Reduction and Roux
Roux: In cooking, the addition of browned butter (or other fat) and flour to the broth to produce a thickening.
My darling Susie phoned yesterday to catch up. We've been friends since 1971, and, although we often have to make do with email headlines informing each other of major life events, we plunged as usual into one of those hour-long, deeply satisfying, conversations about what really matters the most. We've shared a profession and have hashed over all the milestones of our lives since our mid-twenties. When she called, I had been pondering the effects of aging on personality and character...I likened it to reduction. Being Susie, she had it in a flash, and we agreed: we, and everyone we know in our age group, have all been cooked down to essences of ourselves. Depending on the original ingredients, the results may be palatable or they may not. Lately, I've been getting a peculiar taste in my own mouth.
In men, we observed gleefully, a definite thickening of personality occurs. Something sort of congeals. Or, as William James put it, "Habit is the enormous flywheel of society...It dooms us all to fight out the battle of life upon the lines of our nurture or our early choice," until "our character has set like plaster and will never soften again." We women, however, are spared this emotional atherosclerosis; it's the fairer sex, we rush to assure ourselves, that researchers refer to when they speak of personalities that continue to develop, mature, and deepen throughout old age. We gals are spared all that nasty ossification. Right, ladies?
Susie and I agree that the feminine benefit is all due to our pumped up corpus colossi. I love my girlfriend. She knows how to turn any serious discussion into another chance to laugh at ourselves. We're both veterans of the first wave of Women's Lib. And we've both grown up in the aftermath, where we have had to figure out how to be married and raise kids with the "enemy." She knows just how to guy-bash in one breath and ask respectfully after my DH in the next. We further both agree that Freud had been hitting the coke pipe when he proclaimed that a woman, by the age of thirty, "often frightens us by her psychical rigidity and unchangeability." Freud is the easiest guy of all to bash. James probably had Freud in mind when he drew his conclusions about men. Neither one of those old paragons of psychology, Freud or James, thought much of our chances of sporting attractive personalities in our sixties. Throw in a little roux around our midsections and the outlook ain't pretty.
First, what I realize is that I notice the manifestation of my own personality more. I see myself making this face, turning that way, saying this or that thing with a certain inflection, and it's as if I am observing someone else, an other. It's not the occurrence, but the frequency that's noteworthy and different. Heretofore, I largely inhabited my personality and observed it occasionally; now, I observe my personality often and almost never remember giving me permission to act like... that! Do we gain in self-control or do we become more impulsive with age? Both at the same time in one person? I huff and I puff and I blow the house down. There is a gnashing of teeth and a wringing of hands. And, to be fair to me, there's also, often simultaneously, more words bitten back, more delay between the notion and the action. I wonder if this is a typical effect of aging...or have I just been meditating too long? I seem bigger inside my shell , as if it can't contain me (shoe size?), and something shrinks, too (courage?). I've been reviewing the psychology and literature on this for the past few days and there's no agreement. So, I'm asking you, Dear Reader.
Secondly, (in addition to channeling my mother, which must be perfectly normal, since every woman I know makes the same complaint) my traits seem drawn in caricature, both larger and bolder than I'd previously suspected. Over the years, I notice that I grow from a little introspective to quite pensive; from a tad introverted to nearly isolationist; from possessing a small, dry wit, to being quite the wag. I noticed this in my parents, this broadening of personality. Their sweetnesses became sweeter and what were irritants to them became more irritating...or was that me, aging along with them?
Finally, I notice that I'm less inclined toward those things that the world calls trouble. "Early to bed and early to rise" is easy. "Waste not, want not" is a piece of cake. A bird in the hand...a stitch in time...beauty is only skin deep...ask not what your country can do for you...oh, wait, that was the healthcare post. Do I only imagine that I'm better at keeping my mouth shut or am I heading for The Fruitcake Lady. I can't decide whether I shall like this aging me more or find her a fool from whom I can get no relief. Whichever, I certainly have a lot of strong opinions about me all of a sudden.
Confucius said, "At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of heaven. At sixty, I heard them with a docile ear. At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right." Hoo, boy, that's a party just waiting to happen.
In his book Aging Well, George Vaillant offers this caveat to his conclusions on personality development in late age,
One life stage is not better or more virtuous than another. Adult development is neither a footrace nor a moral imperative. It is a road map to help us make sense of where we and where our neighbors might be located. It also contributes to our "wholeness" from which our word "health" is derived. In old age there are many losses and these may overwhelm us if we have not continued to grow beyond ourselves.
I think Susie is just as sweet as she ever was. And funnier. Sometimes more worried... and often, less. Me, I can't figure yet. Where are you heading? Spill it.
[image: http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:EJhRK3E9rVSc2M:http://www.swe.org/iac/images/B]
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3 comments:
This post certainly bears re-reading.
In precisely two weeks, I shall hopefully celebrate thirty years of marriage. We plan to do so at the site of our honeymoon. Sort of.
For years and years, my wife insisted that we had spent part of our honeymoon at the Biltmore House, near Asheville, NC. Embarrassingly, I had no recollection. My excuse was that on our honeymoon we were both quite ill, and on codeine just to make it through the ceremony without coughing. Still, it was a sore point.
In recent years, as we've grown more and more comfortable, two things have happened (among a myriad of other changes...). First, she had gradually weakened on her insistence that we stayed at the Biltmore House. Second, I correspondingly eased on my demand that it was anything close to an issue.
So, the reality is: we never stayed there, (though she apparently did with an earlier boyfriend). And, I could genuinely not care less. Now, we can both laugh.
And look forward to spending our thirtieth anniversary there in two weeks.
Growing old is a challenge. But a sweet one if you are lucky.
jack,
I like the subtlety of this story. May you both remember this anniversary vividly in the years to come...and for all the best reasons.
Thank you for commenting. You are always welcome here.
Roux is the basis of many fine things, esp. a great gumbo, a divine bouillabaisse - the best food I ever had. It's hard for me to accept that I have been reduced to a roux; I'd prefer to consider myself more like a huge pot of soup or a very fine armadillo chili. A fine blend of all the great spices, a richness that is filling and warm and there's plenty for everybody.
I find the older I get, the more my younger friends use me as a sounding board. They're mostly interested in their day-to-day lives and the respective drama (reduction) with good reason. Thus my role is not so much of sharing experiences but simply listening to theirs; similar to the way my mother listened to my ravings. I'm OK with that 1) I can appreciate what my mother did for me and 2) because I find the friends are nearer to my age do and can share our present lives and past lives on common ground and 3) my desire to listen deepens the friendship. Talk about words bitten back. I hope things like courage aren't shrinking. More likely the opposite - the courage to be honest, forthright, and yet empathetic.
Just because I may be starting to look like a roux doesn't mean that my being has. And I congealed some years ago. Rumor has it that Sherlock Holmes also used cocaine but most of us tend to love him in spite of it. I look forward to seeing Robert Downey, Jr. play this part - how apropo.
Mirabile dictu Saint Dymphna.
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