May 292015
 
old woman sees young self in mirror

courtesy: Tom Hussey

The other day I perused the Internet for short hair styles that might be attractive on older women. Why? I’m considering a change in style, and I’m willing to concede I might be considered an “older woman.”

Imagine my surprise upon encountering a picture of the lovely Maggie Gyllenhaal among the images. Maggie G. only 37, is an older woman? Since fricking when?

Gyllenhaal told CNN a Hollywood producer deemed her too old to play the lover of a fifty-five year old man. Although the story isn’t immediately verifiable, it dovetails with anecdotal reports from the left coast. Tinsel Town’s ageism is as old as the Hollywood Hills.

So are assessments as to female desirability. Amy Schumer hilariously captures the prevailing mindset in her “Last F**kable Day” video, starring Tina Fey, Patricia Arquette and Julia Louie-Dreyfus. Hard to believe we’re still dealing with overt female-centric ageism in 2015. Where’s the progress?

It goes beyond female desirability. Women over fifty might as well all wear black dresses to the floor, like the nanna few of us ever had. In everyone’s eyes, we’re one amorphous post-child-bearing blob.

Since I’m past sixty, I’m on the lookout for portrayals of “seniors” in pop culture. Trust me when I tell you the difference between men and women remains apparent. It’s not just Liam Neeson and company strutting their stuff. It’s that women are old, done for, vulnerable and over-the-hill. Or they play far younger because otherwise, well, they wouldn’t exist. Two examples among many:

  • On a recent episode of “The Good Wife”, the client was “a little old lady” of 62, played by an actress who appeared to be in her mid-seventies and defended by the lawyer in her mid-fifties played by Christine Baranski, 63.
  • On a rerun of “Law and Order: SVU”, the rape of a woman was seen as especially revolting because she was described as an elderly woman of 60.

Yes, we have a comedy in which two actors in their seventies portray seventy-something characters facing divorce for the first time. The honesty is bracing. The fact that they are played by Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda with gleaming teeth, perfect skin, beautiful necks and all the money their characters require to suffer luxuriously is simply a way to address the issues of female aging without throwing too many wrinkles into the plot, I guess.

Television often casts 49-year old women to play the mothers of 30 year old men. Under fifty, the women can still be rocket scientists, university professors, molecular biologists and CIA agents with advanced degrees who might, if required kick some butt here and there. Given the accomplishments and relative youth among the mothers, I can only surmise there were quite a few on-campus births back in the day as well as understanding employers.

I’ve heard senior women are the latest trend. As AdWeek gushed in early April, “older women are the new ‘it’ girls.” Apparently retailers are belatedly realizing baby boomers hold—and spend—most of the wealth. Wave our wallets at them and watch them come running. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Meanwhile, the truthful portraits of mature females vie for attention with the more popular tropes that older women (except for Meryl Streep or Dame Helen Mirren, of course) have two choices: lift, dye, process, rise, repeat, until you look like something that, as Julie Louis-Dreyfus observes “has been left out too long in the sun.” Or accept your lot in life as a generic sexless thing. You can fight against it; I certainly intend to. It’s an uphill climb. Strong, secure, sexy post-child-bearing women are either terrifying or incomprehensible to a significant portion of the population.

Back to the haircuts: I’m sorry Maggie Gyllenhaal is placed in the “mature woman” category when it comes to style. It could be worse. For instance, I went back to look and came across a style in the “women over sixty” category that interested me: short, curly and low-maintenance. Looks a bit like Carol, the gray-haired warrior from “The Walking Dead”. Wait; that IS Carol; at least it’s a picture of the actress who plays her, Melissa McBride. McBride just turned fifty. What’s she doing in the over sixty category? Is it the gray hair? Or is it that one old lady walking looks just like the next.

This story was originally published in The Broad Side

Apr 102015
 

Peter PanI’m at that awkward stage. You know; the one where you realize that while you were growing old, you may not have grown up.

Yes, I can refer to my numerical age without sweating, ducking or gulping but I still avoid mentioning it whenever possible. It would appear I have an issue with acceptance, which I assumed would come with age.

Silly me.

I’m not old, at least not in my head (although my head is sometimes filled with a nasty voice reminding me that numbers don’t lie). I’m not precisely “retired” either, although my job is, strictly speaking, an avocation and based on my tax returns, not likely to turn into a valid vocation, if by valid we mean: it pays.

But what really unsettles me is how unsettled I feel. Aren’t I supposed to feel tranquil, calm, at peace? You know, things a mature person might be feeling?

What the hell?

young Nikki scowling at sisterMind you, I’ve had decades to get to a peaceful place. My agitation and my awareness that I was prone to agitation began early. I had plenty of opportunities to get rolfed or take EST or get better at meditating or go on retreats or find my center/balance or at least manage my temper, which is actually a way of managing my fear.

