Birthday Cake

Today I'm 53!................ Happy Birthday to ME :)

Food for Thought

Flattery

When I was seventeen I was shopping with my young nephew in the nearby mall. The manager of the sporting goods store struck up a conversation with us which resulted in a job offer for me as a cashier. I was flattered. I gave notice at the expressway rest stop where I was currently cashiering and where, by the way, a fellow employee had just grabbed my derriere. I was moving up. I would receive a higher wage, be closer to home and work in a safer environment. Unfortunately a couple of weeks later as part of my training, I was chased around the back room while proof reading the Sunday sales flier by the same married middle aged manager that had hired me. Luckily I was able to stave him off with a sharp awl, a few harsh words and a very loud "I QUIT".

At age twenty I was married. My husband and I had opened a service station. Always enjoying art and being on a strict budget, I painted all of the signs for the business. I was particularly proud of a large billboard boasting the state inspection seal. An established businessman in the community also admired the sign. He asked if he could hire me to paint signs for his miniature golf farm. I was flattered, and I said that I would be happy to take the job. In less than an hour, hurling an armful of signs, I was running from his barn.

In my forties I was running my own corporate food service. One particularly powerful executive said that I really did a great job. He was impressed. I was flattered when he stopped by my office with a gift of candy he had bought on a recent trip abroad and quite surprised at how quickly this man I identified as fatherly could turn predator.

At each of these times I was angered at being treated in this manner. I dismissed those involved as dirty old men and moved on with life.

In reflection, I see how women can confuse the measure of their worth with the measure of their beauty because at those moments what I was really made to feel was worthless.

Meet Paula

Long before my project began, I can remember Paula exclaiming, "I think wrinkles are great!" I giggled at her spunky outspoken wit. Little did I know that I would have the opportunity to test her resolve by examining her through my lens. I had hoped to get an image of her snarling at aging, but I only found a sense of peace. I saw no fear, no apprehension, no self consciousness. She is truly one with her wrinkles.

In talking to Eleanor before, during and after this shot, I remembered a pivotal wrinklequest moment. At the time I was a 20-something Masters student at the University of Texas, El Paso writing a thesis on women's liberation documentary films, full of vim and vigor and a little political movement energy. Our Bodies Ourselves had just come out and I was engaged with the notion that growing older was mostly about becoming wiser. The secretary in the Journalism Department, Jean, had the most exquisitely lined face I had ever seen, and was stunningly beautiful. Though I don't have a photo of Jean, her face is indelibly etched on my memory. I thought, when I am older "I want to look like her!" This image has replayed itself again and again as I have gotten older. Maybe it's similar to how young girls look at models in Vogue as their ideal body image model.

Wrinkles don't scare me. I see them as earned markers of maturation. Though I don't want to judge others, the concept of having this face un-wrinkled seems such a waste. I do notice the necks of women who have had the tucks, and the age is still evident there. For me it's the more the merrier. In my early 40's when traveling in the Southwest through Navajo and Hopi lands I ran across a lithograph (artist unknown) of an ancient shamanic woman
wrapped in an Indian blanket, wearing a beautiful clay pot on her head
with canyon lands in the background. This has been on my wall/office since then. She is magnificent.

Recently, when I was visiting family in Hawaii, I showed them this picture of Eleanor's of my wrinkly face. I was laughing about it and looking at the contours of the wrinkles as an almost geographical landscape. They weren't laughing and said, " I wouldn't want that done to me." But I am delighted to be a subject of Eleanor's.

And the shoot was such fun! There she is lying on her back, balancing one lamp between her legs, and another behind her, me hanging off an exercise bench "trying" to wrinkle my face. Ironically, my face is pretty much a rubber-face. I make faces and am totally unaware of what face I just made. Eleanor kept trying to capture a "face" she had seen before. I could not do it, much to her chagrin. I would make an awful photographer's model because I can't at-will recreate a "look". Clearly the mind/brain doesn't remember how it created the face. I hope that Eleanor's blog will help us all to feel the inner giggle in the process, that we can all let go of any expectations we might have had about "getting on" in years. There is no rule that says that wearing your battle scars cannot be a really fun and funny ride. I agreed to do this in my own personal pact to take myself LESS seriously. Cheers to the wrinkle brigade!

