Asides

On Agelessness*

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 13 Comments

* I was inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: age to re-visit a blog post from last year after an incident this morning further pointed out to me my continued sensitivity around this issue.

On this fine morning, I went to the grocery store after a run. I was wearing a NYC Marathon shirt, and the man ahead of me in line had one on as well and sparked up a conversation. He nicely offered me participation in a neighborhood running group. I asked if it had a variety of levels of runners (I am not a fast runner,) to which he said, “Oh, yeah, there’s a woman who everyone loves who is your age. Yeah, there’s lots of people your age.”

Now the thing is, I was thinking we were pretty near in age. I certainly wasn’t thinking I was in some whole other generation than him! Yikes!

Clearly, I have more work to do.

You see, I discovered two years ago that I am severely prejudiced.

It was a shock. I didn’t know that lurking within me were truly vile and discriminatory feelings and thoughts about a huge portion of the human race.

I didn’t know I was an ageist.

According to Wikipedia: Ageism (also spelled “agism”) is stereotyping and discriminating against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. This may be casual or systematic. The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, and patterned on sexism and racism.

Lemme back up. I was having an especially terrific day.

There are days when, as an actor, you are just filled with joy because you feel so in the flow. This was one of those days.

I was on my way from a great voice lesson. I had a while to do an errand and then later was going to rehearse and then do a staged reading of a very special play that held deep personal value for me, with amazing fellow actors. What could be better than that?

I stopped at a grocery store to pick up some kale (what is it about me and the grocery store and this issue?!) I was at the register when it happened. The woman checking me out said the following words:

“Do you qualify for the 55+ discount?”

I was shocked. Then outraged. Then mortified. And ashamed. In that order. Appalled and dripping with disgust, I looked at her.

“What?! Do I look like I’m 55?!! Oh. My. God. Kill me now.”

(Yes, I actually said “Kill me now.”)

Poor thing tried to backpedal it.

“Oh, I just thought…you eat so healthy…so maybe…”

Which made it worse, because she was inadvertently inferring that I’m actually older looking than 55 but eating so well that it doesn’t show?!

I left the store, kale in hand, attempting not to spin out on this.

I wanted to enjoy the rest of my day, but knowing myself and how my brain works around such things, I knew I had a triage situation in regard to my frail ego.

First, I tried different paths of logic. Oh, she didn’t really take me in before she said that. She probably says that to every one, right? I don’t look my age. Everyone says so. And my real age is not 55, so she obviously didn’t even take me in.

I’d slip into anger occasionally.

How irresponsible of her. They really shouldn’t let those cashiers  offer that discount willy-nilly. They are just asking for it!

By the time I got home, there was a new voice inside making itself known. A voice that said, “Hey, you. What’s so bad about being associated with being 55?”

I mean, truthfully, the level of disgust I felt at the mere suggestion that I could ever be 55!

I began to examine this, go deeply into it. I discovered that being over 65 felt OK. I mean, I know I’m going to be a rocking 65-year-old.

And 70? Look out! I want to be one of those cool Septuagenarians who astounds people with their vitality and continued accomplishments.

But 51-64? I want no part of THAT club. No way.

Where did this come from? This abhorrence of people those ages? I wasn’t born rejecting a whole segment of the population. How did this hidden inner belief system come to be so strong in me?

And better yet, what can I do about it now that I know about it?

I don’t want to feel such a distaste for any of the years I am lucky enough to have ahead. I thought I had embraced ageing when it first started appearing in my mid 40’s…I looked at how I felt about it then and really thought I had decided I was gonna forge a new pathway for generations of women to come by embracing my later ages. By celebrating the changes as they came. By being a vibrant, sexy woman at EVERY age.

I thought I had decided that I was gonna be a one-woman revolution and reject societal, cultural pressure to look young no matter what the cost for as long as possible. To be on TV and in films at my age and not be ashamed or embarrassed because I am not young anymore. To blaze trails. To be a part of a change that embraces beauty at every age instead of the age-shaming we are bombarded with from infancy through all forms of media.

