Commusings: AGING — Grudgingly, Gratefully Gracefully by Schuyler Grant

Dear Commune Community,

“If the young knew and the old could.” Yes, this old trope is biting at my ankles like a pesky no-see-um.

I’m not sure I know or can at this moment. Every time I think I’ve got my thumb on a field of interest, something new arises to confound me. Like when you bring a torch into the evening, it reveals the vast obsidian darkness of the night sky … such is the way with knowledge. The more I know, the more it unveils what I don’t know.

And my back is out again. It’s a shame, as I’m 23 years old again on the tennis court – for about half an hour. Then Father Time flexes his biceps and sends my multifidus into spasm.

But every harvest moon, my mind and body yoke. I know and can. And it’s these fleeting intoxicating moments that propel me forward – reading, listening, doing pull-ups and squats. I suppose the world will get the best of me, in every sense.

I joke with Schuyler, “Like a tart cherry jam, you’re remarkably preserved. You still look like a teenager … from a car park away.”

She claims that she ages 5 years with every 10 yards. A few years back, when Phoebe was a precocious 12 and Schuyler 46, they were strolling down Ventura Blvd. A car full of testosterone approached behind them. From the rear, they looked like 20-year-old sisters. Hearing the catcalls emanating from the muscle car, they turned towards the college boys, who recoiled in horror. These bowls of porridge were too young and too old.

After 36 years of entangling our root systems, I am reminded why I fell in love with Schuyler. And, of course, you never fall on purpose. Her writing is entrancing … and has put me into a long trance. I hope you enjoy Part 1 of her musing today.

Here at [email protected] and waxing alternately poetic and pathetic on IG @jeffkrasno.

In love, include me,
Jeff

P.S. If you are inclined to support my writing, I would be profoundly grateful if you’d pre-order my new book GOOD STRESS: The Health Benefits of Doing Hard Things. Schuyler took an editorial meat tenderizer to it … rendering it both more flavorful and digestible. If you pre-order now, you’ll unlock early access to Chapters 1 and 2 of the book — text and audio. And … receive $900 in Commune course bonuses featuring Schuyler, Dr. Mark Hyman, and Dr. Casey Means, among others.

 • • •

AGING:
Grudgingly. Gratefully. Gracefully.

By Schuyler Grant

I want a rich, multiple, dazzling life. I want abundance, recklessness, sumptuousness, and the heights of passion up to the hilt.

I don’t generally get too bent out of shape about aging. But then… there’s a quote like that one from Anais Nin. And it gets under my skin a bit. Different but similar to the ache I feel when I see a mother nursing a baby. It’s the undeniable loss of a certain time of life. 

Now I hear the umbrage coming from women my age… we can have abundance, et al in our latter decades. And yeah, sure. But the full exuberance for having it ALL to the hilt is just over. Wisdom – and just plain complacency – are too abundant after a certain point to create the conditions for this kind of full-throttle pursuit of dazzle. Or maybe that’s just me?

As my kids cycle out of childhood – the youngest being 14 going on 40 and the oldest being 20 going on 12 – I am turning my attention to how I feel about this next era. I am thinking about my own mother more than I ever have. (And she’s given me a lot to think about.) Generally, I feel exceedingly lucky in my mid-50s. This is not to say that I am not well aware of the myriad things that are deteriorating, physically and mentally. But overall, I’m pretty good at focusing on what is going right instead of what is going south. Yes, I observe more and more women my age looking younger and stranger, but I have decided to forgo the slippery slope of cosmetic intervention. (Though I certainly understand the appeal.) 

I feel pretty ‘average’ as I wrestle this bear. But I’m actually not sure that’s true. So, I decided to conduct a thoroughly unscientific survey of women in the two decades enveloping me, to try to understand where I sit in this business of navigating aging. I asked this cohort of 35 women for the 3 words that immediately come to mind when they think about getting older, as well as what they are afraid of and what they are looking forward to. The responses were at once unsurprising and illuminating. 

Two women who don’t know each other sent me the same 3 words, in the exact same order: Wisdom. Loss. Freedom.

So true. And poignant. Because the older we get, the more we know in our (increasingly brittle) bones that we can’t experience true wisdom – or freedom – without loss. In fact, “wisdom” came back as one of the words nine times. Intermixed with wrinkles, perspective, glasses, hanging flesh, courage, onion skin, vag dryness, humor, arthritis, graceful, grey hair, journey, discovery, a trade-off and inevitable.

But perhaps my favorite triad is from a friend from elementary school: Lonely. Gross. Peaceful. 

When we were 25, could feeling repulsive and isolated ever be a companion to peace? (Did we even seek peace?) And is there anything rawer and truer to the condition of driving around in an aging meat wagon than sometimes feeling lonely and gross?! Bring on the wisdom.

