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CHAPTER TWO

La Femme d’un Certain Âge

Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.

—ANAÏS NIN

YOU SEE THEM all around Paris. The stylish and oh-so-elegant older woman. She’s the one standing in front of you at the rue de Rivoli crosswalk. First, you notice her silhouette. There is something unmistakably sophisticated about her. Perhaps it’s her posture. Her confident stance. From the back, you have no idea what her age might be. But you know, or should I say, you sense a certain worldliness. She’s just too confident and contained to be une jeune fille (a young girl). There’s something about her clothing—the sheer black stockings, the high heel pumps, the secret agent trench coat, and those big sunglasses, even though it’s a gray day—but it’s more than this. It’s her attitude. She knows where she’s going. And yet, she offers you a certain mystery. The promise of adventure. Perhaps she’s planning a trip to Prague. Or she has a summerhouse in Deauville. Perhaps she has a lover there? Or a gentleman friend that she’s just very fond of—no one really knows for sure.

She’s just come from W.H. Smith. Yes, the English language bookstore. She likes to keep up her English language skills and she wants to read that new American novel in its original language. She is carrying a small tote and inside of it, you will find a lilac-colored box of macarons from the famous Ladurée. She is hosting a dinner party tonight and this little sweet will be part of the evening’s celebration. Nothing fancy. Just elegant. Her daughter and son-in-law are coming home for the weekend and bringing the grandchildren. Her brother will be there, along with a colleague from Italy. And of course, our elegant femme d’un certain âge has invited her sister, the architect, who lives in Toulouse, but is visiting Paris for business.

So you can see, the party is quite a mixed bag, and intergenerational. This is one of the secrets of Frenchwomen. They don’t just pal around with women their own age, but they enjoy the company of lots of different people—young, old, male, female, urban, rural, French, and non-French. And they enjoy being a mentor. They don’t hide the fact that they’ve lived and learned and traveled and have had a wide range of experiences.

Our femme doesn’t fuss over the dinner party. She’s prepared a traditional French cassoulet (it was her mother’s recipe) earlier in the day or the day before and since she’s purchased the bread and the dessert, now it’s just a matter of making a salad, putting out the cheese for the dessert course, and chilling the champagne and opening the wine.

Imagine her arriving home. She opens the door to the courtyard, her high heels making a pleasant clicking sound on the cobblestone, and then she quickly makes her way up the three flights of the winding circular staircase. If we were invisible and could observe her unnoticed, this is what we would see: she takes off her sunglasses, her scarf, her coat, and we see her face for the first time. Yes, our French femme d’un certain âge is what we would call “middle-aged.” But she is so much more than this. Yes, there are crinkles around her eyes. Obviously, she’s laughed and cried many times in her life. Oh, and there’s the slight parenthesis lines framing her mouth. All those smiles. Thousands of them. Her hair might be colored a rich chestnut and then again, it might be artfully streaked with silver. If our femme is from the Left Bank and owns a gallery, she may have colored her hair a shocking shade of red. She wears a classic black dress, but it is adorned with the most exquisite jewelry—each piece holds a memory, an experience. There is the big silver bangle from her trip last year to Morocco. Theres the pearl necklace her husband gave her on their fifth wedding anniversary. She wears an unusual brooch that belonged to her grandmother. Perhaps this is her “signature” piece. Then again, her trademark might be her fabulous legs that she likes to show off by wearing slightly expensive textured stockings. She knows this is one of her best features, so why not show them off in the best light?

Her apartment? It’s filled with fresh flowers and original art. Not necessarily expensive art—but beautiful and occasionally quirky pieces created by family and friends or from a favorite artist that she’s been collecting for years.

That’s really the key to the femme d’un certain âge. History and experience. She’s not afraid to show you that she’s lived. Really lived. She’s traveled. She’s known many, many people. She’s lived a full life and continues to do so. She doesn’t dress like she’s twenty, because well, why would she want to? Why would she want to dress or act as if she does not possess all that knowledge and experience the world has given her? She’s proud of the fact that she has lived—truly lived—that she’s seen so much and that her life continues to unfold before her in a most interesting way. And more than this—she’s lived long enough to know how to handle life’s little and not-so-little upsets. These days, there’s not much that unravels her. She knows who she is. She knows her powers, her gifts, her limitations, and her weaknesses. She knows how to take in stride life’s little disappointments, as well as the bigger demands of being a grown-up in this world.

