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Without that dreaded “biological clock”, without the
menopause, and with few honest mirrors in the culture in
which to reflect themselves, what or who will tell a man that he
is old? That he is no longer 27? That the things that pertain to
that beloved 27-year-old self may now need adaptation or
change? I grew up in a culture suspiciously eager to convince
me that an 80-year-old woman with a 20-year-old man was
at the best comically grotesque, at the worst, some form of
perversity, while Chaplin and his youthful loves, by contrast,
were an example of the “agelessness” of men. But the truth is
— as I think those teenage boys suspected — age exists for us
all. It comes to you whether you believe in it or not. And I am
now very grateful to be in a body that reminds me every day
of this simple human truth. Which is not to say age does not
bring me sadness, that I don’t sometimes mourn for my
27-year-old self, nor miss a certain version of my face, breasts
or legs. I feel all of that natural, human sadness. And I do all
the usual things — exercise, eat decently, dress optimistically
— in the hope of slowing the inevitable. But there are limits to
that hope: like menopause and the end of my fertility. And
thank God for them, because hope without limit is delusion.
And I think on the whole, I’d rather be sad than deluded.There is a beautiful couplet in Apparently Nothin’:
“This little light of mine/I’m gonna let it shine.” It gets repeated
over and over. When I think of the sort of light that is a woman
— when I think of each woman’s particular contours and
colour and way of burning — the idea of trying to make that
light burn persistently at exactly the same wattage
and intensity over decades seems to me a terrifying task to set
oneself, not unlike lighting a candle and expecting no wax to
ever melt. We melt, we melt, and finally we’re extinguished.
But what interesting shadows we throw on the wall,
depending on the hour, and how various are the ways that
wax can melt, how many different forms and shapes it can
take! Some pretty, some not so pretty... oh, it’s not easy,
ageing, but it is consistently interesting. At 10, you couldn’t
imagine 20, nor at 20, 30, nor at 30, 40, and on and on
it goes (I’m guessing. I can’t imagine 50.) I see groups of
women in their sixties on holiday whooping with delight and
I wonder: why are they so happy? I guess I’ll find out.
And I see lone 80-year-olds pushed by their carers down
Broadway, mouths open, looking devastated, and I’m sure
I’ll find out about that, too. It’s all life. It’s all unavoidable.
It’s all better than its opposite. Enjoy it while you can.E“BUT THE TRUTH IS,
AGE EXISTS
FORUSALL.
ITCOMESTOYOU
WHETHER YOU
BELIEVE IN IT
OR NOT. AND
IAMNOW VERY
GRATEFUL TO BE
IN A BODY THAT
REMINDS ME EVERY
DAYOFTHIS
SIMPLE HUMAN
TRUTH”Photography: R. Burman. Styling: Malini Banerji. Makeup: Campbell Ritchie at Art Department.Manicure: Angel Williams at Atelier Management. Production: Ryan Fahey at Alexey Galetskiy Productions. Assisted by: Divya Gursahani, Iva Dixit and Jahaan Singh (styling); Alex Golshani (photography)