SEX OVER SEVENTY

How do people deal with sex after 70? 

I’d like to hear from you.

How do you separate the mythology from the reality? 

We know the myth about “dirty old men” — “it’s the last thing to go” —(snicker, snicker.) I suspect men delight in this fantasy. Somehow they got the message early on that its “manly” to brag about the old pecker. And when that ends, KATIE BAR THE DOOR! Life is over. Worse than turning in your Xerox pass or keys to the corporate restroom.

 On Netflix, two women — Frankie and Grace — both near 80, take lovers, invent dildos and talk to each other and friends openly and often about “serving themselves comfortably.” Then they wave around their invention that looks like a gigantic purple pickle.  

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this invention of theirs is so groundbreaking. But there they are. The script has them selling hundreds of these things to women in the “bloom of their years” with the promise that old age will be a million times improved with a little grind, a little yabba-dabba-do!  I don’t know a woman on this planet who has ever said “Gosh, my problems will be over if I just had a new vibrator in a perky color.” 

My life will be better when somebody invents a cure for flatulence!

My women friends and I used to talk about sex. One morning at coffee, one of my besties said “I’m exhausted. He nailed me at 3 a.m.!” Now she’s 72. She has chronic insomnia and listens to her radio until 3 am. Paul falls asleep in front of the t.v. at 8:30. They had sex once in 1998. 

I’ve been married to the same man for over fifty years! We have always “enjoyed each others’ bodies.” Once upon a time, when we traveled, we made room for the “fun stuff.” We are on a week’s vacation. One entire travel bag is full of pills, three pairs of glasses each (sun, computer, reading), and thirty pairs of shoes  — hoping to stave off back aches and bunion pain. We are still attracted physically to one another. Knee squeezes, pats on the bum, and spontaneous back rubs take the place of the frantic groping we once excelled at. 

Intimacy now is being the “plus one” at all doctor’s visits — asking questions and taking notes. Or discussing the day’s events while on the toilet, or checking his body for ticks! He helps me into my bras now instead of pushing them aside. I know when he calls “will you take a look at this?”, it inevitably will involve blood in one orifice or another.

Sometimes I think about yabba-dabba-do. When the opportunity arrives , he’s asleep, I have indigestion, he’s really tired, I need to walk the dogs, he’s chasing deer out of the garden, I need to “finish this one page.”

Maurice Chevalier: “Ah yes, I remember it well!” 

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(PS...I'M STRAYING FURTHER AWAY FROM MY ORIGINAL INTENT: TO WRITE ABOUT ART. I'M HOPING YOU STICK WITH ME ANYWAY...WE'RE TALKING MORE ABOUT 'ARTFUL AGING." I'M CONSIDERING RE-NAMING MY BLOG. WHAT DO YOU THINK?)

  

OUTSIDERS

My daughter dances to the beat of a different drummer...her husband is the drummer.

Lisa is over six feet tall. I met her in 1984. She was Bill’s date. They arrived to the party in a coach with footmen. They exuded the stench of royalty.

Lisa wore a white pantsuit, one that said “I require my wearer to be super tall, super thin and above all, super confident.” Lisa was all that.  Silver earrings. No other jewelry. Chin length, straight hair, naturally blond. Scandinavian to the core.

Lisa and I became friends. She earned money doing a little photo modeling, but she was actually a talented artist. I talked to Lisa about her height. My granddaughter, a teen, had passed 5’10” with no stopping in sight and instead of being happy that she was tall, she was blitzed. 

Lisa said “I hated myself during those years. You’ve got to remember that kids - teen agers - never want to stand out. More than anything, they want to “fit in.” In every single class picture, I was always in the back row — the tallest kid in class. How can you fit in when you’re a head taller than all your classmates?”

My daughter’s 35th high school reunion was Saturday. When we talk about her high school years, pain oozes from those memories. I listen to her stories — events that are news to me. Sometimes we laugh. Often we are silent. She was physically and socially awkward and she liked art and experimental music — not exactly popular currency for teens. Now they have more value. She needed a “Special Needs” class — one for kids who are super-sensitive to injustice, and morbidly affected by loneliness. 

I took piano lessons 3rd, 4th, 5th grades and played off and on my entire life. I played with a high school jazz band for about two weeks but when we had our chance to perform “Night Train” on a radio station, my career hopes were dashed. I lost my place and played six bars behind everybody else — live and on air — until the music conductor pushed me off the piano bench and tried to salvage the train wreck. It was too late. I was banished.

