Nigella, Nanna and the Art of Growing Old
Sometimes, there is such delicious irony in life! Just when you think you’ve acquired a little wisdom and perspective, along comes a six-year-old to deliver a reality check with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Last Saturday, my granddaughter, who has recently developed something of a fascination with The Great British Bake Off, called me, with her daddy alongside her, to ask a question that had clearly been troubling her. Why, she wanted to know, did Nigella Lawson look so much younger than me when Nigella was actually two years older? Ouch! Out of the mouths of babes, indeed! I managed what I considered to be a reasonably dignified response, explaining that Nigella had the benefit of professional make-up artists, television lighting and an entirely different set of circumstances from those in which her Nanna generally conducts her daily life. I might have added that Nigella probably doesn’t spend quite so much time contemplating the balance between being a full-time working celebrant, and managing the mortgage, as she lives in her five million pound pink mews house in London; nor does she try to remember why she walked into the kitchen in the first place. But I resisted. Just.
The delicious irony of this exchange wasn’t lost on me because, six years ago, in October 2020, I wrote a blog entitled Botticelli Babes and Carnal Cooks, exploring the nature of female beauty, desirability and the extraordinary ways in which women are judged, objectified and commoditised. And who should feature rather prominently in that piece? Nigella Lawson! Clearly, that woman and I have unfinished business, although I suspect she remains blissfully unaware of our ongoing relationship.
In that earlier reflection, I compared myself rather unfavourably with Botticelli’s Venus, that ethereal creature emerging from her shell with her milky complexion, flowing hair and serene expression. I concluded that, measured against such an ideal, I was forever doomed. I also considered Nigella, whose sensuality and physical beauty have become almost as much a part of her public identity as her culinary talents, and questioned why women should be expected to conform to somebody else’s idea of attractiveness or, indeed, be condemned for possessing and expressing their own sexuality. I was particularly struck by an interview in which Nigella, challenged about the suggestiveness of her television presentation, observed that people were projecting things onto her. And isn’t that precisely what we do? We project our expectations, fantasies, prejudices and insecurities onto other people, particularly women, and then judge them according to standards they may never have chosen for themselves.
I ended that blog by suggesting that beauty was about the whole person, not simply a face or a body, and that I wanted to be seen and valued for myself rather than hawked around like a commodity. Six years later, my granddaughter’s innocent question has brought me back to much the same territory, although the landscape has changed rather considerably. These days, I find myself thinking less about being desirable and rather more about the peculiar business of remaining visible at all.
When I was next with my granddaughter on my usual Nanna duty day, we talked a little more about ageing, and I told her about my own mother, who wore a wig for the final twelve years of her life and who, even at the age of 87, while she still retained her cognitive faculties, continued to purchase anti-wrinkle cream. There is something both touching and faintly absurd about that. At 87, with nearly nine decades of living written into her face, my mother was still investing in the possibility that a little pot of something might persuade time to reverse its course. But perhaps it wasn’t absurd at all. Perhaps it was about dignity, pride, familiarity or simply the desire to recognise the woman she had always been. Perhaps applying that cream was a small daily act of defiance against the relentless changes that ageing brings. Who am I to say? I certainly don’t judge her for it, although I can’t help wondering whether the cosmetics industry deserves some sort of award for persuading women that wrinkles remain an emergency even when they are approaching ninety.
I explained to my granddaughter that I have made a conscious decision to grow older as naturally as I can. That doesn’t mean I have suddenly become immune to vanity, far from it! I still enjoy looking nice, wearing clothes that suit me and making an effort, and I certainly don’t consider myself morally superior to anyone who chooses cosmetic procedures, hair colouring, expensive creams or any other means of holding back the years. We all negotiate our relationship with the mirror differently, and I respect that. But I don’t particularly want to spend the years I have left apologising for the fact that I have lived them. My wrinkles have been earned, some through laughter, some through anxiety, some through grief and no doubt rather too many through my youthful disregard for the dangers of sunshine. They are part of my history, and I am increasingly reluctant to regard them as defects requiring correction.
This conversation also reminded me of a project I wrote some years ago when I was working for Lifewise, an online PSHE resource supporting children’s mental health and wellbeing. I developed an entire educational project about ageism, exploring the way older people were portrayed in television advertising and the messages children might absorb, often without anyone consciously intending to teach them. Once you start looking, the stereotypes are everywhere. The bewildered elderly person unable to operate modern technology, the frail grandparent whose primary function is to require assistance, the older person presented as forgetful, incompetent, helpless or hopelessly out of touch. Of course, some older people are frail, some require considerable support and some live with dementia or disabilities that make everyday life enormously challenging. But that is not the sum total of ageing, and when these images become the dominant narrative, what exactly are we teaching our children?
