Birthdays...

Eat, play, love...doing all three cause it's my birthday!!

Tonight I am going out for a fabulous birthday dinner with my beloved parents and husband to a great little French Restaurant that is having a lobster special and let's you bring your own wine! I am bringing a gorgeous Sauvignon Blanc that I got in wine country and a bottle of Veuve Cliqueot rose champagne that a friend gave me. We all played today at the Lacma, checking out the gorgeous Renoir exhibit and the phenomenal Richard Serra sculptures, and Love has been pouring in from friends and family near and far. I am a lucky lady.

Getting older isn't easy for a lot of people, but it is especially bad for those of us ladies who act and live in Hollywood. Hollywood is not a fan of older woman, favoring tight bodies and faces and encouraging men and women alike, to constantly try and beat the signs of age. I have had my own insecurities about looking older, have thought about botox on my forehead, maybe plumping up the every-year-a-little-deeper-groove between my brows, but there is something that I find so beautiful about seeing a persons face age naturally and looking at all the life that they have lived in every crease and crevice of skin. Don't get me wrong, I am not preaching against trying to be youthful, but I do wish that the world was a little wiser and kinder to the entire aging process and recognized the wisdom that hopefully comes with it, and that youth is a state of mind. Personally, I think that each year is a victory. Each year that I stay an artist and am able to keep doing what it is that I love to do, is worth celebrating.

There was a great quote today by Renoir at the exhibit, that was made when the painter was 78...he said that he wanted to stop just feeling his way through the painting. Incredible. He was talking about developing skills, not just going by instinct, but getting really good, at what he did. He was already famous, already being collected around the world, and with a circle of friends and peers that included Matisse, Malliol, and Manet, to name a few. Pictures showed that his face was lined and his hands were crippled with arthritis, and yet, he wasn't looking back, but looking forward to all the things that he wanted to still accomplish and learn. Amazing.

This year, I too am looking forward. Looking forward to all the great things and wonderful times that lie ahead and sharing them with all the beautiful people in my life, whose love and friendship, is the greatest birthday gift of all.