Now, more than fifty years later, I’m taking jazz piano lessons. A wonderful trio of generous professional musician friends invited me to sit in with them at a party last night. History — like lightning — can strike twice. I muddled through one song but then I must have had a mini-stroke or something! The notes made no sense, the piano keys were all in the wrong spots, my hands turned into baseball bats, something happened to my ears. It all came rushing back and I was right back in 11th grade with Mrs. McWhiney  pushing me off that bench and every other musician giving me the stink eye.

My friends last night did NOT give me the stink eye. They did give me a glass of wine and assured me that it didn’t matter (a big fat lie!) Later I played some solo stuff and revived my bruised ego a little. 

I was one of the popular kids throughout school years. Classes were easy. I made friends everywhere. But scars happen to the best of us. At my age, we can’t remember where we were yesterday but ask us about embarrassing experiences from our teen years! Here they come! 

When do we outgrow that stuff?

COLLECTING: THE DARK SIDE

I am surrounded by beautiful objects collected over a lifetime. I combine texture, color and shape in a way that enhances individual pieces and lends an aura of taste and interest to the complete environment.

When I die, the first stop for these treasures? An estate sale. Nobody in my family wants an entire houseful of “things”— they have houses full already.  Increasingly, museums have no use for even good art unless it comes partnered with a sizable donation to store and care for extraneous objects. 

So for a few bucks, you can own my “eye.” But out of context, my valued objects will lose their punch. Against your cabbage rose wallpaper, my pottery will look like crap and my paintings are far too specific for somebody else’s traditional living room.

After the household sale, the dregs and leftovers will be loaded onto a truck and sent off to Goodwill…or Habitat for Humanity… or some church somewhere. All good. I want to help the less privileged even after I’m dead and what better way to cheer up a refugee family than with a 4’ x 6’ painting of smears of gray and black paint! Or a big beautiful ceramic pot tenuously balanced on its 2 inch foot, so fragile that the slightest breath will send it crashing into oblivion?

After tripping over that donated painting for the millionth time, a Habitat supervisor will say “Enough! Send this to…the dumpster, the trash heap.” Nobody will utter the slightest objection because like all things in this world, orphaned art eventually becomes just more disposable clutter.

The bitter truth is that only a tiny fraction of artful objects will find long lasting value…just as high school phenom basketball players will mostly fail to reach the NBA…and odds are that the super talented singer in your choir will NOT become the next Aretha Franklin.  

You doubt me? Then you haven’t gone to estate sales lately. Or visited nursing homes. Or been called to help dispose of abandoned artwork left in a storage facility.

I was bereft after one such incident. My friend Nancy wrote: “You’ve come face to face with the dark side of collecting. And as with everything else, it’s as if a mirror is being held up asking ‘what about you?’”

Yikes! Has my life — my entire career — been misspent? Is collecting merely a nicer word for hoarding? Does the old adage “one man’s treasure is another man’s trash” apply to EVERYTHING, even art? 

Well, yes, but along with all the warts, collecting brings along unexpected positives. 

1) Collecting anything automatically opens doors into history.

2) Chasing down and finding that perfect thing gives structure to free time. 
3) Collecting introduces the collector to people with similar interests. 

4) The search leads to unique vacation locals and out-of-the-way shops, galleries, museums and studios. 

5) Collecting nearly always results in wider hands-on experience and in depth information about the physical characteristics of objects — the method and materials used in manufacturing. 

6) Makers imbue their work always with their individual tales; it’s impossible to own such personal information without broadening your own curiosity about and tolerance for fellow humans. 

And there it is — ultimately, collecting is a case for belonging — community. When we collect objects, we collect the stories too. We weave the thread of our being into the continuing thread of makers and the history of the things they make.  It doesn’t matter what happens to these objects after we’re gone. If they find another home, good! If not, they haven’t been made — nor owned, nor loved — in vain.  They served for awhile. The makers and their objects — the collectors who bought them —continued the evolutionary experience we share. That’s the best any of us can hope for.

LOFTS

Typical loft - 1990, 2000, 2010

Everything about Beth is way cool.

She looks sexy standing still, fully dressed in jeans with a tucked in white t-shirt. She has a way of gathering up her shoulder length dark curly hair and twisting it at the back of her head to stay off her face and neck that says “now I’m ready.” Without trying, she defines “sultry.” 

Beth is artistic. She makes things that are also way cool — so cool in fact, that they get sold at Barney’s in New York City, maybe the only cool department store left in the world. It’s where the glamour people go to pick up a $500 pair of jeans.  I bought a plate there once. I don’t know why. It didn’t match anything. When I got it home, I wondered where the cool went.

Beth lives in an urban loft with polished cement floors and exposed brick walls. Windows are the size of billboards. Exposed pipes and ducts form veins on the high ceiling. Several columns interrupt the more than two thousand square feet of coolness. Placed throughout the space is the required collection of furniture — modular couch, long harvest dining table with mid-century chairs, a few shabby chic antiques, and of course, great art work. The kitchen is an afterthought and the bathrooms are clinically austere. Even these “negatives” turn out to be cool when you think about it in the context of the space.