Paula Michal-Johnson Ph.D.
Moving Body Mind Spirit
Fountain Hill, PA

Meet My Mother

I've always known that my Mother regretted not going to high school. After all, she loved school. She is smart. So smart that despite the twenty eight moves her family made, she was able to test out of sixth grade and skip to seventh. A story that she is proud of and has told me many times. She also told me that she never went to high school because she stayed at home to help my Grandmother.



My Mother was born to dire times, The Great Depression. A time of no frills, no indoor plumbing, oil lamps, sparse heat, hungry bellies, hand me downs and few jobs. Families had to be resourceful and work together to make ends meet. It didn't seem unusual that her place as the oldest was to help take care of her siblings, that she picked tomatoes to earn money to contribute to the house funds, and that she learned to make her own clothing from feed bags. These hardships were generic to the era, or so I thought until recently.



A few months before my Mothers' 88th birthday and out of the blue she shared her truth with me. You see my Mother and a neighbor girl did set out for high school in the fall of 1935. They boarded the train to Haddonfield, a well to do neighborhood where the high school resided. They arrived at the school to find a parade of well dressed students of less modest means. Sadly my Mother and her friend looked upon their own dresses made of feed bags and hand me down shoes with shame and couldn't bring themselves to enter the building where they would surely face the scorn of the other students. To avoid being discovered they cowered in the school yard all day and anxiously waited for the afternoon train home where they regretfully remained.



After hearing my Mothers' truth, I could finally understand why she hated my beloved, worn, artfully patched and embroidered jeans of the seventies, and why it was so important for her to study and pass the GED when she was in her early fifties. I am proud of my Mother, her life and her accomplishments. I just wish she had told me this story in the seventies instead of throwing out those jeans!

Meet Gwyn

Gwyn is an artist, a photographer, and a beauty who really kinda sorta resembles Jamie Lee Curtis. And thankfully, not unlike Jamie Lee she has been willing to share her "naked" truth with us in her WrinkleQuest statement.

Enjoy!

I am turning 50 this year, and I have to admit it bothers me, scares me even. Unlike Estizer, I do see myself changing when I look in the mirror. The skin around my eyes is becoming thin and transparent. My eyebrows are going wildly astray, and I have to shave my mustache. Yes I have one. Then there are my Mother's jowls that seem to appear out of nowhere when I catch an unexpected glimpse of myself. That is just my face. I am blessed with a "nice" figure that I have had to do little to maintain. Still, in recent years I see my body soften, spread, and sag. For most of my life I attracted much attention from men, wanted or not. Now, I can walk through the world almost invisibly, in the looser garb I choose to attire my new body. But it is not these things that bother me so much. In fact I relish paying less, rather than more attention to cosmetics and clothing, to appearance.

It is more a sense that I don't know this older person I am becoming. Who am I, now that I am not sexy, supple, a fruit bearing womb? Now that I cannot coast through life on looks and charm? Who am I, and who can I be, if my identity is not wrapped up in my femaleness? I hear other women my age talking about a loss of identity when their children are grown. Empty nest syndrome some call it. Who knew I would experience much the same feelings without children? Is it so deeply ingrained in our culture that a woman's role is to be a Mother that I could be mourning the loss of children I don't have? Is it all hormonal, psychological, a bit of each?

There is no preparation for this phase of life. The first half is mapped out for us. Get an education, get a job, get married, get a home, have kids. Then what? After all that focus on the external, it is no wonder we come to the second half of life lost and confused, afraid to look inside and see who we really are, what we may have to offer, or more importantly what we need to fulfill us.

