Thinking about body projects

Over the past three weeks, I’ve gotten my third tattoo, dyed the ends of my hair blue and had a shady-looking mole removed. I can’t help but think, is this what mid-life looks like?

Or is this what mid-life during a pandemic looks like? Or is there nothing particularly communal about this experience at all and it’s just my own unique weirdness?

I’m not calling it a mid-life crisis. I could be in denial, but I don’t feel particularly anxious or restless or unhappy. This feels less like a crisis and more like finally getting around to some things—like blue hair and tattoos—I’ve wanted for a long time but never been brave enough to do.

Of course, you can’t ignore the fact that I spend most of my working life around people who are between the ages of 18 and 22. They have hair in all sorts of lovely shades of pink and purple and green. They are tattooed and pierced.¹ They are all engaged in their own dynamic, brave and interesting body projects and that feels like something worth imitating.

Mid-life, after all, is at least partly about cultivating a new relationship to your body. As a white, cisgender, able-bodied, mostly healthy, middle class woman, I’ve spent the last 50-ish years of my life taking my body for granted.² Sure, I may have wished I was thinner or taller or had a better smile or that I was shaped differently in various spots. But my body has mostly done what I wanted it to do, even when those things were deeply unhealthy (hello, college!), and with very little complaint. For most of those years, I didn’t spend much time thinking about my body as anything but the house I was living in—imperfect in places, but mostly functional.

This gorgeous tattoo by Maya Zink at Bananafish Tattoo in New Albany

At 47, my body feels more like a person who’s been stuck in the backseat for a long car trip. They’ve been quiet and content for the endless miles and the drab scenery, but now they have some things they need to tell me—things I may not want to hear, specifically to do with my knees and my back. Things that might, in fact, be painful. Also, my body needs to stop for a pee. Frequently.

My body, in other words, has become annoying. It will only let me garden for so long. It can no longer really carry heavy things up the stairs. Running may be totally out of the question. Even staying in bed for too long isn’t always a good idea. This is not to mention the sagging and the wrinkles and all the other mostly cosmetic ways in which my body is letting me down.

Like the weird mole—another bodily disappointment—which appeared overnight, right at the place where my bra strap sits. “You should go get that looked at,” Jeff said, which was helpful, but also, really annoying. Getting it taken off was no big deal. The tattoo hurt more, though the mole caused more anxiety. All three experiences—the tattoo, the mole, the hair—made me think about the intimacy inherent in these interactions.

Here were people—all women—taking care of my body in different ways. They were all body rituals, spaces marked out of normal time. They were beautifying or healing, but they took place in quiet places, removed from the rest of the world. The back room of a medical office, the back room salon of a Main Street building, the quiet first appointment slot in a tattoo parlor. They were blocks of time in which there was nothing else for me to do but be there with my body and these people. There was nothing to do but feel and hear and touch and smell. They were all soothing to varying degrees. And even when they hurt, there was the sense that I was engaged in the interactive work of caring for my body.

This, it occurred to me, is what my cranky, annoying body needs at this age—to be taken care of. This is the body project of middle age. Not to be angry or disappointed or frightened by the not-so-gentle grumblings of your body. But to hold it close and shower it with love and decoration—with whatever feels right to your body.

When I was younger, I could forget about my body, but it was still there and, now, I can’t deny it, though I’ve tried. All the creaks and pops and groans I make when I get up from the couch are my body finding its voice. Asserting its presence. Like the footprint Robinson Crusoe finds on the island he thought he had all to himself, it turns out we’re not alone in this strange, weird life. Our bodies are more than decoration or disappointment. They’re a dear companion, an imperfect friend who will be with us until the end, so we might as well find a way to get along. We might as well take good care of our bodies, celebrate them while we can. Lean into this project. Pay attention to the slow reveal of our infinite frailty.

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Thank you to the folks who responded to my little survey. Wow, your comments were so kind, I had to read them in small doses so as not to be overwhelmed. If you haven’t filled out the survey, you still can, here.

I’ve been participating in a program from Substack for writers and it’s been lovely to discover so many great newsletters out there. Check out Life in the Real World and her post about coots, a weird-looking water bird I’ve never heard of, let alone seen. Also, Isaac Fitzgerald’s amazing, Walk It Off, this week with writer Mira Jacobs. We Have Notes by Abby Gardner is a pop culture round-up and I am there for her post about why we should all love Joe Burrow. If you’re hankering for more sociology, check out Rod Graham’s The Neighborhood Sociologist and this nice post about colorism.

Last winter writing workshop is February 22 and we’re all about love. Get your tickets here.

Thanks as always for reading and sharing and liking and commenting!

1. Piercing is probably where I draw the line. I’ve never had my ears pierced. I missed that boat in my teens, despite an interesting period working for Claire’s (remember those?) in the Florence Mall, a job that ironically involved piercing other people’s ears. It’s not the pain, obviously. Tattoos hurt like a bitch. I just really don’t like the idea of putting piercings in. Too much like having to put a contact in your eye, which I’ve also never done.

2. It is, of course, an incredible privilege to be able to take one’s body mostly for granted. It’s a privilege that many, many people do not have. People with black or brown bodies are not afforded the same luxury, as your body may be seen as dangerous or a target or a sexual object or less than human in ways that are not as true for white folks. It might be true that as a woman, I’ve spent more time thinking about my body than some men, given that women are taught that are bodies are frail, diseased, imperfect, abnormal and generally troublesome.