OLD PEOPLE SMELL
A gigantic nose guards the entrance to the Monell Chemical Research
Center on Market Street in Philadelphia. Researchers there examined
sweat-stained pads from the armpits of a cross-section of ages, and
were able to tell by smelling them which had belonged to the old.
"It confirms what we all know but were hesitant to say: old people smell."
Writing in the May 8, 2014 "London Review of Books," Jenny Diski
thinks this may be one way to tell people are old because now it's a
little hard to say who's old and who isn't. Diski is reviewing a "Out of Time: The Pleasures and Perils of Aging," a memoir by Lynne Segal (Verso, 2013) which is a "personally informed discussion of the politics and sociology of her own aging and that of her generation (she was born in 1944) and the attitudes people now have towards it."
"The idea of being invisible," says Joan Bakewell in a review of the Segal book for the "Independent," "comes as a shock to a generation who as feisty young women had liberated their bodies and celebrated their open sexuality. Now they looked in the mirror and say their mothers' faces reflected back at them."
At 80, I certainly do see my mother's face looking back at me and our culture has taught me to feel shame and disgust at this. I know
I am old and often call myself an "old lady." People tend to deflect this
by offering infuriating words like, "you are as old as you feel," or
"80 is the new 70," or something equally awful. I know I'm invisible and sometimes the old ego rails at this. I know time is getting short. I wish I could make more of it; make it count more. If there is a war between generations -- and Segal says there is -- I haven't felt it because maybe I'm too busy thinking about being old.
I know I am lucky and say a prayer of thanks every morning when I put my feet on the ground. I have enough money to live on without working. I have family nearby and a community of people who love and support
each other. I walk downtown. I still can drive.
Writing in the "Guardian," Bronwen Clune, almost 39, talks of herself
as "edging toward a worthlessness that society has constructed around my age." Good heavens! Poor girl! But, as Diski points out, people are going to be cross with you for declaring agedness too soon as too late. Not easy, as she says, to"define the right moment." This may be where Monell comes in.
