Scoop Teeter reports
This is a pretty funny news article:
To age gracefully requires maturity, wisdom
March 23, 2005
BY JENNIFER HUNTER
When I told a friend I was going to Cancun for spring break she suggested a bikini wax and a visit to a department store for resort wear. Bikini wax? Since I wear one of those old-fashioned bathing suits that go down to mid-thigh, I have never worried about letting it all hang out and I leave bikini waxes to those 40 and under who can still, shamelessly, get into bikinis.
At my age, acceptance must become part of the game, even if I do still dye my hair and wear Spanx. I vowed I would never look like my grandmother, who at the age of 66 was strutting around like a demoiselle in go-go boots. Nor do I ever want to look like that Phantom of the Opera who was once Joan Rivers. I'm not against face-lifts, per se, but Joan is 71 and she has lifted things too far; as Robin Williams jokes about his Hollywood colleagues who have been to the plastic surgeon once too often: "Those aren't lumps under her eyes, they're her nipples."
My former editor, who has since decamped for New York, once told me I was turning into a crone. He's a very old friend so I didn't punch him in the nose or make any reference to his penguinlike waistline. Instead I snorted derisively and told him he was sexist. Crone does seems a bit witchy, doesn't it? And there is no male equivalent. It suggests that any woman who is beyond childbearing years is unattractive, disposable, not worth any man's time, wrinkled, sexless, brain dead, etc.
But being a crone may be something to celebrate. According to an e-zine called Crone Chronicles, "Crone is identified as the third aspect of the ancient Triple Goddess: Maiden/Mother/Crone. Crone symbolizes the wisdom present in a woman of any age, but which usually becomes stronger as she grows older."
Wise sounds good to me, and I am beginning to think cronedom may have some added advantages. No longer do I have to think about creepy, lecherous guys on the street giving me the eye. Now they look at my daughter.
Sometimes, it's true, that at this middle-age point in my life I do feel invisible and many of my friends complain about the same thing. A former colleague once told me that when she was on a business trip she dined alone in a restaurant one evening. The flickering candle on her table spilled and set the tablecloth on fire. But even though there were significant flames no-one noticed. Not the people at neighboring tables. Not the waiter. She had to try to douse the fire herself and to point out the burned tablecloth to the waiter. That's the downside of being invisible.
Aging gracefully is an art, one few of us are able to master. Most of us battle against growing old, myself included. We all still want to look and feel our best, to feel attractive even if we forgo the bikini wax. And those lumps under my eyes? They aren't nipples, they're bags I've earned through years of living. If this is anything worth reading can you let me know? I haven't bothered to read it to find out what it's about before I posted it.
To age gracefully requires maturity, wisdom
March 23, 2005
BY JENNIFER HUNTER
When I told a friend I was going to Cancun for spring break she suggested a bikini wax and a visit to a department store for resort wear. Bikini wax? Since I wear one of those old-fashioned bathing suits that go down to mid-thigh, I have never worried about letting it all hang out and I leave bikini waxes to those 40 and under who can still, shamelessly, get into bikinis.
At my age, acceptance must become part of the game, even if I do still dye my hair and wear Spanx. I vowed I would never look like my grandmother, who at the age of 66 was strutting around like a demoiselle in go-go boots. Nor do I ever want to look like that Phantom of the Opera who was once Joan Rivers. I'm not against face-lifts, per se, but Joan is 71 and she has lifted things too far; as Robin Williams jokes about his Hollywood colleagues who have been to the plastic surgeon once too often: "Those aren't lumps under her eyes, they're her nipples."
My former editor, who has since decamped for New York, once told me I was turning into a crone. He's a very old friend so I didn't punch him in the nose or make any reference to his penguinlike waistline. Instead I snorted derisively and told him he was sexist. Crone does seems a bit witchy, doesn't it? And there is no male equivalent. It suggests that any woman who is beyond childbearing years is unattractive, disposable, not worth any man's time, wrinkled, sexless, brain dead, etc.
But being a crone may be something to celebrate. According to an e-zine called Crone Chronicles, "Crone is identified as the third aspect of the ancient Triple Goddess: Maiden/Mother/Crone. Crone symbolizes the wisdom present in a woman of any age, but which usually becomes stronger as she grows older."
Wise sounds good to me, and I am beginning to think cronedom may have some added advantages. No longer do I have to think about creepy, lecherous guys on the street giving me the eye. Now they look at my daughter.
Sometimes, it's true, that at this middle-age point in my life I do feel invisible and many of my friends complain about the same thing. A former colleague once told me that when she was on a business trip she dined alone in a restaurant one evening. The flickering candle on her table spilled and set the tablecloth on fire. But even though there were significant flames no-one noticed. Not the people at neighboring tables. Not the waiter. She had to try to douse the fire herself and to point out the burned tablecloth to the waiter. That's the downside of being invisible.
Aging gracefully is an art, one few of us are able to master. Most of us battle against growing old, myself included. We all still want to look and feel our best, to feel attractive even if we forgo the bikini wax. And those lumps under my eyes? They aren't nipples, they're bags I've earned through years of living. If this is anything worth reading can you let me know? I haven't bothered to read it to find out what it's about before I posted it.