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With Heather's help, Marigold has put together a live Q&A on Instagram for the Saturday before Valentine's Day. She's been writing like a madwoman and posting some of the bits and pieces of her thoughts and ideas from her book on Instagram as she goes, drumming up interest and getting feedback from her followers. But this live session is meant to be a symposium of sorts to talk about aging gracefully in a society obsessed with the way women look, and Marigold is hoping that it will afford other ladies the opportunity to be heard and to share their ideas about how to combat the negativity.
"Is this a good spot?" Ruby asks, pointing to where the chair is set up in the corner of the bookstore. Rather than closing the shop, she's made up invitations for other women to take part in the discussion by joining them in person, and Harlow, their resident marketing whiz, has advertised the event and will help to streamline the questions coming in on Instagram with the ones that the women in the shop will hopefully be asking.
"I think the light here is good.” Harlow gives her mom a thumbs up as she points Marigold’s phone camera that direction to see how it looks. She's got the phone attached to a tripod, and a ring light set up just out of the camera's view to do away with any shadows that might be unflattering. Harlow walks over and moves the chair about one inch to the left, fluffing the pillow that's tucked into one corner of the wicker seat.
Marigold is touching up her makeup at the front counter, using a handheld mirror to check her lipstick nervously. "Do you think this is actually a good idea?" she whispers to Heather and Athena, who are huddled nearby. "What if the trolls come out from under their rocks and start saying rude things while we’re live? What if I make an ass of myself?”
"They might," Athena says truthfully. “And you might. But that's always a possibility, right?"
"If they show up, then you just ignore them," Heather says, folding her arms across her chest. "You've been preparing for this, and you have your pages, right?" She turns around, scanning the front counter.
"Yeah, I have them." Marigold nods at the folder next to her. She's printed out a section of her book that she'd like to share, and she's hoping that the flow of the event allows her to read the chapter she's written about the cloak of invisibility that starts to descend some time around the age of forty for a woman. "I'm just really nervous." She blows out a breath and shakes her hands out before smiling at Heather and Athena. "Thanks for helping me with this, ladies."
"Of course," Heather says, handing her the folder. "You should go set up, and we'll start seating people as they come in."
In all, forty-two women stream into the bookstore and fill the seats that Ruby has set up facing Marigold's chair by the window. Harlow has advertised the event far and wide, so it's no surprise that the group of women includes a few day-trippers who've come to the island specifically for this talk.
"Welcome," Ruby says, smiling at everyone as they enter. A few of the women look a little starstruck in the presence of Ruby, Sunday, and Marigold, who is sitting in the chair with her notes in her lap. She looks nervous, but also excited as she waves and smiles at the women taking their seats.
"It's time," Harlow says from behind the camera that’s set up on the tripod. Marigold smiles at her.
"Hi, everyone," Marigold says to the group gathered in the bookshop. The women smile back and some say hello. Addressing the camera, Marigold smiles. "And hello to all of you," she says with a wave. "I'm glad you could join us for this live session from Shipwreck Key. We have about fifty women gathered here at Marooned With a Book, our island's bookstore, and I'm really looking forward to talking to you all about something that I think is incredibly important for us as women." She pauses, looking around the room. “I want to talk about what it means to be a woman after the age of forty. I want to hear what you think, and to share our experiences as we talk about the way society views us, how that colors our feelings about ourselves, and how we can ultimately take some of the negative things about middle age and turn them into positives.”
Unbidden, the entire room breaks into applause—a couple of women even cheer out loud. This makes Marigold smile.
“Thank you,” she says. Her eyes shine as she scans the room and takes in every gorgeous and hard-earned wrinkle and curve of these women who’ve lived full and interesting lives. “I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels like this is an important issue. Just out of curiosity, how many of you feel like there’s a certain point in our lives when we’re simply written off as women? I’m not talking about as contributing members of society, because that’s a whole other discussion about how we treat and value our elders, but I mean written off as a feminine, sexy, vibrant female.” Hands go up, some quickly and others slowly, until every woman in the room is holding her hand in the air.
“Wow.” Marigold looks around at them. “So you feel it too? Can I hear some of your thoughts?”
Ruby stands, clearly willing to break the ice and go first. “I’m about to turn fifty,” she says, turning to look around at the other women. “And I think the general consensus is that we’re supposed to give birth and then hand over the baton of femininity to our daughters.” Ruby looks at Athena and Harlow with pride and love. “And while I understand that they’re the next generation and that they have youth and vitality to offer, I disagree with the notion that we should just crumble and turn to dust as we age.”
Again, applause breaks out around the room.
"Everyone," Marigold says with a proud smile, "Ruby Hudson, our former First Lady."
Harlow motions to Marigold that she's got questions coming in from the people watching on Instagram, and Marigold waits for her to choose one.
"Astrid from Los Angeles has a question," Harlow says, sounding professional and very much like they're running a real show or a podcast. "She'd like to know what you think about the pressure to give in and get plastic surgery or use fillers. Is that something you have done, or would do? And do you think it's wrong that women feel like they need to do these things in order to stay beautiful and relevant?"
