Tales of Graceful Aging from the Planet Denial

Chapter 1 If 60 is the new 40 when will I be 30? The sixties are your most creative years I'm with the girlfriends. I am all abuzz with my news. I say, "The sixties are the most creative time in our lives. Women get a second wind in their sixties, they conquer new worlds, make change happen, reinvent themselves, make a contribution." "Uhhuh," says Audrey. "Who told you that?" "It's everywhere," I say. "The sixties are the new forties. You can't pick up a magazine, a Sunday supplement, a book, without being told that this is your time. Now! Don't lie around like a slug. Make it happen." "Well," says Audrey, struggling to get up from the couch, "I guess we better start. As I recall we are all in our midsixties and if we don't get busy, we will have missed the moment and will suddenly find ourselves in our seventies with nothing to show for it." "I have some suggestions," I say shyly. "Well, of course you do. It's too much to expect that in your sixties you would suddenly notice the need for silence and for contemplation, for being by yourself and leaving others alone to think their own thoughts," says Audrey. "Please," I snarl. "I've spent too much time in silent meditation. I say it's time for action." "That silent meditation," asks Audrey, "was that, like, for five minutes sometime in 1976, during the Carter administration?" "Okay. I'm for making waves," says Bitsy. "Let's march for peace, for getting out of Iraq...for an immigration plan that is compassionate, for health insurance, just like the French." "Oh, you mean, protesting for stuff like rescuing our democracy," I say wistfully. "Civil liberties, all that ACLU stuff...Or fighting for education or public television, making the word feminism okay to say out loud again. And the environment and global warming and cars that guzzle gas?" "Yes," says Audrey. "I could get behind any one of those things." "Well forget it," I say. "That's not really the kind of thing I had in mind. Let those in their thirties take up the mantle of the big action, crowds of thousands, marching in the snow. I will chug Baileys and hot chocolate while I watch them on TV. I will criticize their signs, their organization, their choice of celebrities, all from in front of the fire, while I crochet baby clothes for imaginary grandchildren. That was not really what I had in mind when I suggested that we contribute. I was thinking of becoming litigious...in a small way. Or of making a nuisance of ourselves in the cause of helping others by pointing out their shortcomings. Now is the time to go to Trader Joe's and say, 'You have fabulous food on the whole, your prices are fair, but your sushi is dry and unappetizing and your cooked chicken and turkey, both bland disasters.' This is the time to bring a class action suit against the airports where men can get a shoe shine and women can't have a manicure or a little touchup on their roots to save their lives." "Wow," says Audrey. "You sure you can fit that into your tight schedule?" "Yes," I say, ignoring the sarcasm. "I am sixtyseven, I have the time, and I have the energy. I can even interfere in friends' lives inHollander, Nicole is the author of 'Tales of Graceful Aging from the Planet Denial ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780767926539 and ISBN 0767926536.