I wrote my own 3 words before I solicited others, and wisdom was – blush – not one of mine. I went for some alliteration: Grudging. Grateful. Graceful. Perhaps not in that order.

GRUDGING?

I love to travel. But I suffer from a peculiar travel-related disorder. When I am away from home somewhere exquisite – on the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica, say, cradled by unspoiled nature and the pleasures of great food and company – I am beset by a low-grade malaise, knowing that the pleasure will all too soon come to an end. I want to cling to the sweetness of the experience so much, I am a little sick with it. And it’s a strange relief when I’ve returned to my humdrum home, because I don’t have to worry about the ending of something so delightful. 

There is a similar feeling to turning the corner into the second half – or if I’m more honest with myself, more like the last third – of life. The clinging to youth (which we all intuitively know is futile) is over and done with. And no, I’m not returning to a home base… but it is somehow a return to a familiar place. One that I saw my mother, and before her my grandmothers, and the whole river of women navigate for decades.

In case you’re calling bullshit on my denial that I’m clinging… perhaps you’re right. I am still on the front side of this aging business. My superficial body has started to betray me plenty. But on the inside, I still feel pretty damn good. Despite the undeniable hormonal shifts, the insomnia, the occasional arthritic feelings in my joints, I’m able to run and climb and bend and bow. My immune system does daily battle with all the junk my kids drag home. I can drink a few too many glasses of wine and feel OK in the morning (despite a bad bout of insomnia at 3:33), so the liver must be chugging along.

But when it comes to the humbling process of witnessing my diminishing collagen and accumulating age spots and wrinkles, I am working hard at being sanguine. 

Here’s my feeling about cosmetic intervention. I get it. Vanity is a hard habit to kick. But cosmetic ‘work’ is a crazy slippery slope. You might fixate on that deep crevasse of worry between the brows. Just a touch of botulism. Cool. No biggie. But then… those furrows around the mouth start to look… well not just annoying… but within your power to control. Or at least for 3 months until the filler starts to dissolve. And then that truly annoying waddle under the chin — when the hell did that appear?! But that one requires a knife. But, then again, the results are more lasting… So, maybe?? You get my drift.

My personal take on aging is rooted in feminism and a disgust with the nightmare of late-stage capitalism. Women are still objectified incalculably more than men, and everything seems to have a price tag, for those that can afford it. 

Railing against the deterioration and treacheries of the body and the relentless and startling blows to our vanity is not unique to women. The obsession with turning back our biological clock is surely as old as the spark of consciousness about our mortality. Cautionary tales about the dangers of seeking everlasting life well predate Dorian Gray. Sometime during the first millennium, Taoist alchemists in China attempting to transmute one material into another in their quest for eternal life, mixed sulfur and saltpeter and accidentally created gunpowder. (I wonder if they noted the irony of creating the first weapon of mass destruction in their search for immortality.)  

But what I chafe against most is the iniquity between the way men and women carry this psychic burden. Even in cultures that have more respect for the elderly and wisdom lineages, there is an undeniable value – one might say fetishization – of the young and fertile female. I simply refuse to comply with any aging dogma that is not enjoyed by men as well. 

All that being said, now might be the best time in recent history to be sweating through our bedsheets.

We are in the process of a major cultural “turning of the wheel” regarding women’s health and agency. The cracking open of the current conversation about menopause is a prime example. The proliferation and elevation of experts, doctors, and everyday women speaking to, learning about, and demanding medical support for a biological issue that is as natural as birth and death is preposterously overdue. It’s hard not to rant about how long overdue this is, but no use crying over spilt blood. Here we are… and it’s a good time to be going through any variety of hormonal changes, because research, awareness and investment are all moving in the right direction. 

My hope is that a culturewide conversation and reckoning with the American obsession with women’s looks will soon follow. The trope of the weathered-but-still-hot man and the ingenue is so well-worn that we comfortably inhabit it. Look up who Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper, or Leonardo DiCaprio are currently dating. And be appalled that you're not surprised. 

The larger issue is not just sexuality – women’s as well as men’s – but a re-visioning of the value we place on our parents and grandparents. As Jeff likes to say, allowing older generations to be elders, not elderly. We are making slow progress in this regard (evidenced by the efflorescence of institutions like Chip Conley’s Elder Academy) but we still have a long way to go before older women are seen as queens, not crones.

I am my ancestors' wildest dreams. It’s the title of a children’s book. But it’s also a good kick in my pants when I sink into an abyss of despair about where we are at culturally and politically.

This essay will continue in next week’s newsletter with Part 2: Graceful and Grateful. Apparently, I have a lot to say on this topic… 

P.S. This Commusings was inspired by our upcoming event, Luminescence, a women’s health and longevity summit that features many of the wise woman doctors who have helped me understand myself better during this time in my life.