PSA: Your DNA
SISTERS! I try to remind myself of Molly and her sisters whenever I blame my body for betraying me, and I figured I’d remind you gals, too.
We can only work our bodies, train our bodies, fight our bodies, blame our menopausal bodies up to a certain point, when our personal DNA takes over and there is nothing to do but be...whatever we are supposed to be. You can also think of the struggle to maintain an attractive figure post-menopause as a battle with the metabolism of your grandmother, who has taken over your mid-life body and is not going to be exorcised anytime soon.
I introduce herewith my paternal grandmother, Molly Labner Sonnenberg, second from right, born in Poland in 1890-something, died 1969 in East Elmhurst, NY. The other women in the shot are her sisters, all older, none of whom I ever met. Molly’s the family beauty, the self-described “Belle of Forsyth Street.” Note cigarette. They
are seriously substantial ladies. Note for perspective: Molly was barely 5 feet tall. Those arms are impressively beefy. Those poitrines are monumental.
I am the same age that Molly is in that picture.
That is what my body thinks it should look like. It doesn’t, but I’ve got to expend an awful lot of discipline and energy to avoid the resemblance. The women of that generation had pretty much aged out of usefulness by my age. They sat and sat and sat on those substantial derrieres, stood up to clean and shop, maybe to cook, then sat some more to play cards. They moved slowly, like cargo ships. My father loved to recall that Molly could polish off a loaf of fresh rye bread and butter by herself in one sitting. But I ask you: who couldn’
t?
The next crop of gals, my mother’s generation, beat themselves up pretty good to avoid looking like their mothers, with grapefruit diets and water diets and overly helpful pharmaceutical intervention - but our generation’s too smart and healthy and engaged to go to those extremes. At least we say so. I just think it’s important to remember that our bodies, as well as our collective wisdom, are legacies from a very old gene pool of bubbes and yayas and nanas and nonnas. Evolution hasn’t caught up to our extended, expanded lives; perhaps our daughters will be able to “keep their figures” (whatever that means) and look/feel younger, longer. But meanwhile, I find it helps to imagine my 59-year old self with a big honking corsage on my satin-swathed, monumental decolletage, sucking on a Pall Mall, and to acknowledge I am doing just fine. Wishing you the same.
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