The Art of Ageing

‘The beautiful young are works of nature, the beautiful old are works of art’

I came across these beautiful words in an article in The Irish Times the other day with the title: ‘In a Word…Blessings’. Now stay with me before you barf, as I won’t spew saccharine ‘#blessings’ all over you. Let’s momentarily go back to the original meaning of the word ‘blessings’ within our deeply rich and cultural history of proverbs and its inherent words of wisdom and well-wishing.

Proverbs were the ‘blessings’ people bestowed upon each other for health, wealth and happiness. Maybe they were ahead of the curve with the oral passing of Proverbs passed down via the generations that we now eyeball in a second on Pinterest with the speed of a fruit slot machine. One thing I noted in my father-in-laws’ books recounting these proverbs was a deep respect for age ‘may your troubles be few and as far apart as your grandmother’s teeth’ or ‘may I see you grey and combing your children’s hair’.

As I thought about the first blessing above, I knew it was familiar and coined by Eleanor Roosevelt who eloquently said, “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”

A palette knife sprang into my mind as I saw a person’s life and their experiences etched, traced and danced across their face as a constantly evolving work of art. The worn path of expressions and lines formed and furrowed from years of laughter, tears, hurt, joy, pain and loss.

These lines within current culture are seen as a failure, if you have ‘Quelle Horreur’ a ‘lived in face’. Is there any other way to be in your face or skin other than to live in it? Trying to keep your face like a ‘show-house’ will never allow it to feel, or be like ‘home’.

Psycho-dermatology is something I‘ve always been interested in, I often find clients who also subsequently suffer from skin conditions happen to drop into conversation that a particular person had really ‘gotten under their skin.’

I’ve been joking since March that I am literally cracking up, as my Achilles heel, which are my actual heels, are cracking up! It feels cruel that my favourite shoes are all backless. At least our soles have been given a well-deserved rest as I’ve been either in slippers or runners for 6 months now. Anyway, I digress as I bare my sorry soles.

The anti-ageing narrative leaves no crinkle room for the expression of our beautiful emotions. The on-going allergic and intolerant reaction to ageing, under the machine of the super-peer (all media) assaults us daily, to change, by hook or by needle crook with a clear message of how we ‘should’ look in and out of our clothes.

The art and beauty of age need time to develop.

But here’s a quick reality check on our cultural narrative. We expect women to work like they don’t have children and mother like you don’t work. No matter what you have experienced, your face is to remain in an odd, gormless neutral state for fear of creating any expression of who you are and yet men are seen as attractive, and charming as they age and line. As per usual, we are seeing a double standard to the same ageing process.

A skin specialist reminded me not to forget that male and female skin is completely different in tone, texture and that huge whopper of a factor - the influence of your hormones. This made me sit back a bit as I let that fact sink in, I really hadn’t put the two together until that point. Of course, men’s bodies do not have to contend with the hormonal changes and fluctuations of contracting; the inflation and deflation that are a result of living in a woman’s body.

Double-standard narratives of beauty

By a simple fact of nature, it’s another reason as to why it is biologically impossible to contend with the ‘beauty fallacy’ of non-ageing as we deal with yet another gender divide that makes us unequal. Obviously, there is no finger-pointing here as we are dealing with gender difference facts but as we grapple with the culturally acceptable notion of the distinguished male silver fox against the stark difference of the concept of an older or ageing woman as less relevant to her younger female counterparts based purely upon collagen levels we are faced with being held uncomfortably to the unattainable notion of line-less-ness to be deemed relevant, kind and/or worthy. As we are pitted against time itself.

Whilst chatting with a somewhat cold dermatologist years ago about my sad feet I asked on the way out what could be done about my furrow-y no.11 lines. Deadpan she looked at me and said ‘frown less.’ I don’t know why, but it felt like an affront and an assertion on my personality. The importance of facial flexibility in expressing a dearth of emotions is exceptionally important. Otherwise, we’ll all end up resembling scary Stepford wives.

It is a dangerous message though, as women have been told that anger is unappealing.

It also disregards biology and genetics; my mother has them as well and she is warm and sunny hearted. These emotional mufflers steal the expressive permission slip right out of female hands unless it is age-palatable. Many men also have these lines but the word you might hear encapsulating them is a model portrayal of the brooding, intelligent, sexy man.

I’m encouraged by recent use of older female models and not just token ones, who have lines and an expressive unapologetic story to tell. We have all been bemused at the peculiar model poses on this well-known online shop with many funny re-enactments on the ‘gram. But kudos for the visibility of real, beautiful, normal and aspirational women.

An intriguing class in my undergrad looked at the psychology of folklore exploring the oral stories, proverbs and customs unique to cultural groups. Translated into Irish as ‘bealoideas’ (literary oral instruction) in 1927 the concept of stories and proverbs were an intricate part of who and how we were. Inside of them lay the boundaries, the rules and the mores of the day.

We jumped straight into fairytales and let’s just say none of these stories ever ended with ‘and they lived happily ever after’ again for me. In your mind’s eye now, do a quick childhood scan over the female heroes and villains in fairytales.

There is one consistent theme – the ‘what is beautiful, is good’ narrative spans the pages with youth portrayed as innocence, big eyes, small hip to waist ratio and a sweetness, regardless of how the young heroine was brutalised, often by other women (always older), who are devastated at the blooming beauty.

The archetypal female villain is portrayed as old - the hag, the witch with her long nose, with warts and cackling voice. Nowhere on these pages, or in our lives, are women’s lives held up and examined under the beauty mirror with anything except flaw finding, and the biggest societal flaw it is filtered through, is the ageing process.

The blessing of age, of wisdom, of boundaries, of self-value, comes with each passing year. I say we welcome it in with an openness strong enough knock over these outdated ideas of beauty.

Beauty does lie within, but we don’t have to be perfect to be worth it.

The beautiful old are works of art, it’s time to let this art be seen by all.

Alison Keating, September 2020.

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