She is tall and thin and very blond, hair falling well below her shoulders. As she moves, the occasional wisp catches on her cheek and she seems girlish, though I doubt she realizes it.
Her makeup is not excessive – enough to brighten her face; lips offering a slick of soft red.
I wonder if she was a model once, watching her as she crosses the room and seems to glide.
She sits nearby and I steal a closer look. I put her at 50, maybe 55. I see a little silver mixed in with the blonde, and I think about recent discussions over whether or not to give up and gray.
She is well-heeled and well-maintained. Ready-to-rock-n-roll at midlife.
We begin to chat – one of those encounters where you find yourself in a confined space with a stranger, stuck – and happy for any distraction.
She’s chic. Very chic. Next to her I feel like the scruffy step-sister. I’ve slept little the past few nights and it shows. Besides, I’m small, round, and these days, a bit disheveled.
“Your hair is beautiful,” I say.
She raises her eyebrows and turns in my direction. I wonder how she sees me, if she sees me, as I concentrate on her.
“My grandchildren tell me I should let it gray and cut it shorter. You know. Old lady hair. They say I don’t look like a granny. And I say that’s too bad.”
I can’t help grinning.
“You have grandchildren?” I ask, quickly doing the math and realizing that I, too, am old enough for grandchildren. Hell, plenty of women 10 years younger have grandchildren. They started their families early, and I started late.
Then she mentions that her daughter is 45. That knocks my estimate of her age right off the table, and you could’ve knocked me over with a feather.
“You’re doing something right,” I say.
“I’ve been through my share,” she responds with a sort of calm that I can’t help but admire.
I contemplate the importance of maintenance. She looks like she has bucks I’ll never have. Then again, does it really take that much?
I’m increasingly feeling my invisibility, not to mention more frequent age rage. I’m glad I took three minutes to line my eyes and put on some gloss, and that dab of Chanel between my breasts.
Next thing I know we’re talking about divorce and raising children alone. No details, only the fact of it.
“Been there,” she says. “It isn’t easy.”
She mentions cancer in passing, as though that, too, has been battled and beaten.
Then we move on to sex. Oh, nothing juicy. Again, only the fact of it – what some refer to as “old lady sex.” But in this conversation we’re discussing the reality of female sexuality over 50, the desire for sex, and assumptions that we’re past all that – disinterested, or discarded.
The former is certainly untrue for many of us. The latter? Discarded? Sex with a new partner is a tougher sell if you’re a single woman over 50, though that scenario is less likely if you look like her.
Then again, I wonder how many women and men no longer have a shot at a sex life, even if they’re married.
I close my eyes and imagine my future. Aches and pains? Sure. I have them already, some days in abundance. But if I have my way I’ll be the one in funky glasses, a mischievous smile, and ample cleavage.
Now we’re talking about physicians who don’t ask about sexual health when dealing with a woman of a certain age. We have to raise the subject – in order to request tests that ought to be routine, in order to ask questions about our changing bodies, and – too often – those very questions are received with surprise or discomfort or dismissal.
In some instances, with ignorance.
“This is why I only go to women doctors now,” she says.
She leans back in her chair and I squirm a little in mine. I look more closely at her skin – observing its softness, its fine lines, the deeper furrows in her forehead, beneath the fringe of bangs she has pushed aside.
There is a touch of age in her neck, as there is in mine. Nothing dramatic – yet. But it’s coming.
There are no signs of cosmetic surgery, but there are traces of a life well lived with all its ups and downs – and an attitude of more to come.
She tells me she is retired after 30-some years at one employer and is now looking for work again – with the elderly. She wants to do something useful with her time.
She wants to contribute.
I like her vantage point, her advantage point – her wisdom, her apparent ease with herself, her insistence on femininity, her strength which is undeniable, her style which she has no intention of relinquishing whatever her daughter or grandchildren may think, or the whatever the “world” may think.
I wonder what her mornings are like in the quiet, facing the mirror. Her expression discloses little.
