5/1/08 Diary of a Dying Man

I love painting portraits of myself. My first, very realistic, shows a youngish, handsome, self-possessed 63 year-old. In the 12 years since then, I look in the mirror and see less hair, more of what’s left grey, sagging skin on the cheeks and chin, an older – some would say old – man. In the first portrait, the brown eyes flash with hope and vigor in the flecks of white reflected in the painted pupils. Today, the bathroom glass reveals less hope in the eyes, a little more sadness; I see time lines on my face, an eroded hillside, tumbling down to the softening under my manly chin and a slowly inflating spare tire around my waist.

The Portrait of Dorian Grey has nothing on me. Time does indeed take its toll. Flesh and spirits sag as youthful, even middle-aged dreams, never quite meet today’s expectations.

But that’s not really the problem, is it? What is there to hope for, to work for, to dream for in these later years? After all, my life, your life, is one race that we can never win. We all lose in the end, giving over to aging, failed expectations, and the inability to really define what the prize should be. At the end, our end, there is no evading the final goal, debilitation, maybe despair, and death.

What should old age be, what can I reasonably expect? Maybe that’s why I now paint my self-portraits as caricatures (intuitive truthfulness?), the aging, frightened, confused old fart. A nice old guy, maybe, but someone to be smiled at, conveniently ignored, maybe pitied, quickly forgotten? Do they see me as just another old clown prancing on his grave, trying to hum a tune he has already forgotten?

What am I looking for as I search this stranger’s face in my mirror???