Aging is inevitable. Despite the false promises of cosmetic surgery, there is no escaping it. Time will have its way with us. The only escape is Death. Who’s luckier, the ones who live long enough to age, or the ones who died young?
Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is showing portraits of Supermodels from the 1970s and 1980s taken in 2009. Timothy writes: “I have always been interested in how we deal with aging in our hopelessly youth oriented society. These beautiful and amazing women, now in their fifties, were once the reigning queens of American beauty, and the ultimate icons of world-wide marketing.” The exhibit is at the Steven Kasher Gallery in NYC from January 28 to February 27.
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My first job after graduating from college was as a social worker in a nursing home. I was 20 years old and I spent 8 hours of my day with people 4 times my age. I sat with them and talked with them about their lives. They showed me photos of themselves when they were young and told me their stories. I met a former CIA agent (she was senile, so I couldn’t get any stories from her), veterans of World War 2, farmers, housewives, journalists. Their generation saw the most change in the history of humankind. Born in the early 20th century, they were alive through the two World Wars, and witnessed the accelerated pace of technological innovation that was characteristic of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Spending a year working in a nursing home taught me to see the person, not the age. Often I enjoyed the company of old people more than people my age who worked at the nursing home. It was the stories! I’m a sucker for good stories.
At that moment I decided I would make it my mission to live an exciting story. Someday I will be old, and when that happens, I want to have amazing stories to tell.
Here’s a video Jay sent me of an old lady who reminisces about her past, amid flashbacks of footage of her in 70s porn. The old woman is Georgina Spelvin, star of 70s classic The Devil in Miss Jones. Soundtrack: Massive Attack’s, “Paradise Circus”.
