I saw The Gleaners and I, a documentary film by Agnes Varda, earlier this week. Two years after the movie was made, Varga did a followup. One of the men from the original film, a man who was probably not over forty, said, when he was interviewed again, he didn’t like how she had portrayed herself in the first film, showing her grey hair and liver spotted hands. He didn’t enjoy seeing it; it wasn’t flattering.
There are times now when I marvel at the changes in my body. It is, to me, very beautiful to see the flesh on my arms, how they can make wrinkles if I hold them the right way. Something I’ve never seen before on my rather thin arms. I am fascinated at what can happen just because time has moved me in a certain direction and not another. Because I am alive.