Posted by Tania Kindersley.
Dreich old afternoon. Pigeon in slight disgrace, as she snuck down in the night and consumed an entire box of Bonios. I try to keep a straight face as I reprimand her for this egregious transgression, but I find the small bits of red cardboard all over the floor absurdly funny.
Last day of being forty-four. Not sure what I think about that. Age is biologically actual, but also a human construct. It is oddly relative. Forty-five is young for a prime minister but ancient for a tennis player. It's a good, sharp number, at least. I think I'll take it.
Besides, I happened to see press photographs today of both Diane Keaton and Helen Mirren. They are sixty-six, which is considered old for a woman (cloppety clop goes the high-stepping quarter horse that is the double standard) and perfectly antediluvian in Hollywood years. Neither of them appears to have had plastic surgery. They have lines on their faces. When they smile, the marks of past laughter appear, like mapped traces of joy.
They both looked absolutely marvellous, not just in terms of beauty. They looked happy and interesting and real. They are poster women for treating age as what it is, rather than something of terror and invisibility.
I thought: forty-five will be fine.
Pictures:
That's all there was of the hill, today:
