Saging Well

It is not that things exist, nor that they do not: it is simply that all phenomena are perpetually in a process of becoming. A traditional analogy for this is the form that appears from the water at the top of a fountain.

The spiritual path does not consist in seeking some escape from the world around us into some divine and eternal heaven-world. In a very real sense there is nowhere else to go; true happiness, or Enlightenment, if it is to be found anywhere, must be sought and found in the here and now.

“Lordy, I’m Forty!” “Nifty at Fifty!” – even turning thirty gets its own (dubious) endorsement with “Over the Hill.”  But sixty?  How do we acknowledge that particular threshold?

The increasingly promoted “Sexy at Sixty” is problematic for me personally. I’m very happy to be regarded as sexy by my partner, but aiming to appear so in a more public way has a faint whiff of desperation about it. Perhaps I’m thinking here of repeated cosmetic surgeries and plunging décolletage - the stop-the-clock measures otherwise sensible, mature people engage in in the hope that therein happiness lies. The genuine “sexy at sixty” types I see in life and in the media, however, do not appear as if sexiness was their single purpose; they seem more so simply to convey confidence and vitality and depth of character.  And that is sexy.

How can we honor the sixty benchmark in a way that suggests affirmation of its opportunity? All it takes is a cursory reading of the daily obituaries to recognize what an exceptional gift it is to live half a century, let alone a decade beyond that. Michael Jackson’s recent demise was another startling reminder of the arbitrariness of one’s lifespan. There are no guarantees, regardless of who we are. To live to be sixty feels like an extraordinary blessing of its own.

Hmm, “Blessed Be at Sixty”? How’s that for a catchphrase?  I rather like the sound of it, Jewish-Jainist-Buddhist pagan that I am. Alternatively, “Blissed-Be at Sixty” sounds like a good aspiration as well. I like the idea of committing myself to what brings me bliss, of invoking all my experience of the gift of existence into a decade of celebration.

That, of course, leaves the next decades. “Heavenly at Seventy”? “Elated at Eighty?” “So Fine at Ninety”? “Thunderin’ at 100″? Perhaps we each can find the phrase that captures our particular affection for each of our anniversary decades, and in so doing add to a sense that our lives have meaning and purpose no matter what our age.

I remember laughing with relief when I read C. E. Crimmins say, “You can never be too paranoid.” My basic timidity in the face of the Big Bad Wolf That Is the World is a trait I could only hope to outgrow, but it was reassuring to know if I didn’t that was good too. And sure enough, in many ways I have outgrown it, although feeling vulnerable is a nemesis for somewhat different reasons as I age.  

In my youth vulnerability was chiefly related to sexual vulnerability. As a post-menopausal woman, however, I’m mostly relieved to feel sexual at all, and I fairly much assume I’m not regarded as such by (most of) the males I encounter. So it isn’t that I fear being sexually vulnerable as I contemplate aging, but more so that I may be seen as less able to defend myself.  Well, mindfulness is the best protection, I tell myself, no matter what your age.

Today’s experience aptly typifies the difference between my youthful and maturing senses of vulnerability.  It was a perfectly bright and lovely summer day, but on the final and most remote stretch of my walk with Karma the beloved dog I noted that approaching me about 200 yards ahead was a dark-haired adolescent male of the swaggering variety, casually swinging what appeared to be one of those lethally-long hedge clippers.

Uh-oh, I thought to myself, what if that’s what he’s going to use to mug me? It promptly occurred to me that in fact those giant hedge clippers would have been one of the only efficient ways to quickly relieve me of the purse, camera, leash, binoculars and portable water bottle slung across my chest like some poor pack mule’s burden. Hedge clippers were, actually a fortuitous choice of weapon, for him. Weapon? Do I really believe that? The conversation with myself continued as follows:

Okay, well, surely he sees Karma and is going to be a little wary of an assault himself.  On the other hand, Karma’s off leash, and what if the kid isn’t a thug but is instead afraid of dogs?  I don’t know.  No, young guys aren’t usually afraid of anything.  So maybe he is a mugger.  Maybe when he reaches me I should just hand him everything to avoid any nicks in the jugular by the clippers. Really though.  I don’t want to turn over my digital camera.  I just took about fifty pictures of trees on my walk. I can’t imagine he’s going to have any interest in that.  Why don’t I ever wear my glasses when I’m out walking? Uh-oh, he’s getting closer. I’d better think fast.