I thought I had chosen this path.

Little did I know that sure, I was great with aging as long as I still looked 38-48. That was cool.

Little did I know that when I looked in the mirror, reviewing the changes I could see, there was this part of my brain that must have decided “Sure, this is acceptable. I can live with THIS.” But that all the while that seeming acceptance actually held a hidden silent caveat: “As long as it doesn’t get worse than THIS.”

How insane it seems now. But that must have been the invisible internal logic.

Oy.

I can’t stay frozen in time. I cannot choose the face I will keep for the remainder of my life in this body.

My face and body WILL continue to change as time progresses. I am like every other human who has ever lived and aged.

But. I can choose all of the things I thought I chose before. I CAN embrace. I CAN blaze a trail. I can be a one-woman revolution.

I can choose to reject what advertisers and media cram into my psyche on a practically moment-by-moment basis. Anti-aging, this, anti-aging that. (“Anti-” opposed to, against!)

I do not have to believe/embrace or live from the beliefs that:

After 40 it is all downhill. Middle age is something to dread and fear. Women become invalid and invisible once they hit menopause. Life is meant for the young. Old people have no relevance. Old people cannot remember things. Old people are “out of it” when it comes to modern technologies or cultural references. Blah, blah, blah.

Bullshit. It is all designed to make me fear getting old and to buy skin creams and such as if my life depends on it.

When I shared my grocery store story with a friend, she said she could relate to my outrage. She said she wasn’t going to age “without a fight.”

But I don’t want feel like there’s anything TO fight, you know?

Or rather, I am gonna fight. But not aging.

I’m gonna fight Ageism.

Look out, world. Here I come! Who is with me?!

To find out more about ageism: www.legacyproject.org

#beautifulateveryage

A Girl’s Best Friend

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ Leave a comment

“And that, I dare say, is that,” she said to no one in particular as she gave the diamond in her newly acquired engagement ring one last look.

Its size and sparkle were inarguable, and it would be absolutely impossible for Bitsy Simons to ignore at tonight’s soiree.

And with that, she went to join her fiancé – a rather dull-witted man who offered social standing and excessive wealth if nothing else – and to finally get payback for Bitsy’s disinviting her from her coming out party the year before.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: sparkle

Easy Go

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 1 Comment

Before I’d even had a serious love affair, there were things I seemed to understand about them anyway.

There were songs about breakups that for whatever reason captured my imagination and moved my emotions. My heart knew what they were about.

One that really resonated with me then, and still today, is a little known song “Tell Me on a Sunday” from the musical “Song and Dance,” with lyrics by Don Black and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The musical is not great, and it’s not a great song musically (sorry, Mr. Webber,) but what the song says is lovely, and it always comes to me when I think about how difficult it is to end something that was once beautiful.

Tell Me on a Sunday

Don’t write a letter when you want to leave

Don’t call me at 3 a.m. from a friend’s apartment

I’d like to choose how I hear the news

Take me to a park that’s covered with trees

Tell me on a Sunday please

Let me down easy

No big song and dance

No long faces, no long looks

No deep conversation

I know the way we should spend that day

Take me to a zoo that’s got chimpanzees

Tell me on a Sunday please

Don’t want to know who’s to blame

It won’t help knowing

Don’t want to fight day and night

Bad enough you’re going

Don’t leave in silence with no word at all

Don’t get drunk and slam the door

That’s no way to end this

I know how I want you to say goodbye

Find a circus ring with a flying trapeze

Tell me on a Sunday please

Don’t want to fight day and night

Bad enough you’re going

Don’t leave in silence with no word at all

Don’t get drunk and slam the door

That’s no way to end this

I know how I want you to say goodbye

Don’t run off in the pouring rain

Don’t call me as they call your plane

Take the hurt out of all the pain

Take me to a park that’s covered with trees

Tell me on a Sunday please

Here’s a nicely acted version by Marti Webb:

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: zoo

A Complete Sentence

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 1 Comment

“Allow me to give you just a snippet of my mind,” she said to no one in particular.

“No,” she said, calmly but with full commitment.