And you know what? All this makes our femme d’un certain âge very, very sexy. What she gives up in terms of a youthful, dewy-eyed innocence, she gains in elegance, style, sophistication, and wisdom.

I talked with one gorgeous femme d’un certain âge who lives in Paris. Her name is Micheline Tanguy and she owns her own company as a personal and professional image consultant. She’s an expert in style, body image, and how to communicate confidence. When I asked her to tell me what is the Frenchwoman’s secret to beauty and elegance, she said it’s not simply one thing. Rather, it’s a totality of things, such as how she stands up, how she walks, the way she holds her handbag. She told me:

It means being attractive for yourself. We do our best to reach this aim in our daily life. I must confess, it’s not only about appearance. It’s also about self-esteem, self-confidence, respect, and love for ourselves. It’s about knowing what we want . . . and self-respect.

Yes, self-respect.

Go, Cougars!

The truth is, no matter where you live—even in France—it’s not easy getting older, but this is especially true for women in America. All around us, we are bombarded with daily images of beautiful young women—or should I say girls. These young, long-legged, smooth-skinned creatures grace the pages of our fashion magazines, star in our movies, and even have their own reality television shows—as if we really care whether Pretty Wild Girls are going to get arrested this weekend. True, occasionally, you will see a Helen Mirren or a Meryl Streep or a Susan Sarandon at the Oscars and everyone will ooh and aahh, pronouncing how fabulous they are and how gorgeous they look . . . for their age! But these beautiful women are the exception and not the rule. And so, if you are a woman of a certain age, it’s easy to grow discouraged and begin to believe that unless you have been anointed as “the beautiful older woman of the year”—the singular example that we are not an ageist society—it’s easy to just give up.

On the other hand, we now have “cougars.” Yes, predatory older women who wear a lot of leopard print and supposedly go after younger men. You will seldom find an older woman who describes herself as a cougar unless she’s making a little joke. Rather, it’s the young men who are looking for hot, older women who have come up with this term. (Although, we should note that a recent French survey found that fully 90 percent of women over fifty in France say they are sexually active.)

You see the problem here: We are being defined by someone else—the media, or men on the prowl, or someone who wants to sell you something. Wrinkle cream, perhaps? Or maybe we’re being sold something a little more nefarious. Perhaps we’re being sold the idea that it’s okay to be an older woman, as long as your main interest is still finding and pleasing a man.

With all these messages coming at us every day, it’s difficult to really see ourselves, as we really are right now. No, you may not be young, but you’re not finished yet, either. In fact, I would like to propose that you are actually just beginning.

This is because, as we grow older, our true selves emerge. But more than this, what we might lose in youth, we gain in confidence. Not the false bravado of a wild twenty-something, but the true power of a woman who has lived and learned. That’s the power of Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, and our famous French femmes—Juliette Binoche, Catherine Deneuve, and Isabelle Adjani.

How to Save Your Life

Last fall in the town of Valence d’Agen, I followed a gorgeous older woman walking around the farmers’ marketplace. She was wearing high heels and carrying a wicker basket for her purchases. No, she wasn’t a “cougar.” She certainly was not trying to act younger than she really was. In fact, rather than denying her age, she seemed to be reveling in the benefits of being une femme d’un certain âge. This particular woman was wearing a pair of interesting eyeglasses and some artful jewelry. Oh, and of course, she was wearing a scarf. It was very colorful and loosely draped around her shoulders. I loved watching her walk from market stall to market stall. I stood for a moment to witness how she picked up one perfectly ripe red tomato, held it for a moment in the palm of her hand as if weighing it, and then brought it up to her nose and inhaled deeply. After this, she chatted with the farmer for several minutes, laughed over some shared story, and then, with the help of this farmer and friend, made her selections. She clearly had been going to this marketplace for years and had established a wonderful rapport with the shopkeepers. She was sexy and intriguing—not so much because of her good looks, but because of her savoir faire, her confidence and self-assurance.

