Seasoned, Spicy and Marinated

I was wandering down the clearance aisle at the bookstore a few weeks back and my eye caught the sight of a peach on a book cover. Maybe I was a still-life painter in a previous life, but I am attracted to fruit, and pictures of fruit, and things that are named after fruits. You can sell me whatever you're selling if you just name your product a "Kiwi" (doesn't matter what it is or what it does) or call the color "Honeydew". It's my consumer weakness.

Anyway, there was a book and it had a voluptuous enormous peach on it and it was on sale for $5.98 - the perfect book-buying storm. The title is Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life by Gail Sheehy and is intended to "lead you to shift from obsolete myths about midlife crisis" and inform you that "women in mid-life are open to sex, love, dating, new dreams, exploring spirituality, and revitalizing their marriages as never before" in this "new generation of passionate and liberated women – married or single…".

I vaguely remembered Gail from the late 70s and her best-seller Passages. I didn't have any reason to read it then, since I wasn't passing through anything at the time. But several decades have come and gone, and I'm well into my own mid-life passage. While I hate to think of my life transitions as already being scheduled, I'm putting my pinky-toe over the threshold of 49 next month and hurtling toward 50. And, although I don't like to admit it, I am morphing into someone I don't recognize. The peach of my youth is developing brown spots and getting mushy in places.

I went through my denial phase when photographs revealed that the soft wattle under my chin needed some sort of scaffolding to prevent complete collapse. Then, I began to suspect that the garment industry had been attacked by a waistband-reducing virus, since everything I tried on in my size, except for pajamas and sweat pants, refused to button, zip, snap, Velcro or hook.

Denial gave way to anger and then negotiation when I attempted to make contact with a prescription drug mule hoping to score Retin-A from over the border in Nuevo Laredo (where it's much cheaper). I spent one afternoon grieving and shredding my Victoria's Secret Buy 12-Pairs-Get-One-Pair Free punch card. I could see that my years of bad-girl underwear were behind me, so to speak, and my lingerie would, in the future, come in shrink-wrapped packages of three.

Then I entered a relatively calm period of acceptance wherein I considered devoting the rest of my life to doing things with yarn. Perhaps, become a knitting therapist and open my own practice helping other, less prehensile women, do things with yarn, too. A commitment to crafts seemed soothing, if a bit desperate. Soon, however, I learned that another group of women (in mid-life, no doubt) had begun a knitting ministry making shawls for God, and I abandoned my plan.

Women my age live with an undercurrent of mild panic. We jolt awake an hour or so after we go to sleep (if we fall asleep at all) with our hearts racing like a herd of spooked ponies. An endless parade of fears emerges from the mid-life insomniac's anxiety closet. With more years behind me than ahead of me, it seems like daylight's burning and there's less time to squander.

Things that I have yet to accomplish over which I lose sleep: must get satisfying, wealth-accumulating career on track; must find soul mate and build green home with rainwater catchment using only repurposed construction materials; must apply for medical school, law school and architectural school; must become a vegetarian...wait...no, a vegan...wait no, a raw foodist; must commit to an extremely disciplined and slightly painful esoteric spiritual practice; must wear garments made only with organic fibers, eat more kale (or, some kale), and radiate only kindness; must single-handedly end something – injustice, racism, cruelty, disease, poverty, environmental degradation, corruption...whatever; must travel everywhere, get a diplomatic post, learn several languages, see everything and become amazing and respected and admired.

Lately, though, I'd begun to think I should just withdraw from all this conflicted emotion; all this swirling intensity that goes nowhere like a hurricane that dies before it hits landfall. It's exhausting, and I'm tired just thinking about it. So, when I picked up Sex and the Seasoned Woman, I had no intention of taking it seriously and had every intention of poking malicious fun at it. Any book that describes women as being "spicy" and "marinated" sort of begs for ridicule. Besides which, the word "marinated" reminds me of food that's been brined, refrigerated and forgotten in the back of the fridge until it's discovered two weeks later and thrown out. It's not a flattering adjective.

I would not have bought the book in the first place had I not been seduced by the power of that peach.

And even after plowing through it, I don't want to mislead you. Seasoned could certainly fall into that genre of self-help writing that's sappy and sentimental and gives the reader nothing but shallow platitudes, like "before you can embrace your full power as a seasoned woman, you will need to spend time alone." Or "connect with someone who loves and respects the pilgrim soul in you." Or, "do what you love and love will find you." Depending on your temperament, you will want to read this book with either a box of tissues or a stiff drink in your hand.

Sheehy claims that a Second Adulthood emerges after fifty that can be as filled with a passion for life as the first. For people who find themselves single at mid-life, the good news is that both genders are free to explore all of the converging paths that Sheehy suggests lead to impassioned living. These include exploring relationships and sexuality, pursuing new dreams or reviving earlier dreams, and spiritual exploration. Not that any of these cannot also take place within marriage, but the high rate of divorce at mid-life suggests that many married mid-lifers prefer to start fresh either because they can't bring their resistant mate along for the ride, or because they don't want to.*

Sheehy interviewed numerous women (and a few men), married and single, from around the country for their perspective on these three topics. Hopes and dreams were, mostly, being identified and pursued with success, and spiritual seeking didn't seem to be much of an obstacle either. But relationships and sex seemed to freak everyone out, both emotionally and physically.

The consensus was that it is challenging to find a quality companion with whom to share mid-life and beyond. Most of the women surveyed were divorced, and none registered any regrets. Of the married participants, most were unhappy, but were not inclined to separate from their spouses out of fear (fear of loneliness, fear of the unknown, fear of reduced finances). The married women who felt they could achieve all they wanted post-50, including a frisky sex life and deepening emotional intimacy with their husbands, were in the minority.