Marigold crosses her legs and leans back in the chair, putting one elbow on the arm of it. She's completely in her element and her nerves are totally gone. "You know," she says, looking right into the camera, "Astrid, I think that's a fabulous question, and one that a lot of us confront at some point."
The women around the room are listening intently, and at a glance, Marigold can tell that some of them have given in to the pressure already. She doesn't judge that one bit--in her line of work, nips and tucks and tweaks are what keep a girl on the runway and in front of the camera.
"Listen," Marigold says, folding her hands together. "You are beautiful just the way you are, every single one of you. I can assure you that it's not easy to look in the mirror each day and tell yourself that you're beautiful as you watch things fold in and sag in what looks like some kind of bizarre time-lapse photography trick." The woman laugh at this, nodding in agreement. "But who decided that it's not beautiful to have lines around our eyes and mouths from decades of smiling and laughing? Who gets to tell us that our rounded hips and filled out bodies aren't luscious and beautiful? Why do we let men who don't even know us dictate our self worth based on whether their eyes graze us appreciatively, or if they ignore us completely?" She sweeps a hand up and down her body to indicate her own womanly figure. "And for God's sake, why do men--and I'll be honest, because it is mostly men on my Instagram page--dissect our looks and tell us that we're 'too old' to dress a certain way, or that we need to just give up and go sit in a rocking chair until we die?"
There's more laughter from the crowd, and again, a smattering of applause. When it fades, Marigold goes on. "But seriously--and this is for Astrid and every other woman in this room or watching us live--if you decide that you want to do anything to your appearance and you're truly doing it foryou, then more power to you. I support a woman's right to decide how she looks as she ages. But if there's any part of you that's doing it for someone else, I beg of you to reconsider. We need to stop letting magazines, airbrushed photos, strangers, the media, andmentell us what we're supposed to look like."
Sunday gives a whoop from her chair and the women around her clap again. She raises her hand and stands up tentatively. "Not to segue away from what we're talking about," Sunday says, clasping her hands in front of her as she looks around at the crowd gathered there, "but many of us are at a point in our lives where we have spent the last two or three decades giving to others. We've been wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends, and there's an alarm that goes off at some point inside of us where we realize that what we really need to do is to go back to being ourselves--whoever that might actually be. We get to decide what comes next for us: hobbies, volunteering, helping to raise grandchildren, or finding love again. And I think that's a very important hallmark of being where we are in life."
"You're so right," Marigold agrees, pulling the conversation back to the camera. "We're at a point where we get to essentially have a rebirth. Let's just be honest: changing hormones, menopause, the freedom that comes from no longer having babies or small children--all of these things afford us the chance to start over. And if the way you want to start your next act is by getting a little Botox around the eyes or covering your gray hair, then by all means, you should do that. But you shouldalsofeel free not to do that. Because as I said when we started this discussion, you areall beautiful." She looks around at the women, who have gone quiet as they watch Marigold. "You are beautiful when you're crying for an aging parent. You're beautiful in a bikini that shows off your C-section scar. You are lovely when the years you've spent in the sun with your children shows up on your arms or your chest. You are a vision when you let your hair go gray. And whether anyone looks at you with admiration or not, you are stunning and perfect--EXACTLY. AS. YOU. ARE. Never let anyone tell you otherwise."
There is a moment of silence, and then every woman in the room stands, clapping and cheering, some with tears in their eyes.
By the time the Q&A session is over, Marigold is more convinced than ever that she's struck a nerve with women her age. These are topics that are important and worth talking about, and she floats home with her head in the clouds afterwards, ready to sit down at her computer and keep writing. She'll write for the women who came up to talk to her after the Q&A was finished, like Catherine from New Orleans, who made the trip to Shipwreck Key with two of her best girlfriends from high school. They'd recently attended a class reunion and been told by the men who'd been the popular jocks at school that it was a good thing their years in cheerleading skirts were behind them. And this from a bunch of pot-bellied men with angina and pre-diabetes just hanging onto the wisps of hair on their own heads. The nerve!
She wants to keep writing for women like Erica, who wrote in a question on Instagram about what she should do now that her husband has died. She's only fifty-nine and wants to find love again, but every message she's getting is telling her that she's too old and too far past her prime to even hope that a man will look at her. Marigold will push ahead with her own messages of acceptance and aging gracefully for women like Patty, whose ex-husband left her for a younger woman, causing her to spiral and go in for a tummy tuck and breast augmentation that she didn't even want. It's time to speak up--for herself and for every woman she talks to--and let the world know that cellulite, crinkled décolletage, tummies that are never perfectly flat again, and a few shiny silver hairs are not the end of the world.
Marigold drives back to her cottage in her golf cart with a smile on her face and the wind blowing through her hair. Regardless of how many people try to drag her down with their unsolicited comments, she’ll keep going. Keep writing. Keep talking. Keep aging proudly and gracefully in front of anyone who wants to watch.
