French Women Don't Get Facelifts

Grand Central Publishing

ASSESSING GRAVITY

My husband has had a blond mustache his entire adult life. Except one day nottoo long ago he came to me and said, "You know, my mustache is all white." Itis, and was, probably for about three years before he noticed.

I don't know what a fly thinks—if it thinks at all—when it seesitself in the mirror. But I know if we are going to manage our aging, when wegrow older and look in the mirror we need to see ourselves as we truly are onthe inside and the outside. A lot of us are kidding ourselves. We are not seeingthe now us. We often are seeing who we were. Or we are blindedby who we want to be or who we think we are.

Truly knowing thyself is integral to aging well, being comfortable in your skin,and possessing a healthy, nondelusional, and uplifting attitude toward your ownaging.

An essential element in aging with attitude is taking periodic hard looks atyourself in the mirror.

What should you look for? You cannot pick up a book or magazine or watch orlisten to a program about aging without recognizing topics containing the "usualsuspects": health, appearance, exercise, nutrition, lifestyle, medical miracles(a subcategory of which is supposedly cosmetic surgery), and relationships.

To which I want to add as a general category for self-assessment and eventuallysome self-modification:

• attitude

Some of the specific questions you might ask yourself when looking in the mirrorwill come later. However, let's recognize from the start the power of attitude.It is a magic pill. And people have searched for magic anti-aging potionsprobably as long as there have been people.

FRENCH WOMEN'S ATTITUDE

Gravity works just the same in France as in the rest of the world, especiallywhen you hit your sixties and seventies, if not sooner. But French womenapproach aging with a different mind-set than women from most cultures. Withrespect to growing old, the biggest difference between French women and mostothers is not grooming or clothing or nutrition or face and skin care; it isattitude. For starters, French women have a different definition of whatconstitutes being old. In a recent multinational survey, the French proved to bethe least concerned about aging, and a cool third believed "old" startsafter eighty.

Certainly in France, a woman in her forties and fifties is still alluring andseen as an object of desire and acts the part. She feels it and acts it, butdoesn't pretend she is ageless. She is comfortable in herself. She takes care ofherself and for the most part watches her weight and external presence, but shedoesn't attempt to look like her twenty-year-old self. America and many othercultures are youth cultures. France is not. Name the top French actresses whocome to mind. They probably all emote an air of grace and alluring beauty thatis not picture-perfect or reflective of them in their teens or twenties.Juliette Binoche? Born in 1964. The still-iconic Catherine Deneuve? Born 1943.Even those in their late thirties, like Marion Cotillard, come across as"mature," exuding an alluring package of wholeness and experience.

There are a lot of young women in French films, but they are not endlessCharlie's Angels, either. Consider good-hearted, flat-chested Amélie (AudreyTautou). Women in their fifties and beyond are often shown as likely as not tohave a lover, sometimes younger. While French women in movies and life may bepetty bureaucrats in the office (a characteristic of the French) or objects ofdiscrete desires, in their personal lives outside the silver screen, they reverebeing "intellectuals," both little and big. French women are able to quote theRousseau and Descartes from their high school days and are ready to discuss anddebate anything and everything, from the food on their plates to the merits ofthe latest political scandal. Being an adult is being grown up. And being grownup means losing some of life's insecurities, like worrying too much aboutgravity. There is much living in the moment for French women of a certain age,defiantly so.

You've heard the one that age fifty is the new forty. I have written that fifty-nine is sometimes the new sixty. Alas, there was a cartoon in the NewYorker that suggested, "Seventy-five isn't the new anything." I hope not,but it does suggest not holding back in your seventies ... for what? Or even inyour sixties and fifties à la française. Carpe diem.

FEELING GROOVY

How often have you heard the maxims "It's mind over matter," or "Stop thinkingabout it or it will make you sick," or "She lost her will to live"? They surelyfall into the nothing-new-under-the-sun category.

What's new, however—if you consider fifty years still new—is we nowhave the scientific evidence that the magic not only works but is human science.The field even has a fancy name: psychoneuroimmunology. Belief is powerfulmedicine.

Remember the placebo effect? It's the fact that in many cases, the more a personbelieves in a treatment or drug, the more likely they will experience improvedhealth or behavior. Placebos have helped reduce anxiety, pain, depression, and ahost of disorders. A few decades ago it was scientifically proven that theimmune system is connected to the brain, that there are complex communicationsamong hormones and neurotransmitters.

