The Body

I was captivated by the photos in the Huffington Post of the celebrities gathered for George Clooney's wedding in Venice, he so handsome, his bride so beautiful, Venice so glamorous, and his celebrity friends, what a strange collection.  Anna Wintour I would not have thought as one of them, but there she was photographed in two different outfits during the various festivities.  I was struck to see her in a simple sleeveless dress, although it is indeed a line of which she is fond, because for the first time I realized that she was perhaps a little old for this.  She was photographed in the awkward exertion of getting on or off a water taxi, not the most graceful moment in a person's life, and where her arm extended from her body, it was clear to see that her skin was loose against the bone structure, a common problem as we age, but not one that is usually made available by the clothes we wear.  I find it amusing to watch my arm when being pulled up through one of those power dryers in public restrooms because the skin is so loose that it ripples and billows in the powerful air currents.  I first noticed this once weeding in the garden bending over and looking back between my legs, noticing the skin of my thighs hanging ever so slightly loose as though I had on panty hose which were much too  big for me.  It is really rather grotesque this flailing of the person without actually removing the skin completely from the body, but I have to admire the athletic ladies of the bath and racquet club where I work out weekly.  There are dozens of tennis courts there, and a corresponding large group of regulars playing tennis from dawn to dusk.  As a group the women are well dressed well coiffed ladies in their high seventies and low eighties whose game is ferocious and steady, and none of them in their crisp white tennis shorts and shirts is the least bit bothered by the loose skin on their arms and legs which has a kind of life of its own as their owner's limbs move vigorously through the tennis game.  As an ever larger group of prosperous, healthy, active persons live into serious old age they present ever newer forms of physical well being.  Faces wrinkled with healthy skin, featuring clear, attentive eyes set deep in a mass of crows feet are as beautiful as an athletic arm with its loose skin.  Surrendering to botox and surgery turns a living person into a corpse, and it seems so strange that persons in the class for whom having "work" done is de rigeur don't recognize that fact.  Well, a smooth face, surgically altered so as to be devoid of expression or personality has the advantage I suppose of hiding life's tragedies and disappointments, and maybe that's easier for those confronting a long life in the mirror.