Ponytails and Wrinkles

FROM WHERE I SIT             Ponytails & Wrinkles  Sept. 9, 2012   Pat Spilseth

Who are they?  I don’t recognize those faces though supposedly they’re my classmates.  Fifty years...some changes have occurred. 

She’s as cute as ever.  How does she maintain that body?  Liposuction?  And she’s Miss Organization, as always.  Who’s playing Santa with a pony tail?  Where are our Best Mixers? What happened to those social butterflies?  Wow! He’s really beefed up with that new “surfer” body.  California has added glamour and a tan to his Minnesota ufdas.  Now he reminds me of Beach Boys music and Lakeside dances.  And guess who made a grand entrance with his private plane?  I hear that my prom date of yesteryear missed the party.   

No longer is there talk of cruising Main Street checking out the chicks and studs.  I’m sure there was some talk of sleepless nights, replacement of body parts, and constipation woes.  And is Jimmy, the red-headed dentist, baking pies?  Who’d have thought the big game hunter would be in the kitchen rolling out pie crust instead of stuffing pheasants?

From CIA classmates interpreting Russian code to farmers coping with grain prices, business executives checking profits, ministers and teachers working with a new morality, and housewives and moms still promoting the values we grew up with, I know that my classmates’ lives have been filled with adventure as well as contentment.  We left high school at the beginning of the women’s movement and peace protests: now women are prominent in fields of medicine, business, and computers formerly open only by men.  We’ve moved on to other wars. 

Paging through the reunion book filled with photos brought to mind younger versions of myself and friends.  I couldn’t help but notice creases in foreheads, extra flesh on necks, triple chins, and the added pounds we try to hide.  OK, that’s only natural for most of us.  It’s been 50 years since those rock n’ roll high school years filled with pony tails and crew cuts, poodle skirts, and football jerseys. 

We’ve entered a new stage of life, woman-pause and man-pause.  That’s the in-between time of life with overheated motors without hormones.  Just how long are these hot flashes supposed to go on?   Most of us haven’t reached the point of moving into a retirement community, but monthly bills have some of us contemplating that next move into smaller quarters in a warmer climate.  I can’t picture myself in polyester pull-on pants and big T-shirts, not even in a uniform of slimming black, hoping to cover my expanded waistline.

Not me, I aim to stay in Minnesota with its four seasons of changing leaves and snow, the lakes and dear friends.  I’ll continue to wear wild outfits of color with no waists, long gypsy earrings, and strappy sandals...That’s ME.

Getting older hits me when I board the bus to a Twins game downtown or to the State Fair.  If someone gets up and offers me a seat, then I really know I’m old.  Or when I go to yoga at a senior residence and a stranger asks me, “Are you new here?”  I’ll just smile and say, “Nope, I haven’t hit seventy yet...a few more years to go before I move in...”

Perhaps it has been going on for a few years: the breakdown of movable parts.  When I study my face in the mirror I see crinkles above my lips and radiating pleats near my eyes.  Some friends and I will allow ourselves be old women with road-map faces and gray hair.  People will read our faces and know, they too will be going there.

Inside, I’m still thirty.  I see no Botox, face lifts, or black holes ahead, only sunshine and fluffy clouds.  In my dreams I’m still a young woman full of ideas, not discouraged or tired, anxious for the next adventure.  I’m simply in a stage of transition.  651 words