Though hardly an all-in-one anti-aging pill, conscious belief and subliminalconditioning can control bodily processes, such as immune responses and therelease of hormones. Put a Band-Aid on a child and somehow the child is soothedand feels better for no clear medical reason. We know a strong social networkhelps people survive cancer. Perhaps not a strict placebo but clear evidence ofthe brain's role in physical health and, obviously, associated mental health.Meditation, of course, is a mental means of ridding our minds of delusions andstress toward achieving a form of inner peace. Methods of meditation haveenabled people to reduce blood pressure, alleviate pain, and effect changes invarious brain and other bodily functions.

The point is, we have the power of making ourselves feel better. Let that sinkin. It is a pretty amazing ability.

Realistically projecting, assessing the options, then shaping what we can andshould be doing during the various later stages of life's road is the powerfulmental medicine that can cure some of our ills and enhance our pleasures throughlife. Feeling groovy? Well, I do sometimes.

MEET EIGHTY-PLUS YVETTE

Growing up in eastern France, in Lorraine, I had a babysitter who over timepractically became part of the family. In the summers, for example, I used to bepacked off to my grandmother's country farmhouse in Alsace for a month or two,and Yvette did the packing and unpacking and ran daily interference for me withmy stern grandmother ... year after year. Yvette eventually married and had herown son and daughter to look after, and I left home for high school near Bostonand college in Paris and a husband in New York, so we kept in touch mostlythrough my mother and an occasional cup of coffee. Despite that, we stayed closementally. Eventually when my mother "retired" to the South of France, it wasYvette who could be counted on to check in on her and give reliable reports. Andafter her husband passed, she, too, "retired" to the South of France, in hercase to the city of Toulon on the Riviera (home of the Airbus). It seems shefound a wonderful companion and is living life in her eighties to the fullestwith him. They even have a deluxe mobile home to go "camping" at a trailer parkperhaps a half hour from their apartment. Every year now, they make a trip insummer up to my home in Provence for a much-anticipated visit.

Last summer, her delightful companion and her son, Claude, who lives in theextreme north of France, accompanied her. While we were having coffee with apiece of Tropézienne, the to-die-for cake named by Brigitte Bardot (yes, Yvetteand I are both still very gourmandes, but now in moderation), theconversation led to New York as her son had come with his three daughters a fewyears ago and they had all fallen in love with the United States. Yvette said,"You know, Mireille, I am also here to talk about New York, as I really wouldlove to come and visit you there to see the way you live." Then she addedemphatically, "But I would like to do it avant de vieillir [before Iage]." Now that was a statement from someone who is aging with attitude.

Right then and there we settled on the first week of November for a weeklongvisit, displaying a live-life-with-pleasure-and-in-the-present-tense approachthat comes with age. After she left, a thirty-two-year-old woman who was anotherhouseguest said Yvette did not look her age but, more important, did not act herage. And it's true. Yvette has a pleasant way of meeting and looking at you, andher eyes alone project a light and conspiratorial twinkle that tell immediatelythat she loves life and is enjoying every second of it.

A few months later, I e-mailed her son to get some information in order toorganize a visit she would love, and her son confirmed that she is indeed invery good shape, full of life and pep and curiosity, and maintains a good senseof humor. She eats everything, just in smaller portions than she once did, andwhile she could perhaps lose a few pounds, she is comfortable and healthy in herskin. What did she want to do besides see how I live? See a musical and anopera, he shared. Then a few weeks later she added a professional basketballgame to her list. Perhaps there is something to the claim that Madison SquareGarden is the world's most famous arena (and here I thought it was the RomanColosseum). Physical limitations? I asked. She can walk fine, I was told, andthe only thing she has problems with are stairs. Hallelujah. I remindedhim that we have an elevator that goes to the fifteenth floor!

MEET JACK

Jack beat cancer. And he liked to fight gravity. I met Jack early in my publicrelations career in New York. He was our outside printer and would visit twice aweek to work with me on various projects. I never asked his age, but he surelywas in his seventies at the time, and acting forty. One day as he was telling meabout his love of France, I felt comfortable asking what his "recipe" was forhis optimism, energy, and vitality, not to mention his constant nice dispositionand sense of humor. I learned then that he had a bout of cancer in his fiftiesthat was life-changing. Things were not going well with his treatments in NewYork, and he journeyed into alternative medicine and medical treatments outsidethe United States. I remember Mexico was one of the stops. But what he found wasa lifestyle and mental attitude that embraced yoga and holistic healthy eating.It was a long journey for this mostly bald, elfish man from his upbringing inBrooklyn.

