aging

Help! My face has fallen and can’t get up!

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I’ve long suspected that death visits us while we sleep and strokes our faces, pinching and pulling as he whispers Gollum-like, “Oh, my precious.” How else explain this stretched out skin that has lost its elasticity.

 

The only other explanation is wanderlust. My cheeks once interested only in the world that was in front of my face have grown curious and want to see what’s below my jaw. I believe the common term for this is jowls (which rhymes with howls, which happens when I accidently look in the mirror).

Courtesy of Flickr user SuperFantastic

Courtesy of Flickr user SuperFantastic

My eyes have the same desire to travel. A large bag sits ready below each eye, awaiting the call to leave. When I was younger, my eyes would sometimes pack these bags; however, after a good night’s sleep they would empty their bags and settle down, prepared to face the world.  Now they are determined to bring as much as possible on the journey.

 

My ears, tired of being ignored and relegated to being a mere sideshow to my face, add cartilage every chance they get, racing to reach my shoulders before my jowls do. They’ve also started peeking out behind the curtain of hair that hangs over them. That curtain used to be thicker, but the bathroom floor is now a popular destination. It is widely believed by my hairs that the ones that reach the floor will get swept up in a kind of whirlwind once they get there. The rumors are true.

 

The result of my facial migration south is a face that only a bloodhound or possibly a Shar Pei could love. Thus, my eschewal* of selfies.

Courtesy of User:Ropompin on Wikimedia Creative Commons

Courtesy of User:Ropompin on Wikimedia Creative Commons

Each emotion I have felt has used my face for origami, folding and unfolding the skin to show joy, anger, disgust, delight, and a thousand other feelings. The creases are all permanent now and, outside of surgery, my former smoothery is possible only inside a wind tunnel.

 

Courtesy Pinterest user: Michele Gambone

Courtesy Pinterest user: Michele Gambone

 

*Use of the verb “eschew” calls for a piece ofchocolate. Use of the noun form “eschewal,”   calls for two pieces. You're welcome.

 

 

 

 

Frequently Not Asked Questions: Eight

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Question: Are you what is called “a woman of a certain age”?

 

I used to be.

 

All that has changed recently. Not only have I been told that 50 is the new 30, which would make me under 40, but the Max Planck Institute says I’m still in my twenties because 72 is the new 30. So, my age is no longer certain.

 

The research institute that declared me young bears the name of Max Planck. If you’ve watched enough Jeopardy shows, you’ll remember him from the question “Who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918?” Max Planck received the award for his discovery of little bundles of energy, called quanta, sometimes known as grandchildren.

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Thanks to Planck, we know, or should, that light is both a wave and a particle (a lump of energy) at the same time. This is easily understood by considering Superman. Depending on how or when you look at him, he is either Clark Kent, the equivalent of a mild-mannered wave wearing dark-rimmed glasses, or Superman, a bundle of super-human energy flying through space in tights.

 

But what does that have to do with time slowing down, so that it now takes over two of the old years to make one of the new ones?

 

Thank you for asking. It has something to do with Einstein, the mathematical short story writer. His most famous story, E=mc2, consists of just three letters, a symbol, and a number. A close reading of the text yields the following. A hapless thirty-year-old astronaut sent on a mission just after his first child, Herminia, is born spends thirty years traveling at very high speeds here and there in the galaxy, eating irradiated beef and freeze-dried ice cream. He returns to earth on what he believes is his daughter’s 30th birthday. When he bursts through the door of the family home, expecting to surprise Herminia, he discovers “Happy 72nd Birthday!” written on the cake. He is confused because he is only 60 and his birthday is next month. Overcome by the sight of real ice cream, he consumes a bowl before learning that the old woman at the head of the table is Herminia. Yet no matter what the calendar says, in the mind of the hapless astronaut, she is his 30-year-old daughter. Hence, the idea that 72 is the new 30.

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Long ago, people my age were considered long in the tooth; now we are long in the youth because the fast pace of life is slowing time down. If I live long enough, it may take three of the old years to equal a new one. By the time I reach 90, it may be the new 30, and I’ll never be able to retire.

 

Caveat anagnóstis (Reader beware): My understanding of physics is limited to interpretative dances about the elusive quark. However, I have heard that as an object accelerates, its mass increases. This explains why as I move faster and faster through time, growing younger and younger, my fluffiness is also increasing –  a matter that weighs heavy on me at times.

Quarks courtesy of Arpad Horvath.

Quarks courtesy of Arpad Horvath.

(NOTE TO READER: This is a non-science blog and is not a substitute for a college class in theoretical physics. My expertise lies primarily in theatrical physics with a focus on musicals. Any information with a resemblance to actual science is purely coincidental and rather lucky.)

 

 

 

The body remembers

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The body remembers.

 

The sun-scorched skin can number the days beneath the sky’s great torch, planting grain, lying on the beach, and walking to the train. The knees recall each road they travelled and the weariness of sidewalks and pavement. They can count the ups and downs of stairs you’ve long forgotten. The back has followed every step you’ve taken, holding you upright through the hard days, willing to bend at your command and lift small children, boxes, and bags and bags of groceries. The bones empty themselves to make space for all the memories of stillness. They languished those hours, longing to carry you, to feel the heft of life and movement. In the unseen places, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage journal every blow, fall, jolt, jump, stroll, dance, and spin; most of which you cannot remember.

 

The body grows weary of silence.

 

Year after year the body waited, remembering. The few times it spoke, you listened, tended to its needs, and heard no more. Stories must be told and now the body speaks. The skin brings up memories of the sun, like old photographs printed on your face. The knees insist you listen to the recitation of burdens borne; the back wakes you at night to tell its tales. Day after day the memories excavate within the bones, hollowing them out  for a place to rest, nestling within the fragile spaces of the clavicle, radius, and femur. Tendons, ligaments, and cartilage lose themselves in remembrances that stretch across the years.

 

The body must tell, and should you turn away, it speaks more loudly. Listen it says, this is where I’ve been, this is the road I trod. And you must listen. Where else can you go?

 

 

Elderly woman:  Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.