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Jan. 26, 2007
Welcome old age with grace
The best things to hold onto as you mature are your strength and
a sound mind – the exterior beauty aspects are less important.
MARA SOKOLSKY
Growing up, I was a skinny kid with a long, serious face. Later
than most, perhaps, I softened and blossomed. I was never gorgeous,
but I ended up with a passable shayna punim, a pretty face,
or at least a punim shayna enough to attract a few boys and make
me comfortable with my image in the mirror.
Now that I've hit midlife, I have to work harder to keep that shayna
punim recognizable. It's human nature to want things to stay the
same. We'd all like to see a familiar, constant self looking out
from our reflection. But time and experience add their own accents
to the original blueprint. And, at this age, those designs are not
always flattering.
When my husband and I first met, we shared in the guilty pleasure
of a certain nighttime soap opera. We watched it faithfully till
its demise in 1985. Last month, we watched a 20-year reunion of
all the main characters.
There's a sinking feeling that comes when you first see someone
who's lost the vibrant beauty you remember them having. I wasn't
prepared, however, for a different sort of shock when I saw these
soap opera actresses on TV. At first I thought, "Oh, they haven't
changed much." Then I realized that the non-change was thoroughly
man-made. Though surgery tries to approximate a former physical
self, the result is much like viewing someone in a wax museum. It
looks like the person, but feels static.
Those actresses laughed and talked through tight, pulled faces.
They had neither aged naturally nor stayed young naturally. Is it
still considered a shayna punim if it's artificially constructed?
If the unadulterated aging process is unflattering and the adulterated
one is unsettling, is there any hope for aging well?
The generation of bubbes and zaydes who moved to Florida and California
could be called aging pioneers. No rocking chairs for them! Brandishing
bright colors and rhinestone sunglasses, they looked old age in
the eye and almost vanquished her.
Going further back, I can see the East European-born bubbes who
shmoozed on the park benches of my childhood. They came out each
day in sensible shoes. The white braids wrapped around their heads
framed soft, wrinkled faces. But when these tiny women pinched my
cheeks, their grasp, like their opinions about what they had seen
in a long and tumultuous life, was strong.
Perhaps these are my guideposts: to wear brighter clothes against
the onslaught of age and come out in comfortable shoes. But the
question remains of how to cope with my ever-changing shayna punim.
My father was an innate naturalist. He didn't believe in women piercing
their ears or wearing make-up. Some of that must have rubbed off
on me, because, though I have worn dangling earrings for years,
I never experimented with putting anything on my face.
When I turned 50, I decided I could use a bit of doctoring. A good
friend showed me how to draw alluring black lines around my eyes.
Much to the dismay of my daughters, I gave it up after three days.
I just couldn't be bothered. Or is there something about that "au
naturel" look that brings me back as close as I can get to
the young self I remember?
I suppose it's a constant juggling act between accepting what you
see and who you are and remembering who you were. It's a tricky
balance. A comment my aunt made when women around her started getting
facelifts rings in my ears. "Their faces look younger,"
she said. "But their hands are still those of an old woman."
In time, I will see a soft, wrinkled face looking back at me. My
generation has vitamins, hormone cream and a host of other tactics
to disguise and delay the ravages of the years. But the lines on
my East European face will be the same ones as my forebears in the
park. It's my inheritance.
If I'm lucky, that inheritance will also include a sound mind, a
reasonably functioning body and a very strong grasp.
Mara Sokolsky is a freelance writer in Providence, R.I.
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