That’s really the key. Once you get to a certain point in your life, a lot of the old insecurities fade away. And if you had children along the way, they are now grown. A whole new life opens before you and new possibilities present themselves to you. Some dreams that you deferred now resurface. There’s actually a term for this in astrology (I learned this from the wonderful astrologist Susan Miller). It’s called your “Saturn return,” which means that the lessons and challenges and decisions you made during your late twenties revisit you in your forties up to about age fifty-nine. At this stage, you have another opportunity to reconsider the past and change the course of your life. If there are leftover dreams from those early years, you can now embrace them again and bring them to fruition. It’s actually a very magical and powerful time in any person’s life. So, rather than thinking of this phase as a “midlife crisis,” consider that this is actually another chance to grab the brass ring. True, you may not be as agile or quick as you were in your twenties, but now you have all that wisdom and power and experience. Oh, and by now you know how to admit you don’t know how to do something and you’re not too proud to ask for help. And most importantly, you’ve learned not to pay attention to the naysayers and you’ve let go of the debilitating desire for perfection.

This was the case for my good friend Marjorie, a sound artist and university professor. She’s been living in the north of France for the last twenty years. She was born in Michigan, moved to New York City after attending the University of Michigan, and spent nearly twenty years in New York, first as an actress, then a writer, and she wrote and produced a Peabody Award-winning radio documentary drama, establishing a lifetime career in public radio. She is one talented and accomplished femme d’un certain âge, but with all that said, she’s now taken up singing American jazz classics with an ensemble.

She tells me that the French love American jazz and are very accepting of less than completely polished voices. In fact, Marjorie tells me that they actually prefer personality over perfection. It’s the passion and authenticity that stirs them!

Marjorie recently told me this:

When I was young I desperately wanted to be an actress and I also loved to sing and dance. I was totally obsessed with this idea from the age of twelve, when my mother sent me to drama class to give me confidence, to the age of around twenty-seven, when I finally gave it all up and got a real job.

The little girl that sang all the words to “I’m the Greatest Star” over and over again in her bedroom suffered quite a number of indignities in early adulthood. Two years of rejection on the stand-up comedy circuit, as well as a complete lack of encouragement during the short period that I sang alone with a piano player in a small showcase bar where I also worked as a waitress.

Childhood piano lessons came to nothing. I bought a guitar in my twenties and never even learned to tune it properly. Still, I listened to jazz by the hour and learned hundreds of songs in my head. As an apprentice in summer stock, I couldn’t even clap in rhythm. However, in the summer of 1972, there was a big flood in the town, and they sent all the professional actors home and the apprentices had to play all the leads, so I got onstage. But still, the word on me was that I couldn’t really carry a tune.

In a way I kind of outgrew my performing complex and turned my ambitions in other directions. I turned to radio producing and eventually radio wasn’t really artistically challenging enough, so I became more and more compositional in my work. But there was no real place for sound composers who weren’t considered bona fide musicians first and foremost.

I cut everything in my life and moved to France, vaguely chasing a quiet place to become an artist—that certainly did not happen overnight. Another eighteen years went by.

I never stopped singing in my head. By chance, I was teaching in an engineering school with quite a number of conservatory musicians doing double majors—and somehow I got up the courage to perform in their concert at school. I was very apologetic and deprecating about it, but I think because they liked their crazy American teacher I was a hit.

The school celebrated its fiftieth anniversary and I was asked to help produce a show. We had a big theater with a professional sound system, a student who was a piano prodigy as the music director, and a full band. The show was packed to the rafters. At the end of the show, the band had wanted to play “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” à la the Blues Brothers, so I came out dressed like John Belushi—sunglasses, pork pie hat—and did the song, monologue and all. My team of students came out, all dressed as the Blues Brothers and backed me up in a line dance.

Right before we went on, the one female engineer in the team whispered, “Are you nervous?” I said, “Not really.” She said, “You’re not? Why?” “I dunno. There just doesn’t seem to be any point to being nervous. I’m gonna go out there and do it, that’s all.”

After the song, the place exploded into a standing ovation, and it was only later that I realized that this packed audience of about three hundred people were in fact mostly the guys that I had been entertaining and encouraging in English class for the last ten years and their spouses and families. The next day, a Saturday morning, I just sat and sobbed for about two hours, totally overwhelmed by this love and adoration.

