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| Ernst Barlach: Old Woman Laughing |
When I used to imagine what it would feel like to be old, back when I had logged in maybe nine years, a girl with flawless skin, I couldn’t imagine myself ever becoming an old woman. That dangling soft crepiness, those twisted fingers and toes, the possible foot long hair growing out of a facial mole (of which I would be unaware due to poor vision,) it would not happen to me. All that softness gone to seed was repellant to my straight, clean, limber nine year old self.
Mother drove the family car oblivious to the forensic scrutiny I was giving her appearance or my conclusions as an investigator of the crimes of time against the human body. Over the years I watched her skin turn to coarse, loose fabric, her jaw line ruffle. I took in her make-up and her earrings, her good hair, but even with all that help, I didn’t know how she could let herself go out in public that way.
I imagined myself getting old like a man, like my grandfather, somehow skipping the vulnerability of the whole breast growing, menstruating, constantly probed business of womanhood and going straight to strong, wise and slender with an unflappable awareness of human folly and little to lose.
I am now a somewhat old woman myself; twice the age of mother when I used to critique her skin. I was not protected by any magic from becoming curvy and I eventually enjoyed the changes so repellant to my nine year old self. But now, approaching 70, I’m back to wishing I were somehow tougher, leaner and altogether less vulnerable. As I head toward wizened I’d like to be wise, not decorated; measured and responsive, not busy, and stripped of clutter. And I keep thinking there must be a way to achieve that state. And I keep thinking I should already have accomplished that.
Being a man would not have helped me. I know that now. Old men really aren’t protected from the need for medical probings. They are not immune to grooming errors caused by poor vision, they’re just in the habit of shaving. Their skin gets so thin that the pressure of fingers can make it bruise. They are not tough. They can still be hurt in their hearts no matter how much detachment of intellect they may court. And it’s no easier for them than for women to be by-passed by power, have their wishes dismissed, or their intentions become humorous to others. They are not protected from pain any more than my mother was or I am.
So what does a stripped down psyche look like anyway? How does one become unflappable? Does it mean you just don’t care if you care? Or does one’s acceptance of human folly need to go so deep that one feels little but a slightly sad or slightly happy benevolence toward other people? Maybe even find the hilarity in the human drama? Is this possible? That's what I saw in my grandfather.
A stripped down body would be lean and strong but not obsessively so. It would be covered with comfortable, easy-moving clothing of little variety.
A stripped down home would maybe have, what?, 15-100 permanent items in it? (Would that include clothing?) And it would be convenient to places of interest, pleasant to occupy, have an extra chair or two for company?
Where do you start in your goal of achieving this? With the body, I guess. But the real battleground for simplicity is in the mind where we are alone, and absolutely accountable, and mostly out-of-control. What are the mental requirements for an elegant inhabitance of our psyche?
To be continued . . .
click here for the Time's Magazine U.S. article on 100 Things
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