I'm so vain...[I probaly think this post is about me]

The thing about me is...I may be a little vain. Oh, not Carly Simon material, but still, you know I like to look nice. A cute new outfit or kick butt boots, I am completely undone. Fashion trendy things blow my hair back. A great hair cut puts me over-the-moon happy. I'm working on this disorder. Sort of. Not really. Whatever. Anyway I guess I've kind of always been like this. Like when I joined a gym in my early twenties-then ran straight to the Mall and went into debt buying new work out clothes...I know, right! Who does that?

So, what's the problem now? My face. It's aging. I'm a problem-solver by nature, [which clashes severely with my alter ego troublemaker] but I'm not sure what to do. I seem to be in a fight against time, on a downward spiral...and I'm trying to take the steps necessary to turn back time, or at the very least and more likely realistic case, make it stand still...I stay out of the sun. Get plenty of sleep. I am always trying to lose a few pounds (yes I am). I drink gallons of water. Plus, I've taken to slathering my face with age defying products, but this practice is becoming a costly exercise in futility, which seems about as silly as rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Now I know.....drum roll please.....I'm not twenty thirty forty something anymore, but still!  I am aware that the clock is ticking.

I've come to the realization, in between bouts of nostalgia (a trait I suffer happily) and  enjoying a  recurrent romp down memory lane, that I am a crow-footed baby boomer with a interesting past, and while it's amusing to look back I will never again have the buff, polished thighs of Tina Turner (if indeed I ever did) instead of my own chubby, wobbly, pale set of gams. 

Yeah. I'm talking covetous.

 As I shuffle through old photographs (worn and creased from handling) and listen to songs that evoke the summer of 1969, it occurs to me that indeed, I am getting older. Photos of a youthful me. A junior year of high school me. Full of hope and promises. A little breathless at all life has to offer. Surprisingly, the features are the same, and sadly, my hair hasn't changed all that much, not as pouf-ie (it was the sixties) a little longer and just a touch darker. The eye makeup too was heavier, darker, then. But the skin, ah! the skin was smoother. Fuller. Tighter. Taunter. No laugh lines. No creases. No crows feet. And there wasn't anything going on with my neck and chin(s). I've been highly aware of my neck lately. It seems to suddenly have lines and creases that weren't there just a day or two ago. I also have the beginnings of a condition that may require me to wear turtle necks year round. I swear this aging thing happens over night.

 Aging is tough.  No matter which way I tip it, at the end of the day, there's that.  This pains me a just a bit, because I'm an eternal optimist.  As in, keep an eye on me around almost-empty glasses, Ive been known to top them off, just to bring them up to snuff, to half-full, where they belong. Honestly. How do I cope? I aim to

age elegantly, but it seems I'm less Diane Keaton and more Phyllis Diller. Not exactly Methuselah, I mean I'm not quite one birthday candle from a nursing home, but you know. Bring on more finesse. More history and character. More Helen Miran. Better eating habits. Flossing. Exercising....not to mention calcium. This life. Lovely. Unconditional. Joyful. Rewarding. Sometimes hard. Always beautiful.

The succession of days that adds up to a life is only a blink...yeah, I like to throw some heavy stuff in with the fluff, but you think about these things as you get older. Momentarily peeking into the future and seeing a shorter path before you than the winding road that is behind you. It can cause a slippery sense of vertigo. A tipping sideways. Feeling the earth shift just a bit off it's axis. Infusing bittersweet melancholy at every lost opportunity. I ponder this as I walk in the slushy snow, listening to my i-pod. Weaving down sidewalks with unpredictable icy spots. Passing an elderly man with incredibly sad eyes. An impeccably groomed woman weighing all of ninety pounds jogging while talking on a cell phone. I smile at one of my neighbors, who asks me what I'm listening to...Miles Davis, I tell him, feeling myself matching my rhythm to the beat. It's JAZZ, Baby!  I shout, laughing as I pass by. I feel tremendous joy in my chest. And I know everything is exactly the way it should be. This whole life thing? This whole circuitous, meandering journey of ours called living?

It's jazz, Baby.

And you just gotta go with it.

peace.

 Mrs Stein's Chocolate Cake

(go here for recipe)