Are we suggesting that usefulness has an expiry date? That independence, attractiveness, intelligence and relevance belong primarily to the young? That older people are a burden upon society rather than an integral and valuable part of it? You can probably imagine what I think of that! What particularly troubles me about ageism is that, unlike many other prejudices, it is directed towards a group that most of us hope eventually to join. We are, in effect, cultivating contempt for our future selves, and doing so with remarkable enthusiasm. My granddaughter’s question about Nigella was entirely innocent and without malice, but I wonder whether it offers a tiny glimpse into how early we begin to absorb the idea that looking younger is somehow preferable to looking our age. She was simply observing a difference and asking for an explanation, but why should looking younger be considered the prize in the first place?
Then, on Friday, something happened that gave me an entirely different perspective on the whole business. I was conducting the funeral of a family friend when I encountered a man I hadn’t seen for more than forty years. In his twenties he had been extraordinarily handsome, and although I remembered him well, I didn’t recognise him at first. Four decades had done what four decades inevitably do; the face had changed, the youthful features had softened and the years had left their unmistakable signature. But then he smiled, and there it was! That twinkle in his eyes, that cheeky smile and the sparkling personality I remembered so vividly. Suddenly, the years simply dissolved and the young man was standing right there in front of me. We laughed about the extraordinary fact that we both still felt about twenty in our heads, despite the rather compelling evidence to the contrary.
I found that encounter unexpectedly moving, perhaps because funerals have a way of sharpening our awareness of time and the fragility of life, or perhaps because forty years is a considerable portion of anyone’s existence. But mostly, I think, because it reminded me that the essence of a person can survive extraordinary physical transformation. The humour, the warmth, the mischief, the particular way someone inhabits the world, can remain wonderfully familiar even when the face has become almost unrecognisable. How strange it is that the person looking out through our eyes can feel so unchanged when the person looking back at us from the mirror has become something of a stranger. And yet, in that moment, I wasn’t seeing an older man whose youthful good looks had faded; I was seeing someone whose personality had effortlessly rewound the clock.
This weekend, I came across a reflection by Sahan Vishvajith drawing upon the Buddhist imagery of a snake shedding its skin. In the ancient Uraga Sutta, the discarded skin becomes a metaphor for relinquishing the attachments that cause us suffering. Applied to ageing, the suggestion is that we make ourselves miserable by clinging to the people we once were, measuring ourselves against the physical attractiveness, energy, achievements and expectations of our younger selves. There is considerable wisdom in that. The younger me certainly had fewer wrinkles and much better knees, but was she wiser, happier or better equipped to deal with life’s challenges? Absolutely not! She hadn’t yet learned the lessons that life would teach her, sometimes gently and sometimes with quite breathtaking brutality, and I wouldn’t surrender those lessons for a smoother forehead. Well, not on most days!
But something about this interpretation troubled me. It suggested that becoming invisible to society might actually be a gift, freeing us from the need for approval and allowing us to retreat from the expectations of others. I can see the appeal of no longer feeling obliged to impress everyone, but why should older people be expected to fade quietly into the background? There is a world of difference between choosing not to seek validation and being denied recognition. I am perfectly happy to shed some of the insecurities and expectations that once constrained me, but I have absolutely no intention of shedding my relevance! Perhaps the real gift of growing older isn’t invisibility but freedom; the freedom to be ourselves without constantly worrying about what others think.
Nor do I believe we entirely shed our former selves. The young woman I once was still lives within me, alongside the mother, daughter, friend and professional woman, each shaped by experiences, relationships, mistakes and moments of extraordinary joy. They are not discarded skins but layers of a life. The man I met at the funeral reminded me of that. His youthful face had disappeared, but his twinkle hadn’t, and isn’t that rather wonderful? Perhaps the most enduring qualities we possess are those that cannot be captured in a photograph: humour, kindness, curiosity, courage and a little mischief. None has an expiry date, and some become richer with age.
My mother was still buying anti-wrinkle cream at 87, and I wonder whether my granddaughter’s generation will inherit those same anxieties. I hope she grows up understanding that beauty isn’t a competition between generations, that Nigella can be beautiful at her age and Nanna can be perfectly comfortable at hers. That a face marked by years of living isn’t a failed version of a younger face, and that growing older isn’t some unfortunate deviation from the natural order of things. It is the natural order of things and, given the alternative, something of a privilege! Of course, I don’t expect a six-year-old to appreciate all this just yet. She’s far more interested in cakes, and quite rightly so. But perhaps our conversations will plant a few seeds.
And so I find myself returning to that encounter at the funeral, two people whose faces had changed beyond recognition but who still felt twenty in their heads. Perhaps the serpent does have something to teach us about letting go, but I don’t intend to disappear with the discarded skin. I still want to grow, contribute, love, question and occasionally be thoroughly outrageous. If the world fails to notice me, perhaps I’ll simply have to make a little more noise. After all, I’ve spent a lifetime acquiring opinions, and it would be a terrible waste not to use them!
This reflection was inspired by a conversation with my granddaughter, an unexpected reunion after forty years and a piece by Sahan Vishvajith drawing on the Buddhist imagery of the serpent shedding its skin in the Uraga Sutta. It also revisits themes I explored in my October 2020 blog, Botticelli Babes and Carnal Cooks.