by Teri Ong
An “endearing” photo taken by my husband at Royal Festival Hall in London.
I experienced a profound moment of self-realization last Friday. Shock of self-realization might be more accurate. The cause? Photographs– recent photographs– photographs taken by a professional photographer who came with her daughter on our London tour last November. Photographs taken barely three months ago. That means– if you haven’t guessed– that they show me as I really am – right now!
I wasn’t the only group member electro-shocked to a higher level of consciousness by the candid and, yes, graphic pictures of old age. My husband realized that he hasn’t had a “good hair day” in over 30 years, and has taken some drastic measures to tame his perpetually wayward cowlicks. What’s worse for me, though, is that he said some of the aforementioned photographs of me “endeared” me to him! That’s as bad as the grampa on the old Haley Mills version of The Parent Trap telling his middle aged daughter that she had “accepted the coming of age with grace and dignity.”
For at least the past two years I have sincerely wondered why the clerks (no spring chickens themselves!) in my favorite stores have regularly asked, “Are you one of our seniors?” I don’t feel like a “senior,” so I assumed that I really don’t look like one either. Bad assumption! Now I know why they ask!
I have tried to keep my outlook on life exactly that– an outlook. The eyes of my awareness gaze OUT of the sockets on my face, and as infrequently as possible do they gaze AT it. That way I can look out on the world with a thirty-something mind and ignore the fact that I have a fifty-something face and body. Ironically, I am teaching a creative writing class this semester and we just finished discussing the relative merits of realism versus fantasy! (I think I prefer fantasy.)
My husband admits that he only uses a mirror so he doesn’t cut himself shaving. Obviously, he hasn’t even used it for combing his hair in years! I only use one so I get the anti-wrinkle cream in the right spots. But looking at the photos (does the camera ever lie?), I am thinking I might as well save my time and money. I think the anti-wrinkle regimen is a lost cause.
A psychiatrist I heard on the Dennis Prager “happiness hour” on the radio offered a compelling view of the way life works. He (I didn’t write his name down because I was driving at the time) postulates that as we go through life, we spiral up a staircase through repeated phases of dependency, mastery, grandiosity, and feeling small in a big world. Interestingly, a man in his 70’s called in and said that he was very despondent over the fact that he felt increasingly small and couldn’t see that he would ever pass back to the mastery phase. The doctor said that he has observed that women have a harder time with the early stages of aging (presumably when the bloom of youth has faded and blown away like the flowers of the field in Psalm 103), and men have a harder time with the later stages of aging (when they no longer have the physical and mental agility for the demands of life in the workplace like in Ecclesiastes 12).
When it comes to looks, I never attained to the “grandiosity” phase, but as I gazed on the unforgiving photos of myself, I realized that I am now beyond feeling small in the world of attractiveness and am into the dependency on lotions and potions, as one of my daughters says.
One of my favorite Christian speakers, Bernadine Cantrell, a stunningly beautiful woman nearing 70, observed, “It’s easy to look like a million, if you’re worth a million!” (Which she does and is.) That means it’s nigh unto impossible for me, seeing how I never looked like a million, and I’m not even worth a hundred! I praise God for the daily grace shown to me by a loving husband who understands that “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus,” stress fractures and all. He married me in the first place because he understood that “charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,” and was willing to marry “a woman who fears the Lord,” who was certainly neither beautiful nor charming. (Prov. 31:30) Like writer George MacDonald, he is able to see in his wife’s face the”beauty of youth (what tiny bit there was of it) shining through the grace of old age.”
So what’s to do? As the Apostle Paul said, I am left to “strive for the masteries…” as lawfully as I can! I’ll pray as MacDonald did in his Diary of an Old Soul (Jan.1),
Lord, what I once had done with youthful might
Had I been from the first true to the truth,
Grant me now old to do with better sight
And humbler heart– if not the brain of youth.
So wilt Thou in Thy gentleness and ruth
Lead back Thy old soul by the path of pain
Round to his best– young eyes and heart and brain.
I include here a short skit I wrote for the creative writing class I am teaching. I also deals with the subject of aging.
The Age of Relativity
by Teri Ong
Scene: In a science lab that looks vaguely like a kitchen. Two middle-aged lady scientists in lab coats are working at a bench (counter). Teri is looking in a microscope.
Teri: (with a start) Did you see that?!
Linda: (nonchalant) See what?
Teri: Something just went by the window super fast!
Linda: Nah– You’ve been looking into a microscope too long! It was probably just a bird flying by that you saw out of the corner of your eye.
