The Sunday before last, I jumped on a train to Cambridge to go to a gig. This was uncharacteristic. It meant missing my beloved Sunday yoga class, which I always show up to teach, unless I’m sick or on holiday. Plus, I’ve never been to a gig alone. But it was The Pretenders and when a solo return showed up for their sold-out show at a small club, I grabbed it. No way would I miss the chance to see Chrissie Hynde perform again.
I first heard her name in my teens when a schoolfriend said, ‘You look like Chrissie Hynde.’ I traipsed off to HMV on Oxford Street to check her out on the band’s album covers. She had dark hair and a fringe, eyes lined in heavy black kohl, and wore a red leather biker jacket. Aside from the fringe and the shape of our faces, I couldn’t see much resemblance. But I was flattered.
I was fourteen at the time, and my friends and I had just started hanging out with boys. I had spots, was not what you’d call conventionally pretty, and definitely not one of the girls the boys made a beeline for. My single-sex school was also full of girls who were classically beautiful, some of whom even modelled. So my friend’s comment was much-needed medicine. Mentally aligning myself with this maverick rock star from Ohio somehow helped me through those awkward teenage years and to feel, at some level at least, it was ok to be me.
When I moved into my twenties, I finally began to settle into my own skin. I stopped listening to The Pretenders quite so obsessively, and no longer thought about Chrissie Hynde quite so much.
Now, as I hit midlife, this woman who’s a couple of decades older than me, has come to mind again. On the one hand, you could say seventy is ages away, so why am I even thinking about it already? On the other hand, the last twenty years have hurtled past and I imagine the next twenty will, if anything, go even faster. So sometimes I wonder what my life might look like then.
While the prospect of getting older feels like a huge privilege, not least as I had cancer at thirty-one, I also hold a certain amount of fear around becoming invisible and unheard, of opportunities shrinking. In a way, this is ridiculous, as I know plenty of amazing women who at seventy and beyond are strong and active and lead dynamic, creative lives, full of interesting work. Equally, some of my childhood memories of what being older looked like have stuck.
When I think of my adored grandmother, I remember someone gentle and loving who baked perfect fairy cakes and painted beautiful watercolours full of flowers and dormice and wore sensible shoes and only ever skirts. A mother of five, her world was her family. She first gave birth at twenty-four, an age at which I was still a student. And had her last child at thirty-five, the age I signed up for online dating. I didn’t even become a mother until well into my forties. And when I hit seventy, I hope to still be working. Partly because I love what I do, and also because right now, with a young child to look after, I have limited time in which I’m able to.
On that Sunday, I missed work to go to the gig. The band were meant to come on by 8pm. By 8.30pm, there was no sign of them. Standing in the rammed space, strangers’ elbows jostling my ribcage, I started to get irritated. I’d dashed from the station to the club so as not to be late, and missed out on a stroll past Cambridge’s beautiful college buildings. And I’m ashamed to say that as I waited and waited, one of the thoughts that flitted through my mind was Maybe she’s not going to show. Perhaps performing three nights on the trot is too much for someone her age.
Then Chrissie Hynde strode onstage. With her trademark fringe and thick black eyeliner, her voice as potent as ever, it was as if time had collapsed and I was back in Wembley Arena in 1987, seeing her perform for the first time. Except rather than being miles from the stage, this time there were just metres between us. I barely took my eyes off her. And as she sang and moved, and quipped with her audience, she reminded me that, really, there are no rules. Society might have its norms and expectations. We might be good at putting roadblocks in own our way, telling ourselves we’re too old or too young or quiet or too whatever. But ultimately it’s up to us to forge our own paths, and to dare to live the life that is a true and full expression of the unique spirit we each are.
Love,
Annabel x
Ps I’ll leave you with The Pretenders’ beautiful cover of Bob Dylan’s Forever Young
Pps For those of you who come to my yoga classes, I’ll be on holiday June 4-11th. But I have the fabulous Margherita Dal Pra covering my Sunday class, so please do go!