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About a decade ago,\u00a0not long after she turned 80 and I turned 60, Helen Gurvich and I\u00a0made\u00a0a lunch date, something we enjoyed doing whenever we could get our calendars lined up (hers was often as busy as mine). When she walked into the room that day she looked especially beautiful, just glowing with energy. My immediate reaction was, \u201cGee, you look great!\u201d<\/p>\n
My exclamation was\u00a0followed by what seemed like a very long silence\u00a0as she looked directly at me. \u201cYou know,” she eventually said, in that slyly smart-ass voice only she had.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThere are three ages in life \u2013 youth, middle age, and, \u2018Gee, you look great!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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Increasingly, I find myself on the receiving end of that phrase,\u00a0and, understanding the intent, I take it as a compliment whenever it comes. But with a mental nod to Helen1<\/sup>, who died in 2013, I try not to use it myself.<\/p>\n Evidence of the struggle to find ways to name the gee-you-look-great age is all around us.\u00a0Around the country, some senior centers are \u201crebranding\u201d themselves by dropping the word \u201csenior\u201d and taking names like\u00a0“the 50+ Center,\u201d “The Heritage Center,” and “The Center for Balanced Living.”\u00a0As long ago as\u00a02003, the Hartford Courant<\/em> suggested that names like “Center for Healthy Aging” or “The Wisdom Center” might be more appealing to \u201caging baby boomers.\u201d And the national trade group for senior housing, once known as the Assisted Living Federation of America, is changing its name to \u201cArgentum,\u201d Latin for \u201csilver.\u201d<\/p>\n Here’s\u00a0a far-from-complete list of descriptors from a variety of sources. Let me know if you’ve got any good ones of your own.<\/p>\n “Baba Yaga \u2013 the Arch-Crone, the Goddess of Wisdom and Death, the Bone Mother. Wild and untamable, she is a nature spirit bringing wisdom and death of ego, and through death, rebirth.”2<\/sup><\/p>\n Then, there\u2019s the simple word, \u201cold,\u201d claimed by Carol Miller3<\/sup>\u00a0<\/sup>in an article, \u201cLooking Old Age in the Eye,\u201d published by Real Change<\/em>, Seattle\u2019s weekly street paper. A woman of \u201c80-some years,\u201d Miller wrote: \u201cIn America, I have found being old\u2028 and admitting it a challenge.\u201d In a longer excerpt she says:<\/p>\n This is the face I grew into, the face that I earned, a \u2028face of character and feeling, the face of time \u2014 my\u2028 time. Of course, it is not the face I had at 18. I didn\u2019t much care for my face then. We didn\u2019t seem well acquainted. No matter how I felt, I looked fine. I remember suffering from a splitting headache and finding no change in the bathroom mirror. I realized no one would believe my complaint and decided I would have to go to work. Sometimes I would cry in frustration and my tears, when dry, would leave no trace. I had the classic poker face: Emotionless, unresponsive and unrevealing. I suspect it cloaked an equally under-developed heart. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Now I have the face of felt experience. My face and feelings mesh; I look the way I feel. I am pleased with my looks and wish others were as well. I would like to be accepted wearing this face without having others express remorse or pity or being metaphorically patted on the head. I particularly want to be acknowledged as a person of value and, at the same time, as old.<\/em>4<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I want to earn a face\u00a0that’s clearly as old as I am\u00a0with\u00a0a spirit that can give\u00a0a comeback as lively as Helen’s\u00a0to “Gee, you look great!”<\/p>\n \u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u00ab\u2022\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb\u00bb<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n 1 Helen Gurvich, <\/a>Seattle Times<\/a>, <\/em>4\/21\/13 <\/sup><\/p>\n 2\u00a0Ivan Bilibin, \u201cBaba Yaga,\u201d<\/a> OldRussia.net<\/em><\/sup><\/p>\nPeople of \u2018a certain age\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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“Old”<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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