Hmmm. This picture of clay goddesses was prompted by Anniegirl’s comment about feeling good about her curves and then seeing some young chippie with a so-called “perfect body” strut by, and immediately reverting to “fat ugly bitch” status. OH?

Now I’m not going to indulge in “feel good” rhetoric about how women throughout history were considered beautiful if they were well-rounded and voluptuous, and therefore carrying around twenty or thirty extra pounds is not only acceptable, but, hey, actually desirable! That’s not so for a variety of reasons, but what IS true is that the LEAST of those reasons is aesthetic. Really. Mostly, at least from my perspective, it’s about health and longevity. The people who live the longest, at least from all the articles I’ve read in Scientific American (DH subscribes to it) and Archaeology Magazine (he subscribes to that, too) and Popular Science (Yup, that, too) are the ones whose diets consist of food in its natural state (plants, grains) and limited meat - and overall, they eat way less than most American folks do.

Now, longevity concerns me more than it does some of you, because I am twenty years, or close to it - older than you. My mother lived to be 86; my father died at 69. For a long time, that made me ascribe to the theory that “only the good die young”. Most of you know that my mother and I got along like oil and water. However, with all of the progress in modern medical science, we can all - good, bad and indifferent - look forward to living to ripe old ages, provided we eat right, exercise and keep our brains properly stimulated. Some of you may recall that my sister, who is more than a decade my senior, and who just recently had a valve replacement in her <gulp> heart, spent a week with me this past fall climbing rocks, riding bikes, and walking the beach in and around Newport, Rhode Island. We plan to do something similar this fall, but on the west coast. (Maybe we can drop in on Anniegirl!)

Anyway, this longer life expectancy stuff creates a whole new dilemma for many of us who figured that by the time we hit 60, we could stop worrying about diets and such, because by then, what difference would it make if we grew fat and spent all of our time in our rocking chairs? Well, BIG REALITY CHECK now that I’ve hit it… I’m not ready for the rocker. I’m still working every day, anticipate that I’ll continue working for at least another four or five years (omigawd!) and am STILL (huh?) concerned with looking fashionable and well “put together”. Who’da believed it?

So this, dear hearts, is 60 with twenty pounds to lose. This is sixty with all the wrinkles, droops, beginning jowls and marks of having lived a long time, experienced some good stuff, some downright awful stuff, and a lot of just one-day-to-the-next living. And my thoughts about it all? I coulda done plenty worse. Oh, hey, Cher and Suzanne Somers and them are doing WAY better, and to be honest? Would I get a little pull back and wrinkle tightening if I could afford it? You betcha. Nothing quite so drastic as they do, mind you, but would I go in for a little nip and tuck? Yup. A little. But I can’t afford it - even though there was a point where I was wondering if I told my PC doctor that I was so distraught over my wrinkles that I was feeling suicidal, would she prescribe the surgery and get the HMO to cover it? Ummm. No. So, I guess I’m faced with the challenge of aging as gracefully as I am able to without any medical (well, cosmetic, I mean) intervention.

Have I ever felt like a fat, ugly bitch? Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And should I have? Should any of us? Oh no, oh no, and oh no. Those who are of the persuasion to worship goddesses and such have some reverence for an image referred to as the “triple goddess”. This triple goddess has three faces - the virgin, the mother and the crone. All are equally beautiful, each in her own way and in her own time. It occurs to me that the virginal image - that of the prepubescent female; tiny-boobed and slim - has become the ideal in today’s society. Instead of the innocence of prepubescence, our society idealizes the “lolita” persona - the child who possesses the sensuality and sexuality of a woman. Why is that? Is pedophilia now not only acceptable, but a desirable quality in our men? Have we really and truly accepted that anorexics like Nicole Richie et al are BEAUTIFUL? If that’s the case, then perhaps some of us find pictures taken of concentration camp survivors after the holocaust sexually attractive? Well, undoubtedly there are always going to be perverts who actually DO get turned on by such horror, but are there enough of them that it’s become the norm?

Give me a freaking break here, people!

If we are uncomfortable with our weight, let’s first determine how much of that is the result of societal pressure and how much is genuine discomfort - how much is unhealthy and keeps us from doing the things we’d like to do. If it stops us from let’s say “full participation” in life, then let’s go about downsizing appropriately, but not in such a state of anguish that we hate ourselves or call ourselves “fat ugly bitches”.

We are, all of us, at different stages of life, but I’ve not run into too many pre-teens on this site, and so I’m guessing that we’re all mostly adult women here. And, if that’s the case, we’re all of us old enough to know that there are many, many ideas out there about what’s beautiful in a woman. In fact, there are so many versions of beauty, it seems awfully hard to believe that we don’t fit the bill for at least ONE of them.

We need to break out of that inferiority mode, stop measuring ourselves against anybody else of any age, shape or size, and begin figuring out what’s unique and *special* (That’s right - I said SPECIAL) about US. I’m realistically never going to pour this mature body of mine into a bikini. Despite those articles you read in popular magazines about women who took up weight-lifting at 60 and developed amazing musculature (anybody can do this - that’s the message) I’m not going to do it. I’ve seen articles about women having babies when they were sixty years old. I’m not going to do THAT, either.

I watched that movie “Waiting to Exhale” recently when I was babysitting for my grandson so that DD & her husband could take some friends out to the casinos in Connecticut for the friend’s birthday. I think that the actresses in that movie are among some of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. I never did - and I’m never going to - look like any of them. Too bad for me. But, I’m not black for starters, and I’m a goshdarned CRONE, here, for finishers! So what? I’ll be the best I can be for ME - not thinking I ought to be able to look like Angela Bassett, right?

I’m planning to look a little better this year. And, more importantly, I want to be more active. DH & I are going to start a walking campaign over the next couple of weeks - as soon as it warms up just a bit and the ice is gone from the sidewalks. I’m figuring to do three times a week…maybe a mile to start and see what happens from there. I’ve got to see how far I can push myself before that bursitis in my hip starts acting up. Losing 20 pounds, and putting less stress on my hip joint will do me some good, as well.

Well, I am off to the (local) grocery store. Did my main shopping yesterday but need Weight Watcher’s ice cream bars and “City” trash bags. Where we live, if you want your trash picked up once a week by the city, you have to buy yellow “City” bags for $1.00 apiece, and you can only buy them locally, which I suppose is logical.

Making my signature chicken stew for supper. I used to put it into pie shells and make nice big mouth-watering chicken pot pies, but now neither DH nor I needs the crust. <sigh>

Enjoy your Sunday, dear ones…

Z