I often look at people of all ages and think about who they’ll become or who they were at previous times in their lives. And I think about the different stages and manifestations of beauty throughout the course of their lives. I wonder whether little kids will maintain, grow into or lose their beauty, and whether old age will reveal the beauty in their youth and vice versa. I wonder whether there is an eternal quality to beauty that continues to make us recognizable even when our earliest and most recent portraits bear almost no resemblance to each other.
Last night my wife (I am legally married, but that’s another story) showed me photos that I had never seen before of her as a child. I was left speechless. Of course, I see traces of her present posture, gestures, and features. But most of all, when I look at that little girl in the photographs, I can see clearly everything that is beautiful about the woman that is today my wife.
Grave Error 