My Village Life

 I just love the English country life.

In fact, I want to live my life just like those Brits I see on PBS. You know, the ones who live in small picturesque villages shown to best advantage in Midsomer Murders or Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple Mysteries.

They all live in thatched roof cottages or in their manors to which they were born. They all do their shopping on the High Street. There is no trace of a supermarket to be seen. You see the high and the low meeting in shops or singing in the choir or going to bell ringing practice. They organize jumble sales and have fetes on the Village Green where they sell dilapidated castoffs to each other in the name of charity.

They hang out in incredibly charming pubs with very low ceilings where they drink dark beer served at room temperature. There is also a lot of sherry consumed, which I could do without, but the Vicar serves it in his book-lined study while listening to someone who prays for forgiveness for wanting to kill a neighbor.

Most of them show no visible signs of earning a living. They are artists or botanists or writers. They spend their time working in their gorgeous gardens and know the Latin names of every plant.

Or they are retired with plenty of time to spend snooping around and spying on each other.

Some even have telescopes hidden behind chintz curtains.

If anything goes wrong - for instance, a body is discovered in the library – they ask for a stiff drink and beautiful cut glass decanters emerge from mahogany chests full of whiskey or gin.

They do seem to kill each other at rather alarming frequency and ingenuity. It’s an integral part of their charm.

They always seem to be eating or drinking something - pints of bitter and a ploughman’s lunch at pubs, or fairy cakes and cream teas in quaint little teashops. An occasional drop of poison keeps them on their toes.

Little old ladies are quite important in theses villages.  They knit, garden like mad and know absolutely everything about everyone. There was one old lady, I can’t remember the show, who I have taken as a role model for my future when I get old. She rides about her village on a tricycle with a cute little basket on the handlebars. She keeps her shopping and a little dog in it.

She looks so happy and self-sufficient. Never mind that she gets murdered in the first 15 minutes. 

All I need is one of those three wheelers and old ladyhood will be a breeze. My corner of New York will be just like an English village. Haven’t I always heard that NYC neighborhoods are like small self-contained towns?  Of course I will have to ignore the 15 story buildings like mine, but I can pedal around the neighborhood on my tricycle, say hello to anyone who looks amenable as I do my errands and look for anything suspicious all in one fell swoop.

I couldn’t have a dog because the stores here wouldn’t let the poor thing in no matter how cute it would be. And I’d need a huge chain to lock the trike up in front of each store I enter, but I can just picture myself in a straw hat in the summer and ancient tweeds in the winter.  Maybe I’ll buy a pair of Wellingtons.

I’ll discuss the weather with Byron, our doorman, who should have a little gray hair himself by the time I get old. I’ll hop on my trike and take off for the post office or library. I'll stop off at the housewares shop and pick up a large vicious looking carving knife just to keep in the little old English lady spirit.

I’ll visit the florist for some advice about my African violets and a fresh bottle of weed killer. He probably doesn't sell arsenic, so the weed killer will have to do. It could go nicely in a kitchen cabinet beside the lye and the drain cleaner.

Since we don't have a teashop nearby and Starbucks isn’t known for seating space, I’ll pedal over to the pastry shop across from St John the Divine. Too bad its Hungarian but awfully good so I'll just have to  pretend I am eating a scone.

Good luck that the cathedral is Episcopal and the garden is quite English. I wonder if anything interesting is buried there? There are even two peacocks wondering around.

Since I’ll be an old lady, I won’t even notice the absence of pubs in the area.

Occasionally, I’ll rush home to prepare tea for a few friends. I’ll take out all the knickknacks I can find and cover all the end tables with them to give the apartment the proper cottagey air.

I’ll serve the pastries I bought, but I will have to run back out for the right kind of bread for cucumber sandwiches. I’m sure there is a recipe in one of my cookbooks.

A tablecloth and napkins will be needed and I’ll put out flowered cups and saucers and clean up that old teapot in the back of the closet. The tea will taste a little odd so everyone will be a bit nervous. That would be fun.

I recently purchased a book about poisons on Amazon.com. I’ll leave it lying about in a conspicuous place.

If anyone goes in the kitchen they will certainly notice the big knife I just bought lying on the counter. A little ketchup on the floor will make a nice touch.

We will exchange newsy tidbits and gossip about our neighbors.

Since I refuse to play bridge, I may suggest we play poker or a game of Clue.  

We could solve a murder.

Or plan one.

Ah yes. Life could be quite British.

That Woman at the General Store

At first I was sort of appalled: “Look at that woman getting out of her car over there,” I said to myself.  “She has to be at least my age and she is walking right into the store in her bathing suit!”

And the real kicker?  “She looks perfectly at ease.”

I almost dropped my ice cream cone.

“God, imagine having that kind of nerve!”….

And then it came to me, not a lightning bolt, maybe a pinch in the shoe: Who was the person with the problem in this little summer scene in the parking lot of a Georgetown Island general store in Maine?

It just might have been me.

Yeah, I have succumbed big time to age embarrassment. Tank tops have disappeared from my wardrobe. My preference for black clothing has gotten out of control.

And I haven’t worn a bathing suit since my first social security check arrived.

Why am I so out of sorts with my body? That's easy, my body is showing the signs of its years.

And I am pissed.

But aside from exercise, diet and prayer – is it even right to pray for a decent body?  – There isn’t much I can do about gravity.

I’m not an optimist. I do not subscribe to positive thinking. In fact positive thinking makes me cranky and irritable.

So don't tell me how great I should feel about being alive etc. I am grateful but still put out about developing an appearance that is looks more and more alarmingly like my mother in her later years.

And I am actually outraged that it is happening to me.

A few weeks ago, I noticed an article in the New Yorker about the philosopher, Martha Nussbaum. I had never heard of her, but in the picture she looked as though she was no more a spring chicken than I. Skimming the article a sentence caught my eye: it went something like “Remember how 40 years ago the book Our Bodies Ourselves inspired us to get past body hatred and accept all the ugly parts we were ashamed of? But now that we are in our sixties we are disgusted again.”  

I was late for something so I put the magazine down. I thought how wonderful. She is going to discuss the problems we women have with accepting our aging bodies.

For several days I couldn't find the magazine. It had disappeared into the ether of my apartment. As I searched, I tried to imagine what Ms. Nussbaum would say. Would she mention that in some societies it is possible to be beautiful at any age? And that the French have an appreciation for the jolie laide – the ugly beautiful?

Would she show me how to live in the moment? Maybe I would even learn how to look at the positive not the negative. I would learn to do the best with what I’ve got, as some character in a bygone Disney movie directed.

Or just learn not to give a damn.

I finally found the magazine and rushed to the article only to find that there was no discussion of aging at all. The sentence about Our Bodies Ourselves was the end of it. I reread the entire article to make sure.

I was upset. Where was the outline, the plan for me to follow? The answers I was seeking weren’t going to be given to me.

What about all those thoughts and feelings I had while looking for the article? Were they a waste?

Finally it came to me that maybe I don't need Ms. Nussbaum to think it out for me.

Obviously the lady at the General Store didn't.

Besides my mom was always beautiful.