And with that, she felt utterly complete.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: snippet

Highway Robbery

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 5 Comments

Life is a one-way road

Cannot go back, only forwards

So why do I feel stuck in time

At times moving backwards

Or worse yet, stalled

on the side of the road?

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: One-Way

One of my favorite songs from the early 90’s was Tom Cochrane’s “Life is a Highway.” I love the lyric and the music. It always made me feel so full of hope and youthful joy, and still stirs that up in me upon listening today. So when I am feeling a bit stalled, I put it on to wake my hope up!

Life’s like a road that you travel on
When there’s one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind

There’s a world outside every darkened door
Where blues won’t haunt you anymore
Where the brave are free and lovers soar
Come ride with me to the distant shore

We won’t hesitate to break down the garden gate
There’s not much time left today

Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
Well, I want to drive it all night long

Through all these cities and all these towns
It’s in my blood and it’s all around
I love you now like I loved you then
This is the road and these are the hands

From Mozambique to those Memphis nights
The Khyber Pass to Vancouver’s lights
Knock me down and back up again
You’re in my blood, I’m not a lonely man

There’s no load I can’t hold
A road so rough, this I know
I’ll be there when the light comes in
Tell ’em we’re survivors

Life is a highway
Well, I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long
Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, yeah

Life is a highway
Well, I want to ride it all night long, yeah
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long

There was a distance
Between you and I
A misunderstanding once
But now we look it in the eye, ooh yeah

There ain’t no load that I can’t hold
A road so rough this I know
I’ll be there when the light comes in
Tell ’em we’re survivors

Life is a highway
Well, I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
Well, I want to drive it all night long
Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, yeah

Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long
Come on, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, yeah

Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
(Yeah, I want to drive it all night long)
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long
All night long

– Thomas William Cochrane

A Stitch in Time

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When my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2001 and was going in for surgery to have it removed, I immediately knew I wanted to fly down to be with her.

But I was 6 months newly sober, so it was daunting to fly across the country, leaving behind my support system. But more frightening than that was the fear that my mother would die while on the table, or that they would find more cancer than they could treat.

It was a challenging time.

I knew that I would be experiencing many emotions as I navigated her illness and surgery, and I really wanted to deal with them in healthy ways, not fall back into old coping behaviors.

Someone suggested to me that I take up knitting as something to occupy my hands and eat up some of the extra energy (aka anxiety) that I would be experiencing.

Thankfully, I took their advice, bought some knitting supplies and took them down with me. And as I waited for her to come through the surgery, I began to knit.

My mom had been the one to teach me how to knit in the first place, so it felt really right to sit and knit, waiting for those awful hours to hear how the surgery went. Anyone who has gone through it knows how difficult that waiting can be.

I only remembered one stitch, but that was enough. I had no pattern, so I just started knitting a row about the width of a muffler and took it from there.

Thankfully, my mother came through the surgery very well. I moved back into her hospital room, and the knitting came with me. In fact, it would continue to be my sober companion for the rest of her hospital stay and afterwards as she recovered at home, because I ended up staying longer than I had planned.

My mother had her surgery on September 10, 2001. We were both sleeping in her hospital room that next morning, when a friend of hers called my mother and told her to put on the news. We watched together as my adopted home city was terrorized.

In shock, I immediately did two things: I went to a meeting and then I went to donate blood.

Then, I went back to the hospital, where knitting became a lifeline again as my world was rocked from its axis a second time.

I was so desperate to get back to NYC, but could not leave until they allowed flights again. I knitted with fervor through those days following 9-11, as I helped my parents take my mom back home and settled her in.

And then finally, I was able to return home to NYC, and my knitting accompanied me on the plane and through the weeks as our city began to heal.

Eventually, I stopped knitting…though from time to time I will pick it up again when the proverbial sh*t hits the fan or I feel that I need it as a way to stay calm under duress. I guess that is just the nature of my relationship to it. I am grateful it is there for me when I need it.

