Columns
Crow's Caws
| Crow's Caws The Lessons of Age |
by Crow Cohen
I’m writing this while listening to the low honks of Canadian geese who are resting on Lake Champlain from their flight back north. It’s a warm early spring day, and I’m on my bike to greet light and open views on Button Bay. I’m 58 and am so grateful that I’m temporarily able-bodied.
Yet a couple of days ago I looked in the mirror and wondered how my face became square. When I was a teenager I always bemoaned the fact that my face was too oval. I used to long for the high cheekbones of Audrey Hepburn. Somehow having a square face was not the improvement I had in mind.
Jowls. That’s why my face is turning square. Now there’s an example of internalized ageism. I did not celebrate the fact that I now have a more ponderous, weighty demeanor. On the other hand I’ve been intrigued with my graying hair. It sort of fulfills another old childhood desire of mine to have light-colored hair instead of dark brown coarse hair. (A little internalized anti-Semitism?) Gray-haired women appeal to me these days. Admittedly, they never used to, but when you start to quack like a duck, webbed feet can look mighty cute.
Attitudes of equating advancing age and ugliness are rampant in our culture. Next time you’re in Brooks, check out the birthday card selection for people over 40. We’re portrayed as old hags, over the hill, nags, past our primes, flabby, garrulous, sexless, shriveled up – all in good fun!
Ever notice the ads on TV for women over 50? We’re not cavorting around on snowboards and sailfish. We’re taking laxatives, popping anti-depressants and soothing our hemorrhoids.
And then there’s the issue of poverty and illness. What’s our worst fear other than being shoved in a nursing home by our families? Becoming a bag lady, right? (That image as an object of fear and loathing has replaced the mean old single witch in the woods who never married, who lives in a gingerbread house, and who lures children in order to shove them in her oven to bake them.) There’s no question that every time I come down with a severe cold to stay home from work, I have to fight against images of becoming old and chronically ill. I often wonder if our communities are really cohesive enough to “take care of our own” as we become increasingly dependent.
On the other hand I have found distinct advantages to getting older. For one thing, I can don my old comfy bathing suit which has lost all its elasticity and saunter on North Beach without getting ogled. I like that. Helps me concentrate on lapping waves and mallard ducks rather than sexual approval. I’m told that as a post-menopausal woman I need the extra fat cells in my thickening thighs and rounder belly to store estrogen since my ovaries can no longer do the job.
Another byproduct of aging I’ve also noticed is how tolerant I’ve become. An evening’s entertainment for me can be watching my grandson attempt to snap together his “onesie” after his bath. You should hear us cheer when he finally manages to get all three snaps matched up and clicked into place. You’d think he just won the Olympic triathlon. When my own kids were little and fumbled with buttons on the way out the door, I could feel my chest tighten, my teeth gnash. I’ve also learned a different style of doing politics. I used to relish frontal attacks and self-righteous anger. Now I notice as I participate in debates about the Middle East, for instance, I’ve learned to value my ambivalence and try like hell to hold onto compassion for both sides.
I realize as I get older that it’s far more satisfying for me to walk along a trail in the woods alone stopping when the mood strikes to sit next to a rotting log coated with fresh moss in order to write in my journal or simply listen to a spring warbler knock herself out for ten minutes rather than push myself to trudge to the top of the mountain. In addition, I’ve recently found the courage to leave time in my day to contemplate and savor experiences instead of schedule one activity after another until they all jumble together in one frenetic pile at the end of the day. Admittedly, I need more practice with this, but once in awhile I remember to say no when issued a juicy invitation.
Not watching TV helps enormously. I heard a great line the other day. You want to wage war on drugs? Throw a rock through your TV screen.
You know the most valuable lesson I’ve learned over the years? There’s a lot of ways to die. Now that might not seem like a cheering thought, but working in the hospice field I’ve had the privilege to participate in many peoples endings. Some go out more gracefully than others. Those who seem to have fully developed spiritual lives are usually more peaceful. We have lots of medications that ease pain if people die of disease, but pain and discomfort have an emotional component that can cause people to thrash around no matter how much morphine they have on board.
It’s those people who learn to cultivate their souls that inspire me the most. The older I get, the more familiar I become with my inner workings.
For those of us who are disabled or live into our 80s or 90s, we get to watch our bodies disintegrate. If we are lucky enough to transform our fears into spiritual lessons about life’s more enduring values outside of glitz and self-gratification, just imagine how many internal truths will be revealed! Not all of these revelations will be fun, but they’ll be gems, and they’ll be ours to glory in and share.
Now here’s the hard part. Very few younger people will give a damn about what we have learned. That’s the essence of ageism. Their loss.
Crow Cohen is a lesbian feminist from Winooski.