Forever Fifty and Other Stories

Charlotte Canelli is library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood. Read her entire article in this week's Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

It’s been a week since my stepdaughter’s wedding (the first of two daughters' weddings this year.) We’ve been instantly and amazingly blessed with hundreds of photographs of the beautiful event. Many of these digital memories focus on the bridal couple. Many more chronicle the smiles and tears of the rest of us.

Here is digital proof of the exact placement of the bride’s delicate pearls, those handed down by her late mother. There is her father who cherished every poignant moment of walking his daughter down the aisle.

What an amazing world we live in to see these memories instantly posted by Smartphones or uploaded within hours of the event. These photographs are posted on blogs and on Facebook and they broadcast through email links. A delicate touch here. A loving glance there.

A wrinkle, a crease.

What?

Yes, among the pixel-by-pixel perfect smiles are a few flaws that exist in real time. These are my middle-aged moments captured in all their glory.

I feel bad about my neck.

I should feel worse, though, about the fact that I’ve just stolen that line from Nora Ephron who actually wrote the book, “I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman” several years ago.

Ephron is the writer and producer of hilarious romantic comedies like “When Harry Met Sally” and “Sleepless in Seattle” and other more wonderful films such as “Julie and Julia” and “Silkwood.”

She was married once to Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame and wrote about that ill-fated marriage in “Heartburn.” It was followed by the popular movie of the same title. Ephron was brilliant in “Heartburn.” Her ex-husband Bernstein had had an affair with their mutual friend. Ah, the power of a woman scorned.

But back to my neck. I first read one of the fifteen essays in Ephron’s book in my hair salon. Apparently one wise woman gave everyone she knew copies of the book for Christmas in 2006 right after the book was published and my stylist was one of them. I brought that book with me that day through color, wash, cut and dry and chuckled for several hours.

It seemed the appropriate place to read this book, after all. Where else do we spend many hours looking into very big mirrors under harsh bright lights noticing our aging necks? In fact, where else do we allow others to see us look so bad in order to look good?

Ephron’s books, like all of her films, are pointed and poignant. The short essays in “I Feel Bad About My Neck” chronicle her slow acceptance of aging. She shares the humor in her worsening eyesight, deepening facial creases, a bikini-allergic body and some brand new teeth. The laughter is enough to make one cry.

And now Ephron has written one more.

“I Remember Nothing and other Reflections” was published just this month. It is another cry-as-you-read book of very-close-to-home essays filled with many more “senior moments” to laugh about. One chapter lists the things Ephron doesn’t care enough about to learn more about. “Tweeting,” Mojitos, soccer and the Kardashians made her list. More honestly, she admits that she can always Google them if she needs to pretend that she knows.

Humorous writing by women is not new, of course. Erma Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns and many books for my mother’s generation. Erma wrote until her death in 1996. She was paid $3 for each of her first weekly columns in the local Kettering-Oakwood Times. Those columns were the basis for her first book, “The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank” published in 1976. Her fifth book, “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits” brought a million-dollar publishing contract. Erma, literally, was laughing all the way to the bank and brought us along for the ride. One of Bombeck’s last books was “When You Look Like Your Passport Photo It’s Time to Go Home.” Oh, my.

Elizabeth Berg wrote “The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted and Other Small Acts of Liberation” in 2008. Her collection of stories offers authentic situations that all women face. Her book might be called comfort food for many of us.

Judith Viorst is the writer of the popular children’s books “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” and the “Tenth Good Thing About Barney.” She also began chronicling her life’s comedies and tragedies through poetry for adults in 1968. “It's Hard to Be Hip Over 30 & Other Tragedies of Married Life” has been followed up every decade with another book. “I’m Too Young to Be Seventy and Other Delusions” was written when she was nearing 75. Her latest, “Unexpectedly Eighty and Other Adaptations” was published last month right before she turns eighty years old next year.

Erma Bombeck said that “There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” That’s very true for most of us who are being brought into the Golden Years kicking and screaming. We need to find the laughter among the pain, the comedic moments among the hurt.

Another great screenwriter and producer, Mel Brooks, wrote “Humor is just another defense against the universe.” For help searching for some of these titles to get you through life, visit the Morrill Memorial Library, call the Reference librarians (781-769-0200) or visit the Minuteman Library Catalog on our website, www.norwoodlibrary.org.