So that led to singing in more concerts, performing with a group in a local restaurant, taking a three-day jazz master class that was horribly snobby and intimidating—and doing two art performances this month in which I sang. The last concert I did with the students was in February—I scatted to “Take Five,” something I would never have been able to do even a year ago. That concert was the last time I rehearsed and performed without putting myself down and apologizing to the musicians.

They say that proper singing is about your breathing and how you stand, et cetera—that is all true—but I am sure that I was always capable of singing and performing—and that I had a good, ear, too—it was always there. I was just too scared. Even when I was throwing myself at an audience and trying my very best I was still too scared.

I’ll be fifty-nine on my next birthday. I don’t know what took me so long. I don’t bother with regrets. It just took as long as it took.

Brain Power

In her latest book, The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain, scientist Barbara Strauch explains how our brains actually get better in middle age. While some quick reflexes might diminish, our reasoning gets better, we’re able to make better decisions, and our ability to quickly and accurately size up situations improves. Years ago, we heard that we lose 30 percent of our brain cells as we age and now we find that this is simply not true. Yes, just as we always suspected, we get better with age. But here’s the catch—if you don’t use it, you lose it, so she recommends challenging our minds. I’m happy to report that learning a foreign language is on her list of ways to build brain power, as well as getting into a conversation with someone who disagrees with your ideas. All this tones the brain. And it’s very French! When we asked Frenchwomen and men how they stayed so vibrant and happy, they often cited how they took workshops and classes. My French friend Tania is already a terrific cook, but recently she took a class in making the French macaron, which apparently is a very delicate operation and not easy to master. She speaks perfect English and sometimes it’s a struggle to get her to speak French, because she wants to practice her English! Recently, for her vacation, rather than just going to the beach or over the channel to London, she went to Egypt. You see the pattern here—she is always challenging herself. The French believe in always learning something new.

So, the next time you read about classes and workshops at your local community college or night school, sign up for something that challenges you. Your brain will thank you.

The Beautiful Alberta Hunter

In 1978, I was living in New York City and I learned that the famous jazz singer Alberta Hunter had come out of retirement and was going to sing at the Cookery in Greenwich Village. I immediately ordered tickets. I knew this would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Alberta Hunter, who had started her singing career back in the 1920s singing with Louie Armstrong, had stopped singing many years before to become a nurse, but was now retired. And at age eighty-something, the Cookery convinced her to come and sing. What a joy and a privilege to see this beautiful woman. And she was truly beautiful—not for an eighty-year-old woman, but beautiful for any age. And I loved the stories she told and all the songs she sang. But most of all, I remember Alberta Hunter singing the very, very randy song, “My Man Is Such a Handy Man.” The entire song is made up of double entendres such as “he threads my needle. He creams my wheat.” Her performance was brilliant—down to earth, funny, relaxed, wise, and very, very sexy.

Alberta Hunter was sexy—not despite the fact that she was eighty, but because of it. The fact that she was eighty-something added a complexity to the evening. She owned her sexuality, her worldliness. You felt as if she’d had some amazing love in her life and that she had a confidence and a sense of humor about it. And her age added a certain richness to the song. This was a woman who had lived and loved. Who had known fame and left it all behind to live an ordinary life and then was back again.

I will admit, too, that because of her age, I knew that she would not be long in this world and that I was experiencing an event never to be repeated. And indeed, Alberta Hunter died seven years later.

I tell you this story not simply to say that you are always becoming and the story is always unfolding, but as a message to be alive to the present moment and to know that while you may not be a famous jazz singer or a not-quite-famous jazz singer like my friend Margie, nonetheless—whether you know it or not—you are still being observed. You are still an inspiration to the young and the not-so-young. Every day, you have an opportunity to send out the message that aging isn’t such a bad thing and it’s certainly nothing to be afraid of. In fact, it’s something quite delightful.

The Young and the Restless

If we deny our age and fight it, we are silently telling our daughters and younger people that aging is horrible. A nightmare ! We are giving out the message that they should not grow old at any cost. And so, even twenty-five-year-olds begin to fear aging and want to rush to the plastic surgeon. This is a losing battle. Why not show the younger generation that becoming une femme d’un certain âge has many benefits and that aging can be wonderful and something to actually look forward to?