How many years does that take?

And, over the decades, I’ve become fearful of fewer things; so perhaps there’s been some forward movement. I still have meltdowns. I still yell, okay, scream at the vapid stupidity that surrounds me. Don’t get me started on customer service or rogue cops or religious fanaticism. I still come down harder on myself than anyone should. My failure to grasp the intricacies of rapidly changing technology, always billed as “simple”, infuriates me. Some days I detest all humankind, some days I despair on its behalf.

What am I to think about these feelings?

What I think is: This is not the mark of a mature woman.

What I also think is: Who cares?

I’m not here to promote the virtues of being a diva or giving in to every emotion one may be inclined to feel.

On the other hand, being, uh, “emotional” may be less a sign of immaturity than a sign that I’m simply an older version of myself: a tad more aware, a touch more in control but basically me.  Because while I fret and stew, I also revel, laugh out loud, dance and, in my mind at least, cartwheel on the beach.

So the package consists of emotions good and bad only mildly tempered by time. This is the version of me I have to offer. Take it or leave it.

Having said that, I need to stand guard against turning into a crotchety old person. I must resist the onset of “irritable at everything and everybody syndrome”, no matter how much these young whippersnappers tick me off.

Nikki and Molly at play

 

Mar 292015
 

All my life I’ve been trying to communicate. The funny thing about wanting to say something is that no matter how articulate you become, how presumably skilled in getting across your point, you may never feel you’ve nailed it. I’d guess most writers are plagued with the impulse to make themselves understood. I know I’ve been that way since, well, forever.

old fashioned little girl illustrationI wrote my first short story when I was six. By the time I was sixteen, I decided music was the medium and wrote all sorts of original songs, including music and lyrics for school productions. After graduate school and a short stint on Capitol Hill, I was slaving away as a “singer-songwriter” before falling back into the less glamorous but more lucrative career of public relations. Along the way and relatively late in life, I got married. I was forty.

A dozen years later, he was killed in the 9/11 attacks. Impelled by the need to express my sorrow and find my healing, I wrote. The very public death of my husband along with thousands of others gave me a platform. I produced essays, editorials, speeches, delivered via major outlets. I was fifty-two.

I then wrote a book about post-9/11 contemporary culture. Because I Say So: Moral Authority’s Dangerous Appeal, published in 2010. I  also began publishing on a now-defunct platform called Open Salon. Two years later, another book I wrote was published about my search as a skeptic for a version of hope I could believe in. Hope in Small Doses was published in 2012, when I had just turned sixty-three.

After nearly three years of practicing on short stories, some of which were published and many of which were not, I published my first novella, Don’t Move, a suspense thriller. Now I’m working on a novel.  I’m. . .well, you do the math.

Second chance vocations, avocations and passions are all the rage nowadays with organizations like ENCORES and AARP promoting opportunities. A recent New York Times article focused on people finding (and defining) success “well past the age of wunderkind.”

Silver linings.

I have yet to discover whether I have a literary career ahead of me. I’m occasionally appalled to find my chosen field so very crowded. Everyone is a writer; really, ask anyone: they will tell you they’re writing.  #amwriting is a more popular hashtag on Twitter than #amreading, which begs the question: are there any readers for all the writing being put out there?

No matter—well, most of the time, no matter. I’m human after all, still searching for a way to be heard above the din. Age has possibly made me a little less competitive, though, I never really was.

And I’m financially secure enough in my retirement that I don’t need to scramble for $50 in order to supply “content” to some website that makes no distinction between good and not so good writing.

Good writing—including my own—is paramount to me. I delight in putting words on paper but I’m a deliberate sort. Although I’ve written dozens of essays and short stories, I not a “high producer.” Not only that, I’m a very compact writer—I say what I have to say in a few lovingly crafted and carefully edited words.  Industry standards say 40,000 (sometimes 50,000) word count is the necessary minimum for a non-fiction book and 80,000 words for a novel. E-publishing and even improvements in printing, along with varied delivery systems allow us to blur, if not challenge those numbers.

Good, because I’m not about to spend ten years on a novel.

Age is not just a number; it’s reality. I have fewer years ahead of me left to write and possibly fewer than most of you. I fight some anxiety about having the time and the cognitive ability to send into the world a decent number of thoughtful, interesting and above all entertaining things to read. Writing helps, though; it gives me purpose and focus.

Age may make you wiser, but in my case, not less sensitive. I sense my age may make me irrelevant to the world at large, until I turn eighty-five and turn out a book and have everyone ooh and ahh and say, “Isn’t that amazing! At her age!” probably while I’m in the room and can hear them saying it.

Oh well. I need writing and I hope to discover that writing needs me.  So full speed ahead.  BTW, I’m almost cool with my impending role as elder writing statesperson, should that be an option. Almost.
mellow Nikki with computer