I prefer to imagine her out and about, defying the unwritten rules that persist – aging women, fading women, women falling through the cracks. Because this woman is a babe. And I suspect, a whole more.
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Some women just exude class and style. Doesn’t matter how old they are. This woman is definitely someone we should all aspire to be like. There is no manual that tells us how to be like that, though. It comes from deep within. Love your writing D.A.!
What a wonderful chance meeting! It just goes to show that as we age we get more comfortable complimenting a perfect stranger and feeling confident that they will appreciate it.
Love that you emphasize her advantage as an older woman. Great conversation to have about owning who we are and our age…and flaunting it! Thanks for sharing this story.
What a wonderful role model. I want to meet her – hell, I want to BE her! I just saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Judy Dench’s line about experiencing life “not just to survive, but to thrive” struck a chord. I’m sure that very sentiment is what makes her so attractive (that and good genes) and why I also want to be HER. Oh to be so comfortable with who you are!
Since I let my hair go natural, I often compliment a woman with fantastic gray hair. Power to the sisterhood, I guess. I know it makes my day to receive a compliment and it’s a good pay-it-forward strategy. Look what happened with your random act of kindness!
I don’t know why, but this makes me want to go to Paris and eat brie.
Everything makes me want to go to Paris and eat brie. 🙂
This woman sounds like she had both – inner beauty and outer beauty. I enjoy the random chance encounter with someone, when you find an ease in conversation and it helps to pass the time.
I don’t like it when I sit next to someone who makes me feel short and round. But, the truth is – I am short and a little round. I try not to compare. I can’t make myself taller. Winter usually helps me shed a few pounds, but I think I will always carry a couple more pounds than I like.
I saw a woman like that in the airport yesterday. She was flying from Denver to Santa Barbara, just as we were. I didn’t talk to her but was fascinated by her style. Tall, slim, very casually dressed in jeans and a soft t-shirt and slip on canvas shoes. Beautiful long hair, streaky blonde and worn in a loose side braid. Simple silver and turquoise jewelry, no wedding ring. She had lines and there was no mistaking her for a young woman, but she just looked so casually, un-thought-out chic. That’s how I want to be.
You cute little back-linker you.
I think so many women are much more beautiful than they realize. We measure ourselves against the other women by our aging necks or bumpy thighs and we miss the beauty that they see in us.
I can’t believe how often I’ve seen a woman get up from the birthing bed (seeing as I’m a labor nurse) and they look so amazing, but they don’t think so. I see it because I see the beauty of what they’ve done, they given life to another human being.
I also want to be this woman, a woman who isn’t defined by her age or her creeping invisibility in a culture that worships youth and considers women after a certain age unworthy of sex and sexuality. In that we all can fight the machine. And maybe the machine is us.
😉
I, like others, loved this writing. I am lucky because I have good genes. And my whole attitude has changed since a major cancer treatment. I am thrilled to be here, thrilled that I can do what I want when I want, and enjoy. People have said to me lately that I seem to have an air about me, one of happiness shown with a constant smile….I believe this woman is that and more. Hooray to those who dispel the “old lady” myths that so many still believe. My message: You go, girls!!
Lovely to have you here, Ruth. And it’s all in the perspective of appreciation, isn’t it? (That said, I’m feeling very appreciative myself at the moment, but I still want some of my former strength back! So I can be one of those “you go, girls!”)
Loved this post. I talked to an 84 year old woman at local shoe store. She is at the age where she dresses for comfort and ease. She is frustrated with dwindling hearing but pleased she can still read. She was buying walking shoes because she revels in walking our neighborhood.
There was no way in which our clothes, posture, priorities, and tired smiles differed.
There’s either something very right or very wrong with my unwittingly mirroring a lovely woman 44 years my senior.
It all sounds pretty “just right” to me, Naptime.
I like this post a lot, because you never know who you will meet by chance and what you can learn from them!
I don’t know why, but just the thought of a woman flying from Denver to Santa Barbara is sexy.