Aging Gracefully

In his review of Louis Begley’s new novel, (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/books/review/schmidt-steps-back-by-louis-begley.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=ron%20carlson&st=cse), the third in which Albert Schmidt, now 78, is the central character, Ron Carlson quotes a line from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s notebooks, “No such thing as graceful old age.”  Fitzgerald’s perspective was skewed, since he died at 44.  Perhaps he would have changed his mind had he been privileged to become old.

One hears often enough that an individual is (or is not) aging gracefully, but until I read Carlson’s review, I’d not thought much about what it means.  Albert Schmidt, the protagonist of Begley’s novel, has, according to the reviewer, aged gracefully.  A rich, retired lawyer who lives in the Hamptons and oversees the philanthropic foundation of an even richer friend, he’s fallen in love with the widow of a former colleague.  Schmidt is “capable of a sobering empathy,” writes the reviewer, “has a withering understanding of the recent Bush regime, knows how to prepare a martini and sends his retired cleaning ladies an annual check.”  None of these qualifications is essential for graceful aging, of course, not even being rich, although surely that helps.  The point, it seems to me, is that Schmidt fully participates in life.  What matters to him, writes the reviewer, “is love, self, gossip, philosophy, insult, rivalry, mortality and yes, kindness and grace.”

But there’s more to aging gracefully than continuing to engage in the world outside oneself.  Those who age gracefully do not rail against the limitations that age imposes.  They do not try to appear younger than they are, nor do they pretend that their strength is undiminished.  Gracefully aging women do not dress in the fashion of the young nor do they plaster their faces with makeup in an effort to conceal the ravages of age.  Gracefully aging men do not employ combovers nor do they marry women who are their daughters’ contemporaries.  Those who age gracefully, in other words, accept themselves for what they are.  This is a formula not only for graceful aging but for graceful living as well.