have favourite clients, but she is, without question, mine. she has physical and intellectual disabilities so life is a bit tougher for her than it is for me. when i go to work i help her to have a shower, get dressed and eat her breakfast. she loves movies and music... so a movie with music in it sends her into a joy spiral the likes of which i don’t see too often. we love to sing together. daphne is difficult to understand when she’s speaking and i often have to ask her to repeat herself three or four times before i figure out what she’s saying. but when we’re banging out some abba, beatles or simon & garfunkle classics together, her croaky, not-so-much-in-tune, hard-to-understand voice becomes one of the most beautiful sounds in my world. pierce could learn a thing or seven.

as i watched/endured brosnan ‘singing’ more of daphne and my favourite tunes, she looked down at her right arm with a puzzled expression on her face. “what’s that kt... who did that?” she was pointing to her right forearm with her clenched up left hand but i couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. “what is it kt... who did those patterns?” i thought she may have had a scratch or bruise on her and i became a little concerned, so looked a bit closer. but i couldn’t see what she was talking about. “those beautiful patterns kt... who did them on me?” i was baffled for the longest time... but after about ten minutes of questions and pondering i solved the beautiful riddle. she was pointing to her wrinkles.

daphne is in her 60s and i was sitting next to her when she realised for the first time that she had wrinkles on her skin... and she thought they were the most beautiful patterns she had ever seen... and she wanted to thank the person who had put them there. i only wish i was capable of creating something as beautiful as those wrinkles.

life is good people. be grateful for the skin you are in... wrinkles and all!