The Body Beautiful

...even in old age???

Hello friends!

I hope your week has been a good one. I’ve been ridiculously busy at the school where I work. Who knew that the cold, wet weather would turn students into ravenous beasts? We just can’t keep up with their appetites! 250 cheesies at recess - along with all the other delicious hot food offered for their happy consumption.

Not sure what a cheesy is?

Cheesies. I can see you drooling.

Hot dog buns cut in half, scattered with tasty cheese, and baked until they’re bubbly and golden. Try making 25 trays of these babies. Every. Day.

That’s a lot of cheese!!

Anyway, I’m not here to chat with you about cheese today, although it is a delicious side-quest, and it may get a mention.

For a number of weeks now I’ve been thinking about how our bodies change over the years, especially for us women. I work with a couple of young women and the agony they go through every month when their periods come brings back so many very unpleasant memories. It seems cruel that we go through those monthly drains on our iron stores, every month, every year, until we get pregnant. Then we have cessation for nine months, pop out a bub, and off we go again. Month after month, year after year. Unless, like me, you have major problems in that department and have it all surgically removed. Best thing I ever did.

I want to share a poem with you this week. I wrote it many years ago, and it’s published in an anthology I did in 2007 with my writers group of the time, the Shoalhaven Branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers.

the body beautiful

the body beautiful

the babe in the belly

the boobs that don’t fit the bra

-the appetite averaging an adult ape

the behaviour befitting a broody beast

the bulky, bulging belly

the blooming bump which begins like a barnacle, buried

beneath the bodice of Belle

-unseen, unsighted, unless unveiled under an ultrasound

becoming barmy with bibs and booties

bare breast feeding and bladder control

the bairn sends a barrage of baloney to the brain

-the nameless need to renew the nursery

beware the birth

the brontosaurus-like bellow

the banshee banter of beautiful Belle

-the pain of pushing a pumpkin through a puny passage

biology bodes the bodily bubble must burst

the babe be born

the beloved first bleat within the blue blanket

-the fuzzy head and familiar face finally fondled

a bona fide baby

a biped brat

he’ll be bound to burp

his bare bum to be bathed

-numerous nappies needed; noisy nocturnal nuisance

Belle’s boobs will become big barrel-like baubles

she will blub between bed, bleeding and bosom

she is the bearer of beauty

not barren or bleak

the baby is beautiful

this poem complete

A woman’s body is most commonly known for what this poem is about - bringing forth babies.

The wonderful mystery of how God knits us together in our mother’s womb, how she carries us for nine months, risking her own life, her own body, and her own health to bring another human into the world. And we women do it willingly. At least, most of us do.

During our child-rearing years we feel like the centre of the story, the Bringers of Life, the Teachers, the Home-makers, the Counsellors, the Family Managers, the Emotional Support People. We feel loved, needed, cherished, and like the reason for us being here on earth is being answered.

And then it feels like about half an hour later (in reality it’s around 10-20-30 years later, depending on when you have kids) you’re made redundant.

Your kids, those little helpless babes who couldn’t even get their own fist in their mouths five minutes ago, are now driving cars, planning careers, having amazing lives, and possibly planning their own families.

Meanwhile, what becomes of us?

What is the role of the mid-life woman?

Our kids have flown the nest or at least are very enthusiastically flapping their wings. Our beloved parents are in the last acts of their treasured lives. Some of us find that our once rock-solid marriages were actually made of tissue paper, and ever so slowly, piece after piece after piece is being blown away. For some of us the careers we’ve dedicated our lives to changes pace or vanishes completely.

And our bodies?

What the actual heck?

As if all of the above wasn’t enough to cope with, we have brains that sometimes feel like soft, fresh marshmallows, bits of our bodies seem to be sagging like a undercooked cake, while other parts are being stripped of youthful softness. Bits hang out, things get lumpy, our teeth start moving (has this happened to you???? I thought it was just me, but recently discovered it isn’t!), knees start clicking, and we need glasses to read anything below a size 14 font.

We become Invisible.

I remember reading about this years ago, how older women get completely ignored in public. Someone will go out of their way to serve a woman in her 20’s or 30’s, but women over A Certain Age get overlooked.