It was at that point I detected the presence of a cologne that preceded the would-be mugger like a court trumpeter and his Majesty.  Hmm, I wondered.  Would thugs really splash on their scent-du-jour as they mentally rehearsed their criminal modus operandi? Isn’t that like a one-item test to disprove they’re any kind of dangerous threat?

I pondered this just long enough to realize my own personal would-be felon had in fact come within reliable visual distance.  It turned out he was not swinging any Samurai-like hedge clippers but… a skateboard.  He was about fourteen and Karma amiably trotted up to greet him. Don’t worry, he’s friendly, I reassured him, as he walked obliviously past us.

Periodically I worry about the diminution of my senses.  Certainly my eyes have taken a turn for the worse, requiring that I keep nine or ten reading glasses available at all times. I probably should be wearing my distance glasses all the time.  And years of exercising to blasting music on headphones seems not to have done my hearing any good.  Then there’s my sense of smell. For about six weeks I thought I had lost it entirely since there wasn’t a honeysuckle in sight I could catch a whiff of.  I did manage to catch a sweet, though faint, bouquet of one quite fine honeysuckle blossom eventually, so perhaps that was just allergies before.

Still, what I am concluding from my experiences of late is that far more than being at risk from the world, I’m at risk from my own declining capacities.  On the other hand, they amuse me no end.

P. S. In settling upon the metaphor of court trumpeter, see above, I was happily referred to the following page, filled with just the kind of information that thrills me endlessly. Pascal wrote something to the effect that he believes heaven must be a kind of library, and if that’s so, Google is heaven. If you, too, are of the inclination to believe so, you might enjoy the page, particularly if clarification about the difference between heralds and trumpeters interests you. Here it is.

Last week I sat at the hair salon waiting for my next Mane Miracle (surely it would happen this time), and found myself humming “The Old Grey Mare.”  I was game for singing all the lyrics but “ain’t what she used to be” was about the limit of my recall.  As it turns out, apart from kicking a whiffletree (not, to my surprise, a botanical species) that’s pretty much the song in its entirety anyhow.

The Mane Miracle I sought, I am chagrined to admit, was how to undo the years of dyeing my hair and allow my natural grey to grow out without looking like I was engaging in the hair equivalent of the Maginot Line, a grey bunker fortifying the roots where I part my hair.  Could you dye my hair brown and just give me some grey highlights?, I plaintively asked my hairdresser (giggling to myself as I recalled Mitch Hedberg’s having said, “I got my hair highlighted, because I felt some strands were more important than others”).  Or should I just shave my head entirely and start all over again? Then again, do I really want to be as grey as (only god and my DNA knows) I am?

Alright.  So go ahead, ask.  What’s with this?, you want to know.  I who write so blithely about “saging well” nonetheless feel the compulsion to disguise the process?  Is it really defensible to embrace aging, but not the appearance of it?

Good questions.  Ones I ask myself every time I make the appointment with my hairdresser.  I simply don’t have a good answer, apart from the fact that once I started this dyeing business twenty-five years ago there was no turning back (no problem turning black, however).  It’s not because of any pressure from anyone in my life.  I do believe that no one would love me less if I were grey.  But if I’m really honest with myself, the fact is I’m not ready to take that chance.  And I’m not entirely certain I wouldn’t love myself a little less if I were au naturel.

Well, like so much of life, it turns out there’s more to the Old Grey Mare than I thought. When I Googled that phrase I discovered in Merry Olde England she is not simply the nattering neglected nag that testy timeworn tune suggests, but has, as pictured above, been commemorated since 1742 as the Westbury White Horse on Salisbury Plain. Wikipedia suggests it was a “heraldic symbol associated with the House of Hanover” (making any link between the folksy American Old Grey Mare and the Westbury White Horse about as strong as a paper chain, actually).

Nonetheless I realized their unlikely contrast symbolizes my current state of the union with regard to my so-called crowning glory.  I’m not ready to stop dyeing until I can truly exhilarate in a virile head of white hair.  I want to wait until I can be the Westbury Horse rather than the Old Grey Mare.

That may not occur, of course, until I’m near eighty.  In the meantime, I look in the mirror at my youthfully restored hair and laugh, in my mind hearing Prince’s signature, “I Would Dye 4 U.”

At least I think that’s what he’s singing.