Teri: No, I’m not kidding! Come over here! (Cross to a window, motion for Linda to come too) Something weird is going on. See what I mean. It’s like everything out there is going too fast. We’re in here and everything is normal, and then out there everything is just — whooosh!!! Can you believe that?
Linda: I don’t know. It looks pretty normal out there to me.
Teri: Maybe you’re right. Maybe I have been looking in this microscope too long.
Linda: What are you working on, anyway?
Teri: Sub-atomic particles.
Linda: That’s pretty ambitious.
Teri: Oh, I don’t know. I think I’m doing pretty well. Last week I saw a quirk.
Linda: Don’t you mean a quark?
Teri: No, it was definitely a quirk. I discovered that every time I close my left eye, everything in the eye piece goes fuzzy. It’s definitely a quirk. (Linda rolls her eyes and goes back to writing an equation on a pad.) What are you working on?
Linda: I’m working on the problem of relativity.
Teri: Oh, wow! Who’s getting married?
Linda: What!?
Teri: You said you were working on the problem of relativity. Whenever there are new relatives, there are usually problems.
Linda: No, not that kind of relativity. You know, E= mc2. Actually, we’re kind of working on the same thing.
Teri: (whips her head around) There! It just happened again. Everything just sped up out there!
(Coming back to the lab) Oh, sorry. You were saying we were kind of working on the same thing. How’s that?
Linda: You remember, the E is for energy and that is the basis of atomic structure.
Teri: If E is for energy, then m-c-squared must stand for ME times Calories squared. That’s the best way to get energy in my book. (Picks us a sub sandwich wrapped in a paper that says “Sub-Atomic”)
Linda: I don’t think those are the kind of sub-atomic structures Einstein had in mind. (Shakes her head) It really stands for Mass times the Speed of Light squared.
Teri: (nods head thoughtfully) So what is the “problem” of relativity?
Linda: In order to get very far into outer space, we would need to travel very fast. We would need to get as close to the speed of light as possible, but as you get closer to the speed of light, mass increases.
Teri: (looks down at her plump figure, and crosses to the window again) So that’s what’s going on! Everything IS moving faster and faster, and that is why I am getting bigger and bigger. You’re right! It IS a problem. What did you say happens, again?
Linda: The mass of a body increases as it approaches the speed of light.
Teri: (hugging Linda and jumping up and down) You’ve just unlocked the secret of the universe!
Linda: What!?
Teri: Don’t you see? For years, everyone has wondered why it seems like life goes faster and faster the older you get. It doesn’t just SEEM like it’s going by faster– it IS going by faster. And it isn’t really going by faster because we’re getting older; it’s going by faster because we’re getting bigger.
Linda: I think Einstein said it the other way around– a body increases mass the faster it goes.
Teri: Whatever! It doesn’t really matter. Think about it this way– You know how it is when you are young– little that is– time goes by really slowly. It takes forever to get from one week to the next– especially if you are in school or are waiting for your birthday. Am I right?
Linda: Well, yeah– I suppose so.
Teri: Just stay with me now. Then you get a little older and an little bigger, and time starts going by a little quicker. A whole semester goes by and you think, “Wow, that went by pretty fast.”
Linda: (deeper in thought) Yeah– I guess so.
Teri: Then you’re an adult, you get married, you have kids. You get a little bigger in the process. And time starts really moving. Before you know it, your kids are graduating, getting married, and having kids themselves. Whooosh! It starts going by in one big blur.
Linda: (more positively) Yeah! Yeah!
Teri: Then you’re a grandma, and…
Linda: (even more excited) You get a little bigger yet– and time is really speeding by
Teri: Now you’re with me! I knew it wasn’t my imagination. Things ARE going faster out there.
Linda: It must be all those sub-atomic particles we’ve been eating!
Teri: You’re sure to get the Nobel Prize for this! It explains so much!
Linda: (dejected) No– it won’t work. There’s a problem. My mother spends all day sitting in her recliner watching game shows and she says time is going by a lot slower. (Shrugs in disappointment)
Teri: (grabs her arm) But think about it. What happens when we get really old? We shrink, right? We get shorter; we shrivel up; our muscles atrophy. And then, I hate to mention it, but, you know, when, ah, time stops moving altogether, you pretty much shrink back to, well, nothing. (Very excited) It all makes SO much sense.
Linda: (hopeful again) Let’s write it up. We’ll submit it to the American Journal of Geriatric Relativity.
Teri: No problem here! I can wait till next week to work on the problem of fur-on-me’s.
Linda: Don’t you mean “fermions?”
Teri: Who cares about fermions? I want a fur-on-me. With life going by faster and faster, I might get cold without one.
Linda: Let’s get to work!
