Aging Gracefully

"... life is about losing 

and about doing it as gracefully as possible ...

and enjoying everything in between."

-- Mia Farrow

Rose 8-24-14

"I wish the time hadn't gone so fast, though.

And sometimes I wish I'd enjoyed it more on the way,

and worried about it less."

-- Neil Gaiman

I've never been accused of being graceful.

At anything.

So when it comes to aging, I'm not sure if I'm going about it gracefully or not.

I guess I'm sort of tripping through it.

Stumbling clumsily, gracelessly, inelegantly.

Oh, well.

This shit is new to me, so give me some slack.

I'm trying.

It's like when a little kid rides a 2-wheeler for the first time.

It ain't pretty, but at least she's doing it.

Good Reading Glasses

"The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision

and strengthens our most fatal tendency --

the belief that the here and now is all there is."

-- Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind

Reading Glasses and  a really good book 5-6-14

"I have two pairs of reading glasses.

One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction.

I've read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it's the same."

-- Steven Wright

I'm at that age where I have to hold anything I want to read at arm's length and squint real hard at it. 

Labels at the grocery store. The program at a show. Wine lists and menus. A baseball schedule. 

When it's still a blur, I've begun doing this thing where I'll ask my husband or one of my kids to "tell me what this says." Or, I'll just give up. So what if the jam is full of poison chemicals and corn syrup? Toss it in the cart! Who needs menus and wine lists? I can just order one of the specials that the waiter described and ask him to to bring me a glass of whatever he recommends to go with it. And that program? Who needs it? It's just a bunch of ads. Pay attention to the show, dammit!

Yes, I wear glasses, which do a Cracker Jack job of focusing my vision most of the time. But my regular glasses are no longer up to the task of reading and other close-up work. My optometrist has gently thrown around the b-word --bifocals -- but I balk at the thought. I feel like it's a slippery slope.

I'm afraid that once I go bifocal I'll start wearing beige sneakers and sun visors and sweatshirts with embroidered applique, and worrying how long I can talk on a long distance phone call, and doing crosswords on the toilet, and soaking my teeth in a jar at night, and calling people "Sonny," and tucking tissues up my sleeve, and no longer plucking my chin whiskers, and drinking Ensure, and liking Fox News, and repeating myself, and tucking tissues up my sleeve.

I'm just not ready to go there yet.

So in addition to my regular glasses, I have my "cheaters" -- inexpensive plastic magnifiers from the drug store that pump up the print size so I can see what I'm reading, and keep the b-word at bay. 

So far, they do a good enough job.  I don't need a huge magnification number yet. And even though I've had to switch up a couple of times, there are still lots and lots of stronger ones for me to try before I run out of possibilities. Best of all, they are not bifocals, so I can still cling to the illusion that I am not rapidly schussing down the slippery slope. 

Sonny, that's a good thing.

Soft Focus

Rita:

"I'd like to make her look a little more attractive.

How far can you pull back?"

Cameraman:

"How do you feel about Cleveland?"

-- Dorothy Michaels' screen test, Tootsie

Self portrait 4-16-14

I bought my new camera in part because of rave reviews about its crystal clear, laser sharp, high-resolution image quality.

Crystal clear, laser sharp image quality is a beautiful thing in a camera, especially when you're shooting, say, the stamens and pistils of flowers, or a bird on a faraway branch, or the delicate, flaky texture of a pastry. So far I've been very satisfied.

And then yesterday I turned New Camera's lens on myself to shoot my first self portraits with it. It had to happen sooner or later. Self portraits are my bread and butter. They're what I do most. I am my most often photographed subject by far -- and not in a duck-lipped, outstretched arm, "selfie"-crazed way -- but in a genuine, self-portraiture-as-genre way.

So I took a deep breath, set up the tripod, found New Camera's 10-second shutter delay, and went for it.

Yep. As advertised, the images were crystal clear.

Yep. As advertised, the details were laser sharp.

Yep. I was horrified.

I could see every pore. Every whisker. Every bump, lump, acne scar, flake of dry skin, errant eyelash, eyebrow, nose hair, sun spot, red patch, broken blood vessel, eye goober ... as advertised, in every brilliantly focused, crystal clear, laser sharp, pixel-packed, high resolution shot.

Holy fuckballs, Batman.

Situationally speaking, stellar image quality isn't always a desirable thing. Not when you're 46 and wearing no makeup and haven't exfoliated in, well ... ever, and wear all the sun damage from every long, un-sunscreened childhood summer at the lake and the accumulation of the ravages of life -- every hard blow, every sleepless night -- right there front and center.

Thankfully, New Camera understands. And tucked away in New Camera's "creative filters" features is a sweet little blessing called "soft focus." With the touch of a button, New Camera took the harsh edges off the images, gentling them ever so kindly, making them just a little easier to take.

Which led me to ask the question, is soft focus dishonest? Is soft focus cheating? Is soft focus a lie?

I've thought about it a lot and have decided that it isn't. I've decided that soft focus is simply a creative choice sitting there alongside the other creative choices like fish eye, and grainy black and white, and watercolor effect, and vivid color.

I won't always shoot my self portraits in soft focus. There'll be times when I want to show all the sharp, horrifying details. That's also a creative choice. But for the first time out, New Camera was kind enough to handle me gently. To ease me in.

So for today, soft focus isn't cheating. Soft focus is a good and useful thing.

I'm OK with my age, mostly. Sometimes I hate it. Just like I'm OK with/hate lots of other things about myself -- my hair, my boobs, my habits, my behaviors, my compulsions, my mistakes, the weird little bump on my chin that I'm pretty sure contains the teeth and spine of my unborn twin.

But love 'em or hate 'em, all added up they're what makes me me.

Each of them is part of who I am, but, thankfully, none of them is all of who I am.