Talking turkey (neck)
If you're like me, you've got a lot on your mind. Likely you're sporting an ill-fitting bra, your past lives are a mess, your bunions are burgeoning, your wellness level is less than copacetic, and, if you were to stand inside a glass box in the Costco parking lot, people might make less than flattering guesses about your "real" age.
A few years ago, author and screenwriter Nora Ephron brought international attention to yet another crisis with her bestseller I Feel Bad About My Neck. Her neck! Before the book came out, I'd never even noticed mine, preoccupied as I was with more traditional trouble spots, such as varicose veins and what some affectionately call the "menopot." I await the sequel: I Feel Bad About My Jowls? I Feel Bad About My Elbows? (Actually, Ms. Ephron is concerned about her elbows, and thanks God for putting them on the backs of her arms rather than the front.) But it's ridiculous, isn't it, this hyper-vigilant and superficial self-critique? What would those freckly Dove gals say? What would our grandmothers say? I Feel Bad About My Crippling Arthritis? I Feel Bad About My Glaucoma? My own grandmother's glaucoma got so bad that she couldn't even see her neck, lucky old girl. Plus, bent in half as she was from osteoarthritis, nobody else could see her neck either, not the front of it, anyway.
That's the secret, says my friend Jan: You just don't look. Having recently turned 50, Jan has banned side views completely, this following an accidental and magnified glimpse of her profile while shopping the cosmetics counter. While most of that frantic phone call now escapes me, two words remain: "folds" and "alligator." Says Jan: "I don't ever need to see that again." I'd like to say that I am similarly cavalier, that when I came across Ephron's book, I muttered to myself, "I Feel Bad About My Neck indeed," adjusted my scarf and decided there were more important issues for my attention. Denial, however, is not for everyone.
