Revisiting Harold and Maude

I've watched this quirky movie, my all-time favorite, half a dozen times since it was released in 1971. I saw the film again recently, and my, my, my, how times have changed. My times, that is. Actress Ruth Gordon was 75 when she starred as its eccentric life-affirming and hilarious heroine. For the film's purposes, she turned 80 as the story evolved.

When I first saw the film—and my pretty little unlined face ached from laughing—I was 27.  I don't remember the other times I saw it, but I'm certain that I still regarded 80 as a distant impossible-to-reach and hideous age. The difference between earlier viewings and seeing the film now? I identify with Maude! And 80? Considering how times jets past, that "impossible age" is just around the bend.

Maude used to look "old" to me. She was a fabulous person trapped in wrinkles and sags. I loved her spirit and verve, her outrageous antics and her gentle but over-the-top handling of the suicide-staging teen played by Bud Cort.

In my twenties, Maude was wonderful but old. End of story. I could not relate. Upon my most recent viewing, I admired Maude's youthfulness, although I did note that someone supposedly on the cusp of 80 with nary a gray hair is using hair dye, a perfectly acceptable tool to chisel a few years off her appearance. (Hair Dye, the Fall Garden, and the Cruel March of Time) Overall, though, it was, and is, unsettling to face the fact that at 68, I am cruising the last third of my life, fast approaching the age that Ruth Gordon was when she was so wondrous in Harold and Maude.

Longevity runs in my family. My father died at 93 and my mom is nearly 98. She's still doing relatively well, by the way, and I would not be surprised if she reaches 100+. Her heart, lungs, blood work, blood pressure, thyroid, etc. etc. are nearly perfect. She has but one mild (and generic) prescription drug. However, she's almost blind, essentially deaf, can't walk, and needs assistance with the "activities of daily living." Her mind is good (mild dementia only). She is sweet and funny and I love her, but I am not sure I want to go there.

Maude was POSITIVE she didn't want to go there. She knew she was going to die before she got too  decrepit—on her 80th birthday to be exact. She knew because she'd been saving the pills and calculating the time it would take for the pills to ease her into forever.  Since she knew when and how she was going to go, she didn't worry about it, and every moment was a joy. She was in control. She didn't give a damn about what people thought or what was legal or illegal or why anyone should try to stop her from liberating a city tree and relocating it to the forest whilst careening down the middle of the highway in a stolen truck. Maude embraced life so thoroughly it was breathtaking. And also inspirational.

I know better than anyone that I need to get over mourning my lost youth and and my disappeared middle age and proceed with the rest of my life. But here's something nobody ever tells you about getting older: age does not necessarily impart wisdom, nor does it bestow acceptance of the inevitable.

I've discovered, at all the milestones, that I have to figure out again how to be OK, or even happy, with the person that aging has delivered to my mirror. Every birthday presents a new challenge about "how should I live" more than "how should I look." Because there comes a time when, without spending thousands on having "work" done, everything is going to sag. I have friends who are "spending the thousands," or contemplating doing so. I'm not going there, either. One thing I have figured out is that physical decline and "beauty down the tubes" is inevitable and a nip here and tuck there isn't going to matter the least in the end.

I'm figuring out now how to think about being almost 70, which is "terribly strange" as Simon and Garfunkel observed in their wonderful song, Old Friends.  That song brought tears in my twenties and it still does. How bittersweet that I've become reconnected with a dear friend from that period of my life, the person I imagined I'd be sitting on the park bench with in my old age. Marcy's turning 70 this year. Unbelievable. (It would be difficult to find a person with more vitality than Marcy Tilton. She's a top-selling Vogue pattern designer, entrepreneur, and "everyday creative." Check her out.) She also tears up on Old Friends, by the way.

Am I stockpiling sedatives? No. Not yet. And even if I did, 80 is too young. I now have friends who are 80, or almost 80. They're not even close to doing "a Maude." I guess I should take a lesson from my mother, LaVone. Even though she can hardy see or hear, can't walk and so on, she still takes pleasure in life. Somehow.

My mom greeting her new great granddaughter, Hadley Rose.
She was seriously delighted by the baby.

When she was my age, a mere 68, my mom was still active in church, walked the neighborhood with friends, played bridge, did all sorts of intricate crafts, cooked up a storm, read books and magazines daily, traveled with my father, and was always making something or doing something for family. Had she known that she would live another 30+ years and be so diminished, I wonder what she would have said or done or thought.

I'm wondering the same about myself.

Mom with some of her family in June, 2013.

Note: If you've never seen Harold and Maude, you must. No matter your age. Here's some info from Wikipedia.