I gladly posed for WrinkleQuest, thinking it a brilliant project, but I have struggled for 2 weeks to write this short statement. I realize that I wanted to write something definitive; when in reality I have only questions. The answers to these questions I don't yet know, but I do know that I like what I see in Eleanor's portrayal of me. I see in that wrinkled enhancement of myself, a glimpse of my truth, and I love it. I am ready to go with her and find what it takes to fill that empty nest, or to find what treasures that may already be buried there. Bring it on!

Thank you Eleanor for being my friend, and part of my quest!

Much love,
Gwyn

Meet Estizer

Within 15 minutes of meeting Estizer, I knew that she was suffering from the sudden loss of her mother. And, she knew that I can't imagine what I will ever do without mine.

So it is with Estizer...........

With that in mind, I share my attempt to wrinkle Estizer and her letter to me. Enjoy!




Eleanor,

I was looking in the mirror and it felt kind of surreal because I felt like I was looking at the same face that I looked at when I was 16. Well, I'm 45 next month, so, that's not possible. It made me wonder, am I changing and I'm just not capable of seeing it?? THAT, made me even more curious. Dammit, I want to know what I'm gonna look like. I want it slooowly. I don't want to wake up one day and...BAM...I'm old!!

So I came to you :) Eleanor...make me wrinkle!! And this was the best you could do :( I gotta tell ya, you really let me down. That's okay Eleanor, it's probably not your fault. We can blame it on my Mom.

It's my Mom's fault for two reasons...genetics, and attitude. I never pondered the state of my Mother's beauty, but I do know that she never, ever worried about it. That's where the "attitude" part comes in. My Mother thought she was beautiful until the day she died at age 87. And she was. NOW, what I find interesting is that I see pictures of her, in those last years and I SEE the changes. They now appear drastic to me. Why didn't I see them then? Hmmm, I think I couldn't because of love. What I saw, I saw with my heart.

So do I not see my own aging because I see myself with my "heart"? That is possible. We learn many things from our Mothers. Case and point: I EXPECT to be beautiful when I get old! I'm actually looking forward to it. I see beautiful women in public places with hair that is grey and faces that are worn, yet there is a radiance that comes from them, and I've thought...WOW, I'm gonna look like THAT when I'm old!!

So yes, one of the many things I learned from my Mother was, to love myself. It doesn't mean I'll be wrinkle free...it just means that I'll always be able to see the "beauty" that radiates from them first.

Estizer

To learn more about Estizer check out her journey at http://estizer50.wordpress.com/

Stand By Your Man

I could almost hear Patsy Cline crooning Stand By Your Man, as I watched the morning news, Silva Spitzer, the latest devoted wife stood one step behind her husband, Eliot Spitzer. Her glance shifted from the scripted speech he was reading to his face. Maybe she was searching for a fragment of truth, or perhaps she was just shocked at his chutzpah. He stood pretending to be humble as he expressed his regrets.

One had to wonder if he was sincerely sorrowful for hurting his wife or for getting caught? C'mon! The Emperors Club! Estimates of as high as $80,000 spent on visits with VIP call girls!

How did Mrs. Spitzer muster the strength? We see it over and over as our elected officials are unlawfully unfaithful. Their wives standing bravely behind them. Have they all signed prenups that promise to never kill, maim or defame their men?

Call me weak, but at times like this I can really get behind Lorena Bobbit and that women who drove over her husband once or twice.

Whether one chooses to stand by or stomp on their man, one has to ask why it is expected of women to accept the public humiliation of being lied to and cheated on by their beloved husbands?

For today, I can only hope that the Emperor gets new shoes, prison issue!

Middle Aged Woman Smokes

As I opened my email this morning and began deleting the barrage of urgent junk mail, one caught my eye. It read:

"I thought you might like this one. Funny but, true.