I still have that piece of knitting from that time when my world was rocked to its core. It is a very, very long muffler-type knitted piece that is a bit misshapen and not at all suited for anything. But it stands as a reminder to me that there is always a way to show up and consciously move through even the hardest of times. That I can survive anything, be of service and even be creative even as my world is falling apart.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: knit

Heart Beat Ditty

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 1 Comment

Lay your hands on my body

Play me like a drum

Let our bodies’ percussive rhythms

Make our hearts begin to thrum

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: percussive

A Family Affair

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 8 Comments

I am taking a wee break today.

Not from life. From post writing.

I have relatives in town and tonight they are gathering at my home, and I have created a meal from scratch. I do not do that often, but I love it! I have been running around all day from the kitchen to the store and back again! Cooking, cleaning. I am so excited to have loved ones in our home. But I am taking a moment before they come to sit and express gratitude for the abundance to do this, and to have a home in the first place.

I would love to be writing about how much I love the underdogs of the world. My tag line is “Fan of the Underdog.” I am an underdog. I believe in us. In our strength and our spirit. We are not the obvious choice, but we are a wonderful one.

Tonight I hold all of you underdogs out there in a special place in my heart. I hope wherever you are, you know that you are important and your life is important.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: underdog

Exhalation

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 4 Comments

How can I release this grip

This clinging on to everything good

As if my life depended on it

It feels so dangerous to release

All that I’m attempting to control

It is exhausting to hold on so tight

But it’s all I’ve ever known

Learned early to clutch and grasp

At what little good was parsed my way

If I loosen my fingers, if I let go my grip

Will I slide into the Void

Disappear into Nothingness

Or will I float into better climes

And find out what Life really feels like

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: clutch

Gratitood

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 2 Comments

I practice gratitude every day, so when Thanksgiving comes around, it is just like brushing my teeth to take time to acknowledge all in my life that I am appreciative of.

You see, I am a member of a tribe of gratitude list makers. I post what I am grateful for (and why) daily.

The “Grat List” that I am a part of was the brainchild of the wonderful fitness expert and life coach Erin Stutland. I joined it in 2011, when I regularly took a live Shrink Session class she was teaching at the time, and it has been a blessing ever since. (More about Erin’s class and how it changed my life here.)

The Grat List is a place to share gratitude, as often as you wish.

Some, like me, post pretty much daily.

Others pop in as they want or need to. “Need to grat!” “Feeling down…time to do a grat list!”

It is so much more than a space for expressing gratitude. There’s no one way to share, but somehow the format has evolved into writing a list of ten gratitudes, ten things to be excited about, and some brags thrown in for good measure.

What’s beautiful is how the list has become a virtual safe space, a place where we share wishes, heartbreak, fears, dreams, successes, prayers and, above all, love and support.

We ask “the list” for good thoughts or prayers, advice and help. We hold each other’s dreams and hold each other up.

I am ever grateful today, and every day, for the Grat List and its magic and power, and all of the souls- past, present and future – who make it the beautiful safe space it is. (Super extra gratitude for Erin, who is about to give birth to a real living child soon!”)

Here’s my list today:

I am so grateful:

To be alive, for my health, for my returning vibrance so that I may do the things that give me joy, for the wisdom of my body because she has healed so many times, for my huge heart because it keeps me loving this life, for my husband, who is so loving and wise, for Miracle, our cat, for her furry love and unconditional love, for the ever-flowing abundance within and without me, in every area of my life, for our warm, live-filled home, for fresh, healthy food and clean water, for the privilege of being able to do what I love for a living, for music, and how it connects me to my soul

I am excited:

To be flexible and of service today, to pick up the Irish family members at the airport, to see my sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, to enjoy a beautiful home, to share a loving afternoon and evening of laughter, to get there and back safe and sound, to make cole slaw late tonight, for Julia and her exciting audition Monday, to help her prepare, to get off book for the web series shoot, to work on the audition sides with joy and ease, for JC going to Hawaii, for Shayna’s song to win the contest!!

I brag that:

I love Life and Life loves me

I am enough just as I am

I am connected through words and this blog to amazing people like you!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: gremlins