Shall I compare thee to painted lines in a carpark?
Can you feel the friction of time and weathering wearing away at you? Not as pristine as you once were, are you? Your smooth edges have become chipped over the years. Your gloss has been rubbed away in patches, it still shows but not evenly. And the cracks are slowly growing day by day, joining together as an unstoppable, unfillable force.
Cover it all as best you can, wear a mask, paint over those cracks. Try scrubbing out the stains and washing away the tainted marks that you could not avoid picking up through living. Hide and do not expose yourself.
Or. Accept the fact that you are beautiful. It makes you beautiful.
Weathering works on everything. And it works wonders. The plain becomes nuanced, the gaudy becomes fascinating and the bland becomes so much richer in tone. On both objects and people. Weathering doesn't care, it won't show bias, we all get blessed by its touch.
It is where the real character lies. Your character. Events and experiences leave their marks, which merge and mingle into your refined self. What you do and who you know are all forces of nature that create your weathered being. Family, friends and colleagues have an impact that at times may feel like being scratched and dented but without it our bright, shiny glare is actually quite dull. Fresh and perfect works for a toddler but less so as an adult.
Celebrate the cracking that makes you so fascinatingly unique. It is your history written for all to see or read. It is, undeniably, yours. It's why people can't keep their eyes off you, well, I can't anyway.
Every car off a production line is identical but look again thirty years later as paint flakes and rust and minor dents and scratches have weathered their way across the gloss. Each vehicle is now its own. Not as strong or fast as it once was but it has lived and has stories to tell.
We have a head-start as we are born individuals but the living years then build our personality and create our character. To me, the process we go through is a form of weathering, which is so much more than degradation or disintegration. It is constructive more than destructive and valuing it is to see the soul.
One day I hope to be as interesting as these old painted lines in a carpark.
All photographs taken with my iphone11 in one carpark in Petchaburi, Thailand, during a thirty-minute visit.