Borrow a page from the French. Frenchwomen do not take anything for granted. They’ve been through hell and back through centuries of invasions and wars and economic tumult. They have lost many of their young men to wars and so as Frenchwomen, they have learned to survive on their own. This loss is part of their secret to being a self-assured femme d’un certain âge. They appreciate what they have in their lives, no matter how much or how little.

And if you are reading this and you are in your twenties or thirties or forties, let me play le rôle de votre mère (the role of your mother) for a moment. I have been where you are—there is not enough money or time. The job is not rewarding or stimulating enough. The baby has a cold and is always sniffling. You’re worried about your parents getting older. The house is a mess. Your husband seems to be preoccupied with work or your boyfriend broke up with you and now you are alone with this feeling you must begin all over again.

Here’s the truth of life—you are always beginning all over again. Every day brings something new. Embrace it. One day you will look back at your life and realize you were a part of something grand! Something important. You are part of this moment in history.

As une femme d’un certain âge, I often hear people talk about the 1960s and the political unrest and turmoil, the hard-won sexual freedom. I stop and think—Wow, I lived through all that. I remember that. But honestly, at the time, I was often distracted by whether I was going to get my biology homework done in time or not. I seldom looked up from my own personal concerns to see the bigger picture and to find the balance of myself as an individual in the context of the larger world.

In the 1980s, when Mrs. Estée Lauder was still around, I worked in the international division and wrote fashion copy for the famous cosmetic company. I wrote about the prêt-a-porter for the spring and fall color stories. Oh, and I was around for the naming of the famous fragrance Beautiful. Now, that was a dramatic time!

I loved my job, but at the time I didn’t think of it as more than a job. I spent most of my time wishing I could write for Hollywood! But at Estée Lauder, there were so many stories and once-in-a-lifetime experiences right there in front of me, I was completely nearsighted. Nowadays, people often tell me how glamorous it sounds and I have to take a step back and think—Yes, the truth is, in hindsight, the whole damn thing—this life, in fact—is glamorous!

So, appreciate what you have in this moment in your life and be present to the unfolding story right before you.

Your Unique Signature

When I first met Micheline Tanguy in Paris, she looked at me, eyes full of passion, and told me, “You want to know the secret of Frenchwomen and why she has confidence? Ooh la la? ” And then she paused for effect and told me: “You are Woman. Just be!”

Sounds a bit like a Zen koan, doesn’t it? But it’s true. The world is a tumultuous, ever-changing place. But you must find a way to be still, to quiet the mind, whether it’s through meditation or long walks or yoga or your Secret Garden (that real or metaphorical place that brings you peace and replenishment). As you age and as the world rumbles and roars into wild new directions, you must hold on to the things that make you you. And here, I’d like to suggest something radical to you, or perhaps just a little odd, but I suggest you practice your handwriting. Your handwriting, especially your signature, is something that is so personal and so revealing about who you are in this world. However, it’s easy to get sloppy and forget all about those early days when we first learned to sign our names or write a love letter or how we carefully added our signatures to the very first check we wrote. I suggest that you practice the lost art of writing real letters and that you take your time to write neatly and to sign your name with a bit of panache, not because it’s nice to do (though it is nice to do and in this age of e-mailing, it’s also very impressive), but because this act of holding pen to paper and transferring the thoughts from your heart to your hand and down to your fingers and on to the page is a lesson in Zen. And it’s a lesson in reconnecting to that little girl who first learned to write her name, and yes, to your truest, core self.

Plus, to write neatly and carefully is simply to be polite.

This act of focusing your attention on the little things that make you unique also applies to your voice. When you were a child, you discovered that a certain tone or pitch or volume would achieve certain results. But as we age, we take this very powerful and very individual part of our personality for granted and just as we might let our handwriting get a bit compromised, so, too, we can let our speaking voices deteriorate. Your voice is an instrument. It is powerful, seductive, intriguing, and completely unique. Why not bring some awareness to your voice. It’s just as much a “signature” to your individuality as a real signature.

