Life's Ponderings: Voices of the Elders
- Christine "Liz" LaRue
- 10 hours ago
- 3 min read
I have moved out of my 60's decades and now into the realm of Septuagenarian. As my porcelain mask here represents, influenced by the carved ivory masks of ancient Benin, Africa, and those of Mayan elites, the elders' voices guide us through our lives and histories. Masks, pots, and ceremonial objects have often contained a center figure surrounded by important people, animals that have guided tribal peoples for centuries.
I myself have become a living elder to a young Black male artist who just synced up with me a year ago. We have become fast friends in a cohort of artists who seek family among artistic ties.
It is a marvel to listen to a 20-something young man learn to navigate this world in such an outward way, as my own living boundaries have become more fixed due to age, lifestyle, and septuagenarian bones and muscles that yell loudly at you for doing something unseemly for your age.
I had a recent conversation with my young kin artist about male roles. We had touched on the Epstein files as being so disagreeable as the male culture in particular, which sought openly to take advantage of people for sex trafficking. My new kin sought me out to talk about how he was having second thoughts about males in his sphere of influence who had no boundaries with friends in a possessive way, and were aggressive in self-influence in dating.
I listened a lot to understand his discomfort. As I listened, my mind raced for an analogy to help with learning. What suddenly popped into my head was the Dracula Myth, particularly personified by the oozing, seductive, majestic charm of actor Frank Langella's version of Dracula circa 1979. I saw the Dracula Myth as an epitome of the kind of trafficking of sex perpetrated by one man to meet his own vicarious needs for eternal life. Those values actually aren't very far from the people who populated the world of Jeffrey Epstein. These were people who saw young women and men as objects to further their own desires. Isn't that what Dracula did also?
To invite him to a party, knowing full well his nature, is to invite harm on all the women and men he seeks to control.
There is wicked lasciviousness in that regarding males who know they have buddies who prowl after women the way a cat prowls after mice. Eventually, Dracula, if given full rein, will subdue all the women and men open to his charms and leave behind a trail of destruction. I used this analogy with my kin artist friend, and he grasped the concept immediately and saw the danger in men who looked past these habits, refused to talk about them, and saw the problem as not affecting them. But it DOES affect them. It affects the community in erecting traumatic experiences of vicious manipulation of young people, ill-equipped to handle pervasive adult behaviors.
Eventually, the narcissism of Dracula-like characters in values, if given full rein, will tear a community up from the inside. Unimaginable traumas and self-esteem numbing behaviors - movie or real life would occur.
We talked about how he saw that Black women his age were much less tolerant of female Draculas and would confront them openly. What he had difficulty with was his male buddies still accepting those Dracula-like souls to parties, events, and get-togethers. Our conversation covered that the learning curve is still operating with many people, male and female, to be aware of folks who manipulate others completely for their narcissistic reasons. My kin artist mapped out plans for himself to handle negative situations like that, which he felt were energy-zapping. I listened, agreed his plan seemed doable, but to be ready for adjustments as needed. He thanked me for listening to a situation he found particularly thorny. He noted it was comforting to have elders in his life to work through situations that he knew elders had seen and managed.
After we finished our conversation, I looked at my mask and realized I had become one of those little heads of elders personified at the top of the mask! Live long enough, listen and survive, and someone may see your survival skills as footpaths for their journeys as well.
Artist Bio
Christine “Liz” LaRue is a clay artist and illustrationist. She is known for her intricately textured figurative sculptures and emotionally illustrative drawings. Chicago-born though also raised in Utah and Idaho, Ms. LaRue is of Creole/Cuban descent. Her art has been influenced by her Afro-Latino heritage. Ms. LaRue’s interests have been in pre-Columbian art of the Olmec, Maya of Mexico, Nazca, and Moche face pots of Peru. This also includes the bronze sculptures of the Ife of Nigeria and Tā Moko tattoo art of the Maōri.
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