Aging by the Number
January 30, 1998
Today, Barbara Walters, on
a morning gal-talk show with Carol Channing, talks about their
long friendship.
Carol
gives Barbara a "diamond," her way of saluting special people
in her life. No need to explain the significance, the commemorative
"diamonds" recall 50 years of her being Lorelei and singing "Diamonds
Are a Girl's Best Friend," a song written in 1921, made famous
first by Carol Channing in the show by that name, and later by
Marilyn Monroe in the movie.
While not part of mother's advice to fledgling little girls in
the 30's, the words were not lost on the young women going out
into the world. A huge success then, and popular today as an anachronism
for both the music and the sentiment, it illustrates the line
"you've come a long way, baby." Today, if a girl "stands straight
at Tiffany's," she's probably conducting a Meeting of the Board.
With buying power and hefty pension plans, hinting for baubles
and baguettes is not the style of M.B.A.'s, Ph.D.'s and other
young professionals with an "eye on the gold," so to speak --
and they'll get it themselves, thank you very much.
The other women at this televised coffee klatch agreed and then
suggest it might be better to discuss "a girl's worst enemy."
One offers: "The Glass Ceiling." I ponder that. Another says:
"Linda Tripp." I laugh with them and reflect upon the ramifications
of having such a friend -- or such an enemy.
Then Barbara, quietly thinking until now, says: "Age."
I not only ponder that, I pounce on it.
"Right
on, Barbara," I say out loud. Carol, over eighty now, huskily
applauds her friend's perfect answer to "what is a girl's worst
enemy?"
This is also my enemy; the others are not. I've never had to crash
through a glass ceiling, nor have I known a Linda Tripp -- whose
name instantly becomes part of our vernacular, like Benedict Arnold.
But I know aging, and it's user-unfriendly.
The mirror is part of this enemy's arsenal. Studying my image,
I think of Dorian Gray -- only I wear the portrait, not the devil's
gorgeous persona as Dorian did. My "sins" are plainly written
on the face I wear.
For 30 years, every puff of every cigarette pursed my lips into
perpetual grooves, made all the more visible as lipstick travels
these deep tributaries to my nostrils. (Men grow mustaches.) Aging
Hollywood stars chat on Infomercials and reveal they smear Chapstick™
on first -- the paraffin keeping the lipstick in line. I'm afraid
I'll smell of camphor if I do that -- of course, I can't really
tell because my nose doesn't work -- (see reference above, "every
puff of every...").
My smile is held in place with deep parentheses. My cheeks, brushed
to a rosy glow, blush to admit they've never worn sunscreen. "Oh,
it's a sin what you do to yourself," scolds the family, slathered
in SPF 30, wearing glasses banning the rays and caps advising
"Just Do It."
Stress is reputedly a wrinkle provoker -- as in, "the furrowed
brow" of worry; and a slower downer, as in "the weight of the
world on her stooped shoulders." I've determined to wear a "stress
screen." If I'm watching a pot that won't boil, I lean over and
breathe in the slowly- developing steam to cleanse my pores and
clear the lungs I abused (but somehow managed to keep functioning).
If I'm in front of a horn-beeping driver enraged by my sightseeing,
I just stop short in front of him and laugh as I wave him by.
Even that laugh shows up in my mirrored image. People who aren't
Irish call the lines around their eyes "crow's feet;" the Irish
call them laughter lines. My daughter Kerry, so Irish she is named
for County Kerry, once stared at me and said, "Mom, I don't care
what we are, nothing is that funny." And, no, it isn't funny but
laughing at what I call "God's Dirty Trick," is the best way to
view it.
I don't know the average age of Americans, but I'm at the median
age: there are just as many older as younger. Because fewer people
are being born and more are living longer, I've been straddling
the median for a long time.
I can function comfortably in both spheres. The senior discounts
delight me and I laugh at Rug Rats on Nickelodeon. I enjoy ambling
on moving sidewalks at airports but I run up a down escalator
if I'm in too much of a hurry to find one going up. I pump gas
into my ragtop Mustang, peddle my own bike, and -- I was about
to say "mow my own lawn," but I better not carry it too far.
Too often we hear someone say: "I still feel 17 on the inside;"
or, "Who's that old lady in my mirror?" -- all part of the dirty
trick syndrome.
During the first 15 years of television, age was an important
number on a job description. News Anchors regularly disappeared
from the screen or showed up with suddenly boot-blacked hair.
Slowly, attitudes changed; or, matured. I like believing talent
and not anti-discrimination laws keep our newscasters at their
desks.
We live with slogans: "Bald is Beautiful" did more for bald men
than generations of hair restorers; "Black is Beautiful" raised
the confidence and self-esteem of an entire race. Poet Robert
Burns prayed for the power "to see ourselves as others see us."
When I see Barbara Walters at 70, working and signing contracts,
I say:
"I'll
do that!"
And then, as Mike Wallace, closing in on 80, hosts still another
weekly show, I say:
"I'll
do that. I'll keep on working and I'll take on more."
Along with the mirror, this enemy Barbara mentions has the ravages
of time in its arsenal. But let me be among the tireless foot
soldiers who say:
"I
have yet begun to fight."
|