People my age connect industrial lofts with a life-style we read about and lusted for during our prime years — the 1980s and 90s. That environment triggers for us images of style and culture, chic-everything! We want to return to those years when we could wear those clothes, go to those parties, be on everybody’s “A list”(even if none of those things existed for us in real life.) We want to not worry about schedules for hip replacements and cataract surgery. We’re sick of chasing down the lawn care man. Don’t get us started about Spectrum!

Beth is moving. Her loft is available. Dreams can come true! 

But just one sec. This dream comes without garage. No extra storage space - anywhere. Water pipes and drains come down from the two floors above through the bare ceiling announcing the neighbor’s baths and toilet habits. Those huge windows? No view of spectacular city rooftops or a nighttime light show. The view is one of paved parking lots and adjacent building windows — when the shades are open. Most of the day, they are closed to keep out heat and bleaching sun. Electrical outlets are few and lighting that works requires a miracle worker. Ikea can only do so much!

The bitter truth: the ideal loft has become a cliche. They come from an era that has passed. They may be perfect for the first-timers and single professional but we have aged out of LOFTS. 

So the question: what is the perfect environment for those of us who no longer want nor need a single 3-4 bedroom house? It isn’t that we can’t deal with the lawn guy and Spectrum — we just don’t want to! Yet, we aren’t ready to turn over our lives to a management company. 

We want a unique and creative living environment but one with full benefits.  

Typical loft, version #2
(Friends, never fear. I am NOT ready to move. So far, the universal ranch style house that Chip and I built 6 years ago still works for us.)

THIS IS THE LIMIT!

I'm taking jazz piano lessons.

Twenty-five years ago, my two best friends and I quit smoking. We didn’t smoke to look cool or to follow the crowd or smoke with our spouses (our spouses were non-smokers.) We didn’t care that smoking was bad for us. We ignored Surgeon General’s Reports and public shaming. 

We had a few rules: I never smoked in the bedroom I shared with my husband. Another of us never smoked in the car. But one of us couldn’t get out of bed in the morning before having her first hit.

We smoked because we were addicts. We loved the smell. We loved the release — that pulling into our lungs the smoke and  — ahhhh, the release, blowing away all our tension, all our pent up rage. We liked the rituals. Talk on the phone, light up a cigarette. Begin painting — light up. THINK about something to paint (or write) — light up a Kent. Smoking unlocked the idea gates and lowered the self-enacted prohibitions. It was our best friend.

But we quit. It was hard. We got hypnotized. We went to “Cessation Clinics.” We got chewing gum and arm patches. We sucked on straws and hard candy. We invented reward and challenge games. We tapered off; we quit Cold Turkey. We finally made it across the finish line. We became reformed smokers.

A year later, we made a pledge. “When we get really REALLY old…so old that we have one foot in the grave anyway…we will take a carton of cigarettes into the woods and smoke until we pass out. We’ll do this when we get REALLY REALLY OLD…75!!!” 

Now what? I’m 75 and I don’t feel REALLY REALLY OLD. I don’t believe I have one foot in the grave. And I don’t want to smoke — at all!  

It’s hard escaping all the “when we get really old” stuff. In January, I convinced my husband that we really needed a brand new car — one with current safety features. We are not as agile as we once were. Our reaction time isn’t as sharp. We are the consumers for flashing lights and warning sounds that alert drivers about crossing lanes, and on-coming anything. 

And while we were talking “cars,” maybe it was time to become a single-car couple. Our schedules are self-made and therefore, adjustable. We don’t have jobs. We could live easily with one car. 

So we took the logical steps. We now have one vehicle with all the safety gadgets in the world. I hate the new car; the safety gadgets drive me insane. As I calmly drive down the street, the car begins tooting and flashing and I wonder “what the hell is going on and how can I save myself?” It’s taken me months to figure out that those warning screams are merely because I’ve crossed some insignificant line in the road.

And the one car life? I know I am spoiled. I get that most of the world is starving while I kvetch about having one car. Set that aside for a minute and examine the process that led to the decision. It was made on the basis of age. We’re “supposed” to lead quiet lives — we’re old. We’re “supposed” to have limited social engagements, limited volunteer obligations, limited …everything!  

Enough already! I accept some limits but not all. Give me a break. I’m only 75!

The new color - "Salvage" - dining room wall...just because

MAG FINGER LAKES EXHIBIT, 2019

John Elliott, Ithaca, American Elm

Here’s a math problem.

