The Art of Old Ladies
Despite how I must look to strangers, I do not feel old. The essential Jane is still here, the Janie that woke up early in the summers to ride her bike to Indiana and back, the school girl often lost in daydreams, the one always with a plan that turned into disaster before ending up as innovation. Yet, today, with wrinkles and gray hair I appear (if anyone indeed notices at all) past all definitions of prime, competent, vital. Someone in need of Geritol—remember those commercials? Again, I’m dating myself. For most of us we walk from the car to the front door of the supermarket, down the food aisles, back out to the parking lot and no one knows that beneath our clothes, hidden under the flesh is a rock star. Lately, I’ve become fascinated by YouTube videos (sorry, not on Tik Tok, hahaha, too old!), featuring vocalists from the 80s—such as Natalie Merchant. Of 10,000 Maniacs fame, Wonder, These Are the Days. She’s old, has long gray, more salt than pepper hair, wrinkles like me, no ...