WHAT'S AGE GOT TO DO WITH IT? (essay by Gail Sheehy in May ’07 Harper’s Bazaar) Remember when women groaned that after 50 they became invisible? Well, have you noticed the new “Beauty Icon” at M.A.C.? It’s Raquel Welch—still alluring at 66. At L’Oréal, it’s the grown-up Annie Hall, Diane Keaton. And how delicious to watch the transformation of Helen Mirren, from her depiction of Queen Elizabeth at 71, with her drawstrung lips, curled-bacon hair, and asexual shapelessness, back into Mirren’s own sexy-at-61 appearances at countless award ceremonies, with her knowing smile, shimmer of silver hair, and proudly plunging necklines. What’s going on? It’s the second boomer revolution: Women over 50 are feeling free to reinvent themselves, to find and follow their passions, and to celebrate being seasoned women. I describe the seasoned woman as someone who has been marinated in life experience. She combines many flavors—spicy, mellow, sweet, and tart. She knows who she is, or who she set out to be before she became wrapped up in the roles and tasks of her First Adulthood. Imagine—nearly 70 million American women are now over 40, and more than 6,000 women turn 50 every day. This surging demographic already wields a spending power of more than a trillion dollars, and these female boomer consumers are the healthiest, the best educated, and the most selective shoppers of middle age the world has ever seen. And it’s not only celebrities. For my latest book, Sex and the Seasoned Woman, I interviewed 400 women, from 45 to 91, driving across the United States to hold group conversations with them. The dominant theme was women feeling a burst of vitality after 50. One 50-year-old periodontist in San Francisco looked up from the microscopic world of her work—inside oral cavities -- and remembered she had always longed to learn to fly. That dream led to a love affair with her 28-year-old flight instructor. (A confident, seasoned woman can drive a man a little crazy by switching between maternal warmth and high-voltage sexuality.) A New York office manager who had always been shy about her awkward body dared to start tango lessons at 55. She developed a new, fluid persona and a parallel life with a condo and a lover in Buenos Aires. Older is bolder. As a seasoned woman, I find one possesses the dangerous liberty of postmenopausal high status. When my husband is away, I go out for dinner, often with much younger men—married or engaged, and safe. I can flirt without fear, no serious mating game going on. A seasoned woman has to stay in practice. The sexual magnetism between two people who were once in love, or even just young and infatuated, is often able to hold its charge for decades. When I start losing interest, it’s usually because I feel fat and unhappy. I go on a salmon-and-salad regimen and become a gym rat until I feel attractive to myself again, and my husband’s interest follows. I’ve taken salsa classes and learned how to lap dance. A healthy dose of imagination keeps the romance in a relationship. From tracking the passages of adulthood for the past 30 years, one thing I have learned above all is this: Life is just one transition after another. We never arrive. When one door closes—if we can let go—another one will open, but only if our hearts and minds are willing. And in the years from 50 to 70, we go through more transitions than in any other segment of adult life. Beauty may fade. Age may take loved ones from us. But one thing need never die—the curiosity about what tomorrow might bring. So even on bad-neck days, we can look beyond the mirror to the vista of possibilities that never before existed for seasoned women and celebrate! TO COMMENT CLICK HERE