What was his recipe? His reply was simple: "I do yoga every morning andparticularly a headstand for twenty minutes ... and I eat healthy." He saw mypuzzled look, and before I knew it he was doing a headstand in my office to myopen-jawed amazement. "Since my mid-fifties," he explained once he was rightside up, "I eat less. I eat meat and fish once a week, and eat mostly grains,eggs, fruits and veggies, good bread, which I make every Saturday" (no WonderBread for Jack). "Baking relaxes me, and the most important is that I eat a lotof soups with lots of spices and herbs and yogurt" (the French woman's staplepar excellence), and which he made himself as he wouldn't buy the supermarket"crap" (his word). Granted, this was before some natural and well-made yogurtswe have today. That said, we now have hundreds of yogurts that Jack and I wouldput in the junk-food category because they contain too much sugar, including insome dreadful corn syrup, often jammy sweet fruit, and preservatives.

I said to him that he was either Buddhist or French in his other life. Heclaimed a mix of both and claimed that since he had reached his mid-fifties andhis cancer did not recur, he had never felt better. I often have the image ofhim in his business suit and tie doing his headstand, and I imagine what wouldhave happened had someone walked into my office, and I crack up. I loved Jackand always looked forward to his visits.

Placebo effect for Jack? In part probably, but it works, and he had the will,the attitude, to live. And, of course, he hit upon yoga and a healthy diet, bothof which were soon to be scientifically proven to facilitate a long life, whichhe enjoyed.

MEET DENISE

Admit it: we all know someone who we secretly wonder if they see what theyreally look like when they look in the mirror.

I have an old school chum, Denise, with whom I spent a lot of time in mytwenties and early thirties. Now I see her perhaps once a year. And each time Iam troubled and concerned by her appearance. Denise really needs to lookobjectively in the mirror. Don't we all? When it is not Halloween and we looklike we are dressed in our Halloween costume, ah, well, it is time to ring thewake-up bell.

Sometimes I wonder: Should I make a recommendation to her about her hair ormakeup? We have lots we can do to challenge our aging bodies and minds toward ahealthier and happier march to the inevitable. I'd just have to figure out howto make a suggestion or two to her nicely. Or maybe she's actually happy withher appearance?

But alas, she does not seem happy. In fact, she seems to have "given up" for noreason I can discern.

Perhaps you've seen the signs of what I mean about "giving up." She wears onlyblack, or very dark-colored, frumpy clothes. She has given up the discreetlipstick and eye shadow that were her accent lights. Her hairstyle is dated andnot flattering. Seeing her conjures up an image in my mind of an old lady out ofsome European photo from the 1940s. I don't want to think that way, but I can'thelp it. And she is not old in the sense that she has decades of life left basedupon her family history and genetics.

With each passing year I am saddened that the gulf between our "attitudes" iswidening. I choose to approach aging with a positive attitude, with a sense ofpurpose and self-appreciation. Her attitude seems to be more along the lines ofaging with apathy.

Am I being critical? Sure, yet realistic, to illustrate a bad case of not seeingoneself and not aging well with attitude. I've worked hard to create a positivemental approach to aging, and I want to protect that. When the women (and men)we surround ourselves with give up, it's depressing to be with them!

Can my old friend be shaken out of her lethargy? Just a few suggestions takenfrom chapters of this book would produce miraculous results. Maybe she willlearn some secrets. But that would require her to see herself, and sometimes itis difficult for some women to face what's in the mirror.

Our female friendships are essential throughout our lives, but as we get olderit's even more imperative to surround ourselves with positivepeople—people who have a similar outlook on life. Remember that old adage"You're only as old as you feel"? Surround yourself with people who are young atheart and take care of themselves, both body and mind ... and watch whathappens. I promise you'll like the results!

FORGET THE SPHINX

How do we help organize our thoughts and actions for aging with attitude? I say,forget the Riddle of the Sphinx, forget crawling, forget walking with a cane,forget classifying old age as the third age of man; it can be depressing anddiverting. For the purposes of this book, here is the classification andorganizational trilogy around which I approach aging with attitude from insideout: mental, physical, and external (appearance is oneof those atypical nouns without an adjective form in English, but here I amthinking externally about the persona, the mask, we put on—theface we put on for the faces we meet). How do we look, appear to ourselves andothers? How do we feel physically, our health scan and beyond? How do we thinkand feel mentally?