Like a baby that finally drops into
your pelvis to signal impending motherhood, my wattle dropped the other day to herald
impending death. Too dramatic? Maybe, but we all know there’s no coming back
from a wattle drop. You can color your hair, peel your skin, lift your eyebrows
or Botox your lips, but when the wattle drops, it’s committed. The wattle hangs
there, under your chin, as if suspended from each of your ears like a hammock,
but without the relaxing effect. It’s just skin that stopped trying.
Unless you choose to go under the
knife, there’s no escaping the wattle. Oh sure, you can buy all the turtlenecks
you can afford, but what to do in June, July and August? Scarves you’re thinking, and you’d be right, but even scarves have
their limitations. Besides being completely useless in a swimming pool, what
happens when you wrap a couple of yards of chiffon around your neck on an 85-degree
summer day? Hot flashes. At least a scarf can sop up the sweat dripping down
your face. Otherwise, you’re on your own with a wattle. There are times you
might get away with coyly resting your chin in your cupped hand. But you can’t
walk around that way. How do you drive? How do you drink wine?
My wattle lurked menacingly above
my neck for the last several years, just waiting for the day to ambush me. It’s
tricky, the wattle; some days it retreated and let me believe I could be
mistaken for Audrey Hepburn. But after a couple of margaritas and a little
water retention, it would be back in all its threatening sagginess. Eventually
I’d have to deal with it permanently, but until then it was forgotten as easily
as my children’s names.
And then, one day, there it was. A flap
of wrinkled skin, quivering ever so slightly just under my jaw line. Remember
when quivering used to be sexy? Ingénues used to quiver. Now it’s an
ever-present indicator of getting older: quivering chins, hands, gaits,
memories. Wikipedia describes wattles as “such a striking morphological characteristic
of animals that it features in their common name.” Wattles are for turkeys,
goats and lizards. How in the world did it become a feature of an aging woman?
Resigned, I practiced tilting my
head upwards in my bathroom mirror. That worked until I had to pick up my
grandson from school. “Gramma. Why are you walking that way? You just stepped
in dog-doo!” Apparently no amount
of camouflage or physical adaptation is going to prevent the fact that I am now
a member of a new species.
Just call me The Silver-Haired Single-Wattled
American Female.
