Ageism is one of the subtlest and sweetest of all the isms, discrimination and dismissal wrapped in a candy shell.
The podiatrist is a few years older than my daughter, is my guess, and I like her because she’s a foot detective, determined to find an explanation for the beat-up third toe on my left foot. Which she does: It’s the longest toe on that foot, and several times a week it gets jammed against my sneaker as I pedal my bike 5 or 7 or 10 miles. All I need are shoes a half size up and some moleskin padding. That’s her prescription. I’ll be fine.
She smiles. “It’s wonderful,” she said, “that you’re still so active.”
Still so active. Not “so active.” Not “active.” Still so active.
Silly me. I’d passed my cycling expiration date and never noticed. I am an anomaly merely by doing what I have always done.
I try to move through the marginalized world of older women with a semblance of grace, so I smiled, thanked her, and thought positive thoughts until I was in the parking lot. Then I considered how her voice had softened into a sing-song, accompanied by a pat-pat-pat on my shoulder, as she shifted from clinician to booster. She thought my diligent attempt to outdistance time on the bike path was cute. She’d code-switched to the type of voice we use with diminutive creatures who amuse and rely on us, like puppies.
She probably didn’t realize what she’d done. That’s becaus ageism is one of the subtlest and sweetest of all the isms, discrimination and dismissal wrapped in a candy shell. And it’s worse for women, who’ve spent a lifetime trying to escape our lesser gender identity — the little woman, the weaker sex — only to find ourselves treated that way again late in the game.
Some will say that this is all in my head, that I’m too sensitive, which is what people usually tell women to dodge whatever we’ve just said. I am at high risk for overreaction, I’ll give you that, because I am small and people too often assume I am less capable than they are because I can’t look at them eye to eye. I wince at the words “petite” and “tiny,” and tend to shoot back, “Not in spirit, I’m not."
A bit hair-trigger, granted — and yet not necessarily wrong. Here is a short list of things I’ve been advised not to do lately, even by people my own age:
▪ Travel to Italy alone.
▪ Rent a car to drive from Florence to Pienza, a city I have never visited, because I feel a compelling need to walk the Path of Art and Soul, see the 28 sculpted benches along its length, and consume a great deal of fresh pecorino cheese at the source.
▪ Ice skate.
▪ Ride my bicycle with no hands.
I am not incautious. I arrived at the car rental office in Florence armed with a sheaf of printed instructions and maps in case there was no English-language GPS, which of course there was. Hertz and the owner of the Airbnb would notice if I didn’t return that evening. My cellphone was fully charged.
I agreed not to skate until the orthopedist said my knee had recovered from a jarring encounter with a piece of sidewalk that gave way.
And I have guardrail rules for no-hands cycling: only on the bike path, never on crowded weekends, not if the winds are high, not if I’ve had a bad day. When the chorus of concern got too loud, I asked the knee doc for his expert opinion. If he thought it was a bad idea, I would give it up, grudgingly.
He said that riding hands-free was in fact a very good idea within the parameters I’d set. I was teaching my brain to balance, training myself to avoid the very falls that plague older people’s waking dreams. He was all for it.
Being brave is not easy — ou should’ve seen my leg tremble when I shifted that rental car into drive — but there’s an imperative at work here. The stakes are high, because in each case — the drive, the hike, the skates, the bike — the question is the same, and definitive. Am I too old to do this anymore?
And the follow-up: Says who?
I hiked for over an hour outside Pienza, got lost twice, doubled back, and finally arrived at the end of the path and the last bench — the 13-foot Guardian of the Valley, whose eternal job is to keep watch over the Val d’Orcia. Then I hiked back down, under his benevolent gaze, because I am, like I said, active.
A couple of months later I was in line at a neighborhood bakery, wearing my Columbia Journalism School baseball cap, a proud souvenir of having taught there for 10 years.
The young guy in front of me took note.
“Are you still a journalist?” he asked.
“I am,” I said.
If he had been wearing the cap, would I have said, “Are you yet a journalist?” No. That would be disrespectful.
Which brings me to a solution. Rather than assume limitations based on age, at either end of the spectrum, we could approach each other with the assumption of competence. How about, “That sounds like an adventure,” in reference to Pienza, rather than “That’s crazy,” which was one of the reactions I got. How about “How’d you learn to do that?” rather than warnings about bike accidents and broken hips.
I may be old, but I’m not stupid. There will come a day when I stop pedaling and skating and traveling alone.
It’ll come. Don’t rush me, is all I ask.
