REFLECTION
The Fabulous Fifties
Vintage Beauty Can Still Turn Heads
By Wickham Boyle
The fifties have become a treasured era. Everything from extravagantly finned cars to early rock and kitschy appliances are in vogue. Come to think of it, everything about the fifties is cool, except being from that decade yourself.
Now almost 55, I started to write this column as a whiny diatribe about the incredible effort it takes to be over 50. Devoting oneself to the endless minutiae and real work associated with middle-age strikes me as a Herculean task. I should meditate, do aerobics, Pilates, and lift weights. I need to combat my creeping inflexibility, my spreading chubbiness, and (if I watch the commercials correctly) my crumbling bones. Then there are the ubiquitous nutritional advisors telling me to eat more healthfully. This means that I can’t gulp food while typing, talking, or folding laundry. I observe that the slimmer folks actually eat with a calming relish, rather than a canine craving to consume. I shouldn’t grab a sandwich because we all know that bread is the devil; now I have to fix a yummy salad or a vegetable stew. All this chewing is eating up my day.
I also have to remember to take vitamins and calcium — remember the crumbling bones. I have never done this before. A big healthy girl, I always felt that I took in more than my share of nutrients. Now when I walk past the medicine cabinet, it too upbraids me with something I haven’t done.
I have to meet deadlines and develop new work sources simultaneously, all to pay college tuition, my son’s tennis coach, and a portion of my 90-year-old father’s new assisted living. I would like to practice my cello, a newfound love. Instead, it taunts me with its voluptuous shape and silent strings. I want to play it for the pleasure, but also because I know that decoding difficult information will help to keep my brain from atrophying even further.
In that same vein I try to practice my languages, and I’d like to learn chess. I take the occasional stab at scribbling in my journal, and sign up for a pottery class. Sometimes I do these things because I love them; other times it is with a sense of obligation. Often I would prefer to volunteer, visit friends, send e-mails, and talk about girl stuff.
I have deadlines and meetings and when I return home the cats scurry up to me joyfully and I see they need brushing. They don’t seem to care, but I feel that my husband’s allergies would be well served, and the kitties wouldn’t have hairballs. I am even resentful of my teeth, which need brushing twice a day. That is a lot of attention to things that mostly get me in trouble by eating too much anyway. And what about older skin? I now know that middle-aged women need to exfoliate regularly.
Apparently our skin doesn’t slough off every few days as it did back in the vigorous years. So now I have this product that sits in my bathroom, saying, “USE ME”.
Mundane chores require attention: Yesterday I attended to the dry cleaning, laundry, and hand wash. Today I’ll vacuum, clean the toilets, and replace any flowers that might make home life a little more fabulous. Sometimes I am even mad at the decomposing posies, which tell me to empty, wash, and reconsider spending on ephemeral niceties.
Sometimes I do find the time to vegetate on the couch cradled by fuzzy cats, wrapped in a blanket that probably needs to be hand washed, and just read a novel. Even then I wonder if my reading time wouldn’t be better spent on spiritual texts, or guides to healthy eating, or any other reading material that makes you feel righteous.
As I wind up my whine about all that it takes to maintain my middle-aged life, I have a vision: I see the Via Nacionale in Havana, Cuba, on a Saturday night.
I see a parade of American cars from the 1950s in various stages of glorious renovation and dilapidation — just like many of us fifties babies. I remember riding in gypsy cabs on hot Havana nights, and I recall the conversations I had with the drivers, who also happened to be the car’s mechanics and virtual lovers. None of them bemoaned the upkeep of their vintage beauties. To the contrary, it was just something they did. They oiled the leather, made creative choices about the replacement of parts, and took care to clean, polish, and cherish their charges. No longer could they run these cars at full throttle past the roaring sea of the Malecon. But that didn’t stop these vintage babies from turning heads with class and vintage panache.
And in a flash, I saw me — my vintage self who needs exfoliating and dental whitening, hair color, workouts, and attention to nutrition. I know that I can’t move the way I used to, or ride the wildest ponies. But I am still a keeper. I am not interested in real bodywork to nip here, tuck there, and erase my rusty spots. Still, I can give myself regular tune-ups at the gym and a better diet that is lighter on sugar and alcohol.
I try to do the necessary renovations with joy rather than rancour, remembering as I catch the occasional glimpse of my own extravagant curves in a shop window that I truly am a product of the fabulous fifties. And while I have learned to boogie and cut back on the kitchy accessories, I remain, heart and soul, a vintage woman. Proud and well made.
Wickham Boyle is a writer who lives in TriBeCa with her wonderful husband and occasionally her two farflung kids. She writes for National Geographic Traveler, MS, Downtown Express, New York Magazine, and others. Currently she is finishing her book, Menopause Mambo.
