Old is the new old

When I was about 17, I worked in a drugstore as a clerk. One day a little girl bought a chocolate bar or something, and her mother said to her, "Pay the lady." I looked around, wondering who she was talking about, and then realized the lady was me. It was a shock to be referred to with a distinctly adult term (disregarding the connotations of the word "lady" for a young feminist, which was a whole other story). A few years later, when I was about 20, a friend my age told me that an older friend of his had referred to me as "an interesting woman," and the putative compliment went unnoticed as I contemplated the fact that I was now a "woman" and not a girl. I think I squirmed a little, but also felt a tad proud, if a bit of an impostor. I may have been all grown up, but I didn't feel it.

Miraculously, I seem to have made it to the age of 52, but in the past few months strangers have taken me to be the mother of three different friends of mine, two of them older than I. And last weekend, someone assumed I was my mother's sister (not a rare occurrence, actually). The next day, I was walking in a park holding my father's hand when a small child on a small bicycle veered toward us, out of control. "Watch out for the old people!" shouted his dad.

I always knew that my mature appearance as a teenager, then an advantage, would eventually turn into a nuisance. In fact, I remember a nurse assuming I was my sister's mother when I wasn't more than 30 and she 25.

But I know that illness has aged me a great deal in the past year. (Please, no reassuring comments: I'm not fishing, just musing about the fascinating, if disheartening or at least bewildering, changes we all go through). And it's not just sagging eyelids and the usual wrinkles, and the middle-aged weight gain (I've actually lost 10 pounds since last year); my missing eyebrows contribute to the senior-citizen look. (At least the whiskers on my chin have disappeared for the time being.) Worse, I think, is the dowager's hump. Which leaves me with the question: should I have the spinal surgery if the pain is not debilitating? Will I be doing it mostly for cosmetic reasons? I have always had a superstitious conviction that any surgery I have in order to look better will lead to some catastrophe.

In the meantime, I have felt better in the past week than I have in a long time. The effects of the chemo have finally left my body (with the exception that my fingernails are looking weirder and weirder), and the effects of the radiation have yet to begin. I'm not out of breath, and my back feels much better again, and I'm able to get around the city independently in a way that makes me rejoice -- haven't taken any codeine in over a week. And the weather continues to be cool and relatively dry.

Pollyanna moments:

• I got to meet oncologist, comedian, writer and famous atheist Dr. Robert Buckman, who leads a cancer support group discussion on Thursday afternoons at Princess Margaret Hospital -- he's a funny and funny-looking man with a real gift for supportive honesty. Though I did feel a chill as I stepped off the elevator to attend the group and realized I was in the palliative care unit where my dear friend Adele stayed for a while toward the end of her life. Surely I was not headed in this direction anytime soon, I thought; I feel so well! But I'm doing a good job of not looking toward the future anymore. It's like a blank to me.
• I attended the final presentation of the weeklong children's circus camp at the Centre of Gravity circus training studio around the corner from my house. It was a hoot to see little kids on the trapeze, etc., including a certain young Natalie.
• Stratford was a wonderful break, especially the Shakespeare Gardens, a picnic with friends and my mom on the Avon River, Colm Feore's wonderful Cyrano, and the muscular dancing in West Side Story. Also had a great picnic with my mom and dad in Waterloo Park in Waterloo, a lovely place I hadn't visited before.
• Yesterday I got a huge laugh watching a squirrel running up a tree with a whole slice of pizza in his mouth.

Just now my neighbours and I all just stuck our heads out our front doors, mystified by the tremendous crash we just heard -- it sounded like someone's house had collapsed. But it was thunder, louder than any of us had ever heard, all the louder because it was preceded by not a single preliminary rumble.