Click the link to view YouTube-Middle Aged Woman"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1TVOXdNkFo

Sitting around in my bath robe with nothing better to do, I clicked and viewed the silly video making light of the pitfalls of middle aged women. :) Heehee. Believing a chuckle is good for the soul I checked out the related links in search of another laugh. Befuddled I found "Hot Middle Aged Woman Smoker" which linked to "Yaiza The Hot Smoker", "Gorgeous Brunette Smoking Cigarette", 2 Mature Women Light Up Cigarettes", Hot Blond Woman Lights Up A Camel Filter", etc.. The list seemed endless.

Not to be left out of the craze, I offer my own still version of a "Hot Middle Aged Woman Smokes".

Smoke this........


Don't call the Vice Squad yet. It's a rolled up Earl Green tea bag held together with old fashioned flour paste.......Whole wheat of course! I am middle aged for goodness sake. Gotta have that fiber!

Woman Steals Youth!

The headline just blew me away, " Botox Bandit walks out without paying" !

A woman walks into a Houston spa, gets her injections to the tune of $2600. She walks out on the premise of getting her Amex Card never to return. Wisely she schemed leaving behind fictitious phone numbers, etc. The wrinkle in her plan was providing her before and after photos as evidence!

View the story at:
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=5986306

What bothers me about the comments following the above ABC13.com story is that they only addressed the subject of crime and the ability to prosecute. Are we missing the desperation in the motive, 'Woman Steals Youth!' ?

Beginnings

You are probably wondering what possessed me to embark on this quest.

At 42 I was healthy, in shape, running my own business and had no qualms grinding the pegs on my 1500cc Valkyrie.

At 52, well the doctor proposed that I take a diuretic last week. I am 40 pounds heavier, work at home in my yoga pants and won't even entertain the thought of getting on a motorcycle.

It doesn't matter that had I not suffered Grave's Disease and the subsequent radiation therapy I wouldn't be such a completely changed woman. That fact remains that I am changed and not for the better.

So I mourned myself. Not unlike many other women my age, I had to reassess, decide what was important to me and make the best of it.

I bought a camera...........................

Happily reunited with my lost love I carried my camera everywhere I went. Caressing it gently I attempted to acquaint myself with every nuance. I clicked the shutter at everything and everyone.

My subjects did not always share my enthusiasm. As they became aware of my presence, they ducked and dodged. Gravity, the heartless wretch, took her toll. Faces began to fall. First a grandmother kerplunked. Then a grandfather slam dunked. I decided to delete. After all, it was the kindest thing to do.

Delete! Delete! As I leaned to delete, I saw reflecting on the screen an image not so easily erased. It was my own fallen face!

Unknowingly, I had begun my quest the winter preceding the fallen face. That winter I had enrolled in a photo journal class.

Naively my expectations were to learn about photography. Ha! The instructor's first assignment was to take one photo of yourself and write (ouch!) a brief sentence or two to sum up who you were.

Maybe at some other point in my life I could have quickly come up with an answer. Perhaps a mother, a wife, a boss............You see the pattern. The answer would have been given in terms of who I was to others.

In the days and weeks that followed, my journal remained blank. My head spun. I was asked to share with a class of strangers who I was. I didn't know!

In the past, I hadn't really focused on my "self". As many women are today, my time was employed by my family, my business and least importantly my home. How I could have allowed the obligatory maintenance of an inanimate object sit in a position of more importance than my "self" is beyond me. In retrospect, my "self" had dissipated rather rapidly in the first few years of marriage. The question was why?????

I made my entry:

After having this revelation, I watched as the other students eagerly shared their photos and stories. My journal remained closed. I had yet to muster the courage to ashamedly admit to the world that "I" wasn't because "I" never believed "I" could!

I had wasted a half century.....................

I began to question everything in an effort to find my "self". So naturally on that sunny day when I saw my reflection, I had questions. I questioned why the image of my fallen face could not be erased. I became aware of my muscles relaxing and my skin falling loose. I became self conscious. I wondered.......Did others notice too?