I wonder if that’s why a lot of us (I say us because I’m totally doing this, but not to be seen, I’m quite happy with my new invisibility powers) embrace the Later In Life Colour Madness. I can’t get enough colour in my life at the moment. In my unexpected singleness, I feel like a common pigeon who’s discovered she’s actually a Rainbow Lorikeet. Bring on the green! Give me some bright orange! Pink? Yes please!

But my body? Do I like it with its blobby wobbly bits and scars and dry patches and oddities? I’m trying to. Really, I am. You see, I want to be real. I want to be a woman in her 50’s. I don’t want to look the same as I did when I was in my 20’s. Well, all right, maybe I do, but I don’t want to be her. Does that make sense?

As a woman trying her best to embrace her older self, and stay healthy and fit at the same time, it’s very discouraging to look to the world to see what it tells me.

It tells me that my bit of tummy flab is something I should be ashamed of. That my glorious grey hair should be coloured. That my softening face wrinkles can be got rid of. That my lips can be as plump as a bashed-up boxer’s. My eyebrows can be as sharp as a knife.

The Hollywood ‘Thin Mania’ is something which troubles me greatly. Women who are naturally beautiful, who are aging and in the spotlight and therefore telling us lesser mortals how we should look are now apparently telling us we should be so thin that we have no woman-shape at all.

Demi Moore looking like a skeletal version of her younger, beautiful self.

I know Hollywood is hardly the place we should be looking for inspiration on how we mere plebs should be looking. It is, after all, a place of make-believe and illusion. But why do women have to look like stick insects to be called beautiful? Why is it okay to comment on the health of a slightly overweight person, and yet someone who is quite obviously malnourished (hello Ozempic, I’m looking at you) is thought of as ‘stunning’? Starving, maybe. So many female Hollywood celebs now look like they’re inhabiting the bodies of twelve year old boys. And this is a good thing?

Not many generations ago, a woman of my age was called a ‘matron’. Allowed to be wrinkled, wide around the middle, gossipy, taciturn, polite, rude, in fact, she could be whatever she liked because she was ‘old’ (ahem) and wear the most fabulous frocks.

I’m not saying I wish I was a matron in a Jane Austen book, but I’m sure the diet and lifestyle was a LOT different to what women are expected to subject themselves to these days.

Even going back to 1985 - not very long ago for a lot of us! - there was a particularly popular TV show called The Golden Girls. Three women in their 50’s and an older woman in her 80’s. In 2025 HBO tried to revive the hit series Sex in the City with And Just Like That, a show about women in their 50’s. Check out the different representations of women in that short 40 years:

All these women are in their 50's (except Estelle)

Again, I know it’s just Hollywood, but do you see how the world is telling us older chicks to look these days? Like we bodily got stuck in our early 30’s. I mean, that would be great, but it’s not reality.

Reality is that we live, and our bodies go through life with us, and we carry the gift of every day that we live somewhere on our person.

Our bodies are such resilient things. We don’t really have to do very much to keep them going. Food, water, sleep. That’s pretty much it. Movement, clean air, good personal hygiene.

And yet we take for granted that this fragile frame can just chug along and do whatever we ask of it. Athletes take this to the extreme - pushing boundaries, smashing world records, enduring horrific injuries in the name of sport. At the other extreme people just shove total crap in their mouths, smoke or vape, get no exercise, have dubious personal hygiene practices, and they wonder why their bodies don’t function properly.

Our bodies are so precious. We only get one, so we have to take care of it. Having never been a fitness or gym person in my entire life, I am now feeling the benefits of regular Pilates. Stretching muscles that I didn’t know I had, strengthening my squishy core, and protecting my back, which I did not do as a young chef, and have suffered a lot of pain and Cortisone injections to control that pain.

Is it too late to start looking after myself? I don’t think so. I’ve never smoked, I eat healthy, I took care of myself as best I could in my previous life, when I was last on the list. Exhaustion usually won out, however. Or just not enough time. I’m sure you know what I mean.

But slight changes in how we live; bringing more vibrancy, a little more exercise, and having the opportunity to look after yourself for a change is something I can highly recommend you doing.

And eat cheese. Not too much, though. It’s high in calcium and absolutely saturated in deliciousness.

There, I got back to cheese!

Have a great week!

Maggie