“I always said I’d leave off when the time came.” - Greta Garbo as Grusinskaya the ballerina in Grand Hotel
1) I think I’ve handled aging with perhaps a whisper more equanamity than most. It’s inevitable, right? The only other option is Death! A small group of us will hand around Joe Gillis’s line from Sunset Boulevard of possible headlines about Norma Desmond: “Aging actress, yesterday’s glamor queen.” Always with humor. So far! ;-)
1a) But this morning . . . oh this morning, the first sight of my face in the bathroom mirror. “Those cruel lines!” as Cedric said to Lady Montdore in Nancy Mitford’s novel Love in a Cold Climate. Not all of them; some are like dents and bumps you find in an old, loved piece of silver, “character marks.” What I was seeing for the first time, it seemed, was two pairs of lines from the inside corners of my eyes down to the top of each nostril. Where on earth did they come from?! They’re like the double lines on the highway. IN THE CENTER OF MY FACE!
1b) Writing this later in the day, they appear to have smoothed out a bit, but still. I’ve always scoffed at the idea of ahem elective surgery, but something must be done.
2) Later in the morning, suddenly the fatal guidance of Lord Henry in The Picture of Dorian Gray flashed through my mind: “To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.” How many of us might be thinking of solutions like this during the Time of Coronavirus when we are forbidden in-person contact?
3) One of my aunts was a very devout Christian, and I remember years ago telling her I had read The Picture of Dorian Gray. She almost visibly stiffened in front of me and told me she thought it was the most evil book in the world when she read it. I’ve never forgotten her reaction.