I moved to Rochester in 1969. The Memorial Art Gallery Finger Lakes Exhibition is held every other year. Assuming that I have seen every single Finger Lakes Exhibit, how many shows have I viewed? 

Did you get 25? You are more or less correct. Actually, the Finger Lakes has not always been a biannual. For a long time, it was held EVERY year. Then somebody had the bright idea to segregate “fine art” from “craft art” and tried to alternate the two from year to year. That didn’t work out so well.

Once or twice, the show was cancelled altogether for reasons I can’t recall and some of us gave it up for dead. But we were wrong and here it is again — crafts and non-crafts together in wedded bliss thanks in large part to this year’s judge. 

And therein tells the tale.  Any juried art exhibit is the direct subjective opinion of the juror — one person or sometimes a small group of people. If that person happens to know a lot about ceramics, sometimes there will be fewer ceramic pieces because he/she is a sterner critic. If that person loves, loves, loves all animals…well, I don’t know…they should walk down the road to the County Fair I guess.

You are all smart readers. You get the point! Art is personal. End of story — almost. Let’s assume that you are an electrical engineer. You’ve never taken a class in aesthetics — design or art. But you do see the beauty in circuitry. Does this qualify you to judge a major competitive art exhibition? Or you’re a security guard for Walmart. Same question. 

See where I’m going with this? The answer is “maybe.” Your opinion is actually important and you probably have great innate instincts. But this year’s actual juror was Marilyn Zapf, assistant director of the Center for Crafts in Asheville,North Carolina. She’s spent her adult life studying design. So she got the job of picking pieces for this show — approximately 75 from the 800 submissions.

Hard job, huh? So as you walk around the show, what you “get” is Marilyn Zapf. She likes near-obsessive repetition. She loves pieces made from many, many identical - or almost identical -  parts. She adores graphs - precisely drawn, cut, or folded. She also likes black and white photography of urban scenes and I can’t begin to explain that except maybe it’s the graphic nature of derelict streets and rusting signage that she likes. 

And you see what’s just happened? I begin explaining Marilyn Zapf based on what I suspect could be true. Dear readers, I’ve just cracked the case for you concerning “art criticism.” Any judged show reflects the eye of the beholder.  Like the old Tom Paxton song lyric: “I picked up a pickle and said ‘I don’t know much about art but I know what I like.’” 

Well, there it is. I did vote for my favorite piece in the show and I’ll share that with you. It’s John Elliott’s huge chunk of American Elm, doing a ballet on one smallish branch. This piece has guts! Presence! Tells me an entire story! Makes me want to know its story! Brings tears to my eyes! I love this piece. (Did I recommend you read “The Overstory”? I am steeped in tree lore this summer. There are worse things to be.) 

Let me know your pick.

OF IRISES AND FAIRIES

Siberian irises are blooming. Quick! Go see! There they are! Have you ever seen anything as beautiful as they are at this exact minute? They will last only a day or two. But until they wither, the structure, the color — they are the very definition of “perfect.” 

I look for words to explain this miracle but nothing comes. Then I remember a Bible reference about lilies: ‘Not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as one of these.” And I know that I am not alone — that other writers struggled just as I am flailing around now, prodding my brain to find an adequate descriptive language of love and awe. 

Summer is just beginning. You don’t need to remind me that the extravagant burlesque of peonies, cone flowers, daisies, roses and sun flowers is right around the corner. Wait for your particular moment of zen. Mine is right now. 

You and I may not be around for the next cycle of these miracles. We all know that there are no guarantees. How do we cope with this reality? 

Before I reach the very bottom of despair, I remember. Slow down. Listen. Smell. Look more. LOOK MORE!

Chinese elm trees grow throughout the woods in the ravine behind my house. They release seeds this time of year.  Actually, the seed itself is tiny, cushioned in the middle of a diaphanous membrane almost like a round punched out, dried onion skin. The engineering of these little floaters allows them to skim across the slightest wind current, spreading the seeds — and trees — into new possibly fertile homes. 

As I walked Abbey and Lucy around our property today, I happened to glance into the woods. There’s a slight clearing in the middle of the trees — a space where sunlight coming down nearly reaches the ground unobstructed. Today, the air was full of elm tree seeds, free floating like dust motes. The sunlight caught each one. They glittered!  At first, I thought I was seeing lighting bugs — impossible in the middle of the day. The vision was so unusual — so magical! — that my internal computer scanned but had no reference. The closest I could come — tiny fairies! 

A numinous experience: “surpassing understanding” — “filled with a sense of supernatural presence.” 

As I review my picture library of past years, I notice that I photograph the Siberian irises every spring. I’ll undoubtedly photograph them again next spring if I am able. I’ll try to keep my eyes open for floating fairies.