Find Your Balance

This will help you to visualize your truest self. Once you do this, you can let go of the things that do not belong in your life—both literally (clear out those closets and give away the things you no longer treasure) and figuratively (do you really need to still play the ingenue?). Once you let go, you open up space for new things, true things. For me, it was rediscovering my grandmother and reconnecting with the long-held but hidden dream of visiting France and finally mastering the language and understanding my roots. Let go of all your assumptions. Quiet your mind. Now, ask yourself, who are you truly? Who are you meant to be?

It’s Never Too Late

I grew up in an era where there were no women of color on the covers of our fashion magazines. It was as if the whole world was white and African American or Latina women just didn’t exist. I will never forget the day in 1974 when I picked up a copy of Vogue magazine. Right there, on the cover, was Beverly Johnson! A black woman! This was a first. I was in college by this time. It was an era filled with so many changes. There was the civil rights movement, and protests against the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, and the women’s movement—but to be honest, the day Beverly Johnson appeared on the cover of Vogue felt so important to me. I looked into her eyes and felt as if she was speaking directly to me, proclaiming the magical mutuality of what we think of as beauty. Her face announced to the world that it was time to shed our assumptions. And on a personal level, even though I was just a white girl from the suburbs, I felt as if she was saying to me, “And oh yeah, you’re beautiful, too.”

And now, we have Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks and many, many other gorgeous and inspirational women. We do not question whether they are beautiful or not. We simply know.

This is how change happens. It takes someone to be brave, a little muscle, definitely a sense of imagination and then . . . poof! The world has changed and it feels as if it happened overnight. This one shift creates a magical ripple effect. And soon we forget the past and we can hardly remember the past, when things were not always so fair. We forget how narrow-minded we were. And we all say—well, yes, of course. Women—in all their many incarnations—are beautiful.

So, do something brave today. Go out in your town and be that beautiful older woman. Yes, be the message. And who knows, perhaps one day we will see une femme d’un certain âge on the cover of American Vogue!

French Lessons

RECONSIDER WHAT you wanted to do when you were in your twenties. Is there something you “put on the shelf” due to the demands of work and family? Could you possibly now revive and realize some of those old dreams in whole or in part?

Go through your belongings and give things away to younger friends. Share the wealth and leave room in your life for something new.

Once you’ve cleared out the clutter in your life, look around at what is left, what you could not possibly live without. Within this, you’ll find your trademark, your signature. Perhaps it’s a brooch that once belonged to your grandmother. Take it out of the jewelry box and wear it daily. Is it your collection of elegant beaded evening bags? Don’t wait for that very special occasion, but rather bring them out into the daylight. Do you adore bright red lipstick? Even though red lipstick may be out of vogue and you’ve been told to retire it past a certain age, go ahead and indulge. In all this effort to be French and elegant, don’t forget something the fabulous fashion doyenne Diana Vreeland once said: “Never fear vulgar, just boring. We all need a splash of bad taste; no taste is what I am against.”

Your signature is literal and figurative. Take good care of both. I recommend that you take care of your handwriting. Frenchwomen always have beautiful handwriting. Take a lesson from the French and take your time when writing a check or a note. You’ll find that this little adjustment will have a ripple effect through your entire life. By controlling your penmanship, you’ll find it’s easier to control any other sort of sloppiness that may have muscled its way into your life. The same goes for your speaking voice, your e-mails, your manners. A little self-awareness can go a long way.

Tend to the gifts nature has given you—your lustrous hair or your good figure. Indulge in spa days more often. Find moments to be still and reflect. After paring down what is no longer necessary in your life, update your look so that you are making the most of your best assets. If you’ve got great gams, then buy a pair of textured stockings and wear those with boots. If you wear eyeglasses, consider buying more artful frames. Be proud of your age and how your life experience makes you interesting to others. And sexy!

Challenge yourself and break out of the familiar. Travel. Learn a new language. Consider taking a class or teaching a class at your local community college.

Get intergenerational and avoid just mingling with people your own age. Become a role model to younger women. Be a mentor. Inspire someone every day by just being your own true self.

Appreciate the mystery that is here now. The wonderful thing about being une femme d’un certain âge is that people look up to you and want to hear what you have to say, because of your age, not despite it. Enjoy having come this far and knowing a thing or two.