Susan Bono, our guest judge for the Summer/Fall Writing It Real contest, chose the following essay as our second place winner. She writes of the essay: “I felt like the writer touched all the bases as she ran home. I was very satisfied with its shape and scope. This writer takes the simple act of looking at her reflection in the window as an opportunity to examine her beliefs about what growing older should look like. Her witty, self-deprecating observations reveal her self-awareness, an essential element in personal narrative. The humor of descriptions, such as white hair ‘so bright it attracts moths,’ is beautifully balanced with moments of poignancy. I laugh every time I read the way she refers to a portrait of her younger self, ‘It’s never changed. Never. That girl is still young.’ But I also choke up.”

Making Peace
By Drew Wilson

Every morning I sit in my kitchen drinking a cup of coffee while staring absently out the window at the neighborhood across the arroyo.  In twenty years the view has never changed – same houses, same red tile roofs, same trees.   This morning it’s so dark I can’t see anything except my reflection in the window pane.   Now there’s something that’s changed, I think.  That woman.  I wave at her.  She waves back.  I smile.  She smiles.  I say, “Hey, you’re lookin’ good this morning,” but I detect a hint of insincerity in my tone.  She repeats the compliment, just as insincerely.

When was it I started avoiding my reflection?  Was it after I let my hair grow out to its natural color?  I hadn’t expected it to be so white.  I mean – bright white.  So bright it attracts moths.  It still startles me.  And lately I’ve begun to notice other not-so-flattering changes.  Like the fine lines on my cheeks.  When did they start to look like track marks made by half a dozen baby chickens?

But this morning as I look at my reflection and I find myself thinking of Dorian Gray – Dorian Gray and the aging portrait stored in his attic.  Oh that I had such a portrait, I think.  Instead I have an 8” x 10” glossy hanging on a wall in my office.  It was taken by an old boyfriend when I was young and had long dark hair, thick eyelashes, and a mouth that naturally turned up at the corners.  It’s never changed.  Never.  That girl is still young.

The Picture of Dorian Gray may have been written over a hundred years ago, but it’s probably just as relevant today as it was when it was published.  Young, handsome guy sells his soul to the devil for the promise of eternal youth and beauty.  Of course, Dorian Gray was, in the end,  undone by his own vanity, but who remembers that?  Every day I read about some celebrity who’s been nipped or tucked or Botoxed almost beyond recognition and I think, yes indeed, the devil is alive and well and probably does wear Prada while he’s searching for souls;  especially on the streets of Hollywood, where aging naturally appears to be a sin.  What happened to age being the great equalizer?  It’s hard to look at celebrities my age without wondering what horrors are hidden in their attics.

Not long ago I read about a movement against cosmetic surgery started by a couple of British actresses.  Courageous, I thought, and then I realized this movement was against cosmetic surgery specifically, not cosmetic procedures generally, which include all sorts of non-surgical alternatives to aging naturally, like Botox.  And it’s easy for these actresses to rally against cosmetic surgery – they’re young and beautiful and still employable as Hollywood hotties even if they are British.  The British film industry doesn’t seem to be obsessed with Hollywood’s impossible standard of beauty, so perhaps when their youth and beauty begin to fade (and Botox is outlawed) their decision to age naturally will be embraced and accepted.  I’d looked at the picture of the two of them hoping that would prove true.  Still, as hard as it is to imagine Kate Winslet or Emma Thompson ever looking like crones (unless Botox is outlawed), I wondered if they’d be singing a different tune ten or twenty years from now.  Would they cave, if not to their industry, then to vanity?

Thankfully I don’t have a career that demands that I never look my age, but I have thought about caving to vanity.  I’m not particularly proud of this but then I’m not exactly thrilled with the fact that my appearance is changing, or the fact that I no longer look so much younger than I am.  So I actually did consider cosmetic procedures.   Seriously.  I thought about all of them.  Botox?  Really, I asked myself, how important is facial expression anyway? After all, wasn’t it facial expression that caused these stupid lines?  Ah – but the injections have to be repeated – and frequently.  An eye lift?  Did I really want to risk not being able to close my eyes all the way?  A face lift?  I remembered with a shudder the horrifying documentary I once watched on this procedure.

It went on like this for quite awhile, my consideration of each possible procedure, and then I started considering the things I really wanted – like the antique desk for the cabin and a new laptop.  Things that actually serve a purpose or perform a function.  Things that will last.    In the end I decided cosmetic procedures weren’t for me – not because they’re risky or painful or expensive, which they are – but for the simple reason that they don’t last.  For me there was no cost benefit in that.  I realized that while, like Nora Ephron, I might feel bad about my neck, unlike Dorian Gray, I’m not willing to pay the price to change it.

Which leaves me trying to make peace between the woman I feel like inside – who’s not a day over twenty-five – and the woman I’m looking at in my window pane.   I suppose even those of us who opt for cosmetic procedures have to go down this road eventually.   And I’m fine with my choice to go without weapons like Botox and cosmetic surgery, reserving, of course, the right to change my mind if modern science comes up with something better.  It would be nice to go with grace and dignity, but at this point I’d settle for surrender.  It would be nice not to be so hard on the woman I see reflected in the window pane.  It would be nice to accept her as she is and not wish she looked more like the girl in that old photo hanging on my wall.  But right now?  I’m thinking maybe I’ll just put that old photo in the attic and see what happens.