I asked one of our daughters, age thirty-five, how she feels about aging. “I don’t have time to consider it,” she answered, then paused. “I panic sometimes – about my biological clock.”
I asked a friend, age forty-nine, how she feels about aging. She replied, “When I used to forget things, it was funny. I was just ‘ditsy.’ My family, my friends and I, we all took it in stride. Now it’s scary. I ask myself with every slip, “Is this normal or am I experiencing a permanent change?”
I asked my husband, age seventy-two, how he feels about aging “I don’t feel about it,” he answered, smiling. “I’m in total denial.”
I asked a friend, age eighty-four, how she feels about aging. At the time, she was glancing at the first drawing in Fine Lines, in which I am standing in the bathroom in my underwear. Silence followed, then a sigh… followed by laughter. “I used to be able to hook my bra in back. Now I bring it round the front, and lose it in my folds!”
I have asked myself how I feel about aging. I mean, What am I supposed to do, now that I find myself bare and all that I was has disappeared? Fine Lines is what splashed out, spilling down and around my perceptions of “old.”
“Reading Fine Lines is like reading a poem about life written by a courageous poet.” – Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Peace, Love, and Healing and Prescriptions for Living.