I was curious why all these newly single women were wandering around and not bumping into newly single men who must also be wandering around. Logic would tell you that if a given number of 50-year-old women are turning in a mate for a different model, there should be an equal number of 50-year-old men suddenly available as well. Even calculating in potential partners from an older or younger pod of single males and females, the numbers should work out. The men interviewed seemed to be as determined as the women to find a companion or a variety of companions, but admitted to being perplexed that women around 50 appeared pretty content to go their own way and spend much of their time socializing with their female friends – both platonically and romantically.

I have only limited experience with this sort of social hunting, but I too was disappointed when a friend coaxed me into posting a profile on an internet dating site last year. I was between books and had to concede that I was unlikely to expand my social life during my frequent trips to the bookstore or the wool shop.

In the part of my profile where I outlined the kind of guy I'm looking for, I wrote, "Should be descended from German aristocracy and possess telekinetic powers. Prefer a man who is not unreasonably fond of ferrets."

While several men responded, not a single one admitted to having a "von" in front of their name (as in Baron von Helsing or Chancellor Otto von Bismarck or Ernst August Kronprinz von Hannover).

Nor did any claim an ability to bend spoons using only their minds, or an aversion to ferrets. And, for reasons I cannot explain, they all wrote that they were "into meeting a woman who is not into playing games." I kind of like playing games, especially in winter, so I let my subscription lapse. But if I ever try on-line dating services again, I'm going to specify that I am ONLY looking for a guy who's into games.

But I digress.

Despite varying degrees of success in love, the women in Sheehy's study seemed to be making fabulous progress in realizing dreams and pursuing passions with frenetic vigor. All that satisfaction made me a little suspicious, though, and I thought Sheehy was taking her study group from a particular layer of the economic Italian butter cream cake. It's one thing to struggle with love – almost everyone does – but Sheehy can't very well get much mileage out of women who took big risks, left their marriages, aimed high, failed miserably and are living in their mini-vans parked at Wal-Mart and surrounded by their Passion Party inventory as a consequence.

In lengthy interviews, the women she meets are always "sparkling", "slim as a reed", "dressed to perfection", "radiant" and "glossy." They are flying out of well-feathered nests, and are either vice-presidents of billion dollar corporations who deferred their dreams for demanding careers, or wives of surgeons whose marriages failed to provide the soul-connection for which they hungered. They have the means to fund their heart's longings and their "dreams deferred" are exotic.

Sheehy doesn't interview Lois from the Sagebrush Trailer Court who dreams of leaving her old man passed out on the sofa, while she travels cross country on the Guns and Knives Show circuit. Instead, we meet Luisa who discovers her passion for tango at 50, travels to Buenos Aires, hooks up with Roberto, her Argentine lover, buys an apartment and spends half of every year on sabbatical from her executive career dancing to sultry Latin rhythms. Other women pursue their interests in Greek antiquities or jewelry design, or get in touch with the meaning in their life through a lengthy stay at some sort of spiritual healing center, usually in Santa Fe. In fact, so many mid-life single women seem to end up in Santa Fe, I've concluded that it's either part of a migratory pattern, or a natural consequence of depleted estrogen.

Sheehy's women seem to have a lot of leisure time and money to manifest their passions. Most of the mid-life men and women I know will have to content themselves with pursuing passions on a budget, or recycling old passions still sitting in the garage. Many of us aren't going to make the complete round of "1000 Places to See Before You Die", and may have to be satisfied with the top 10. Or 5.

But I must admit that Seasoned offered me some perspective. My experience appears common to women of my age in my culture, and while I can't say that I exactly resonated with the interviewees, I could appreciate some of their turmoil. It's just a tumultuous time of life, even if you have followed a conventional template. I am beginning to accept that even if I had committed to a more traditional path at twenty-five, I would probably still find myself washed up on this particular shore, wondering where I had landed and what I should do next.

Many of us fear that by 50, "like a complex wine", we have already peaked. I've come to realize that it's arbitrary to claim that there is a peak year or a peak season of your life. It implies that we are either ascending or declining, when in reality, we are on a continuum. Every season of life takes away as it retreats, and the next season gives as it advances.

I think it was $5.98 well spent just to learn that. Yet, despite 354 pages of text, peaches were never mentioned.

*Note: It might be worth mentioning that there are many reasons why men and women divorce at mid-life, but both sexes undergo a tremendous shift in neurochemistry in the aging process. Post-menopausal women have on average twenty times more testosterone than pre-menopausal women and as estrogen decreases, testosterone becomes the dominant hormone. Conversely, men not only have less testosterone, but more and more of it is converted into estrogen as men age. Neurobiologists speculate that the hormone shift is dramatic enough to cause structural changes in the brain.

While it doesn't necessarily follow that partners become different people incapable of tolerating each other and, therefore, eager to make a run for it, it seems to indicate that people naturally begin to shift their focus and interests at mid-life and beyond. Partners who have a flexible union may weather those changes better than partners who rigidly define one another's roles in the relationship.

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Ingrid is currently living and respectably employed in Austin, Texas with a firm specializing in environmental law. She hopes to get back home to the San Juan Islands next spring to stay.
While Ingrid is spiritually promiscuous, she credits her guru, Jimmy Buffet, for her mantra..."If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." Besides a passion for Tiki Studies, Ingrid is borderline biblio-obsessive. She is an old-school Libran - i.e., she won't be leading the Revolution, but she'll work to make it an attractive affair and hire the musicians and caterers."

Her column appears every other Thursday in San Juan Islander. To contact Ingrid, send emails to ingrid@sanjuanislander.com

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