Badass doesn't even begin to describe her. This portrait of her was done shortly after her marriage (on my birthday a mere 90 years before I was born)
Looking at that demure traditional lady from the late 1800s you wouldn't suspect that she was really a rebel waiting to happen. During her lifetime she was a talented sculptor, painter and even a blacksmith. She was athletic and enjoyed sports - she did headstands every year on her birthday just to prove she still could. Think about what women wore in the early 1900's - headstands were HARD. I cant' do one in yoga pants, much less a full skirt or bulky "athletic shorts" that young women of taste wore. She was smart and enjoyed science - performing experiments with electricity decades before most homes had easy access. She learned to fly an airplane and drive (however badly) a car. She did a lot, but she's best known for founding Girl Scouts - something she did at 52. Her greatest work wasn't even thought of in her 20s or 30s or even 40s.
We live in such a culture of youth today that it's easy to think that by 50 it's too late to really do anything. People are living longer, but far too many of them are spending most of those extra years trying to be young again. I personally wouldn't want to be 20 again. Or 30 or 40. I'm 47 now, will be 48 next December - I'm closer to 50 than 40 and soon enough I'll be closer to 60 than 50. I'm not going to waste that time trying to recapture a youth that was better in my memory than it probably was in real life.
Besides, I don't have to be young to be amazing. You can do that at any age.
I would say just ask Juliette, but obviously you can't
So maybe you should ask Bette Calman - Yoga Instructor Extraordinaire
She's 20 years older than my mother and more badass than I have ever been in my entire life.
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