This strange, even abstract, conjunction of fences and stacks of bamboo and vines and trees leads all the way back to a choir of tulips singing to us from beneath an inverted V.

   For people like me, everything has significance. When I saw this gorgeous jumble from the alley behind my office I thought about all the ways we fence off the flowers within us.

   Of course, the thousand angles in the hand-hewn wood cascade their own grace. They are what caught my eye. It wasn't until I looked at the photograph that I saw that the fence tops all seemed to be pointing towards the round beauty beyond – as if to show us what they are protecting.

   When a person becomes an elderly patient he or she can look as if all their beauty has collapsed in upon them. The fresh light of their youth has faded. Vogue Magazine, marketers and the Neilsen rating people are not longer interested. That is why it is so important for caregivers (and the rest of us) to recognize the beauty within them. 

   The healtcare system routinely marginalizes anyone wearing a patient gown. Within this group, it is the elderly that often experience the most demeaning treatment. 

   In general, advanced age doesn't bring respect in American hospitals. Instead, caregivers sometimes recoil (inwardly) from wrinkled skin as if it was an electrified fence. 

   The path through the fence to the flower within older hearts is not reached by referring to an aged patient as, "that sweet little man" or by speaking to someone's grandmother in a loud voice whether or not they are deaf or by addressing the ancient among us as if they were five years old.

   We imagine the light within a newborn. Sometimes, it takes more work to experience the luminous warmth that rises from both the flowers and the fences.

   Life is an abstract painting. We try to organize it and make it real. The wise elderly among us know that it's time to give up all that effort and enjoy the dream.  

-Erie Chapman

Photograph – Fences & Flowers copyright erie chapman 2012