This is 50: Cory Nakasue Responds To The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire

"I feel lucky that I’m surrounded by people who are anywhere from twenty years younger to twenty years older than me, and they all feel like peers."

From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older. I’m curious about what it means to others, of all ages, and so I invite them to take “The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.”

Here, art critic, poet, dramaturg, performer, astrologer, movement educator/therapist, and podcaster (the consummate hyphenate!) Cory Nakasue responds. - Sari Botton

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Cory Nakasue at 50, in Kingston, NY.

How old are you?

50

Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think? 

I feel like I’m 30, or rather, what I thought/think I was supposed to feel like at 30. I feel like I’m just now embarking on this thing called “adulthood,” where I have a good understanding of myself, and a lot more acceptance of who I am. In ways, I feel like I’m just starting out. But, that might just be my personality. I always feel like I’m just starting out. Ever the adolescent.

Do you feel old for your age? Young for your age? Just right? Are you in step with your peers?

I feel a little young for my age, in terms of society’s benchmarks. Luckily for me I’ve never taken society’s benchmarks very seriously. I feel young for my age in terms of the amount of freedom I have to pursue just about anything that inspires me. I also feel lucky that I’m surrounded by people who are anywhere from twenty years younger to twenty years older than me, and they all feel like peers. It helps me forget about numbers. Also, it helps that most of my friends have opted to eschew society’s benchmarks, so I rarely feel out of step.

I love having lived long enough to have had so many experiences, adventures, and hardships. Yes, I’m so thankful for all the difficulties!

What do you like about being your age?

I love having lived long enough to have had so many experiences, adventures, and hardships. Yes, I’m so thankful for all the difficulties! Whether this is objectively true or not, I feel smart. I know shit! I know what I’m capable of and I also know that I don’t know everything. Honestly, in my 20s and 30s I felt clueless. When you have some years under your belt it’s very empowering.

What is difficult about being your age?

Vanity. Vanity. Vanity. It’s hard watching my body change. I used to be an actor and a dancer. I’m working very hard to accept and value what I look like now, and not pine for what I looked like 10 or 20 years ago. I’m working hard to challenge conditioning that would have me feeling irrelevant or sexually unviable because of my…maturity. I’ve always looked young for my age, so people don’t always understand my complaints. But, even though I don’t look like “a typical 50-year-old,” I notice the change. I have aged.

Also, every injury I’ve had from 30 years of dancing and athletics is coming back to haunt me. I miss how careless I used to be with my body…with no consequences. I miss not caring about what I eat or drink or smoke. I miss taking for granted that I can move my body with as much force and spontaneity as I want. I hate being careful.

Consciousness is a bitch.

Oh. And technology. I’m so far behind and uninterested. More than my joints and more than my looks, my techno-aversion makes me feel old and out of step.

What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?

Everyone keeps telling me that their 50s were their favorite decade of life. I think I get it. I feel very hopeful! I’ve read and seen a lot of content crop up around middle aged women being/feeling invisible. I don’t feel that yet. It still takes me by surprise when someone calls me ma’am, though. I don’t like it.

Nakasue rehearsing in Bucks County, PA, at 34, in 2006

What has aging given you? Taken away from you?

Aging has given me an appreciation of time. I’ve been impatient my whole life; always feeling like everything took so long, and always in a hurry to get to the “good part.” Having lived some years now, I have an embodied understanding of how every part of a process is important. They’re all “good parts,” or, at least necessary and interesting parts in their own way.

The most painful part of aging is losing people; either through death, disagreement, or change. To be alive is to change, but wow, the whole losing people thing really hurts. It’s like losing a chunk of your history…your story…yourself. I don’t think this is a co-dependent thing. We come to know ourselves through the people we share our lives with. And, going back to my appreciation of time: I have such deep appreciation for the people I’ve known since I was young, and people I’ve known through all of my travels, and careers, and incarnations. It’s important to know people who’ve witnessed your history, and who’ve gone through changes with you. That’s intimacy. It provides continuity. It’s especially important for me to have people in my life who knew my father, who is no longer here.

It’s hard watching my body change. I used to be an actor and a dancer. I’m working very hard to accept and value what I look like now, and not pine for what I looked like 10 or 20 years ago.

How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?

I’ve moved about 20 or 30 times in my adult life and I’ve always had 2 or 3 vocations going at any one time. I change often and quickly. I don’t see that changing. I’ve always thought of myself as someone who didn’t need to put down “roots.” My mom has been asking me to put down “roots” for 30 years now! But, the older I get, the more I understand a deeper consistency underneath these external fluctuations. This superficial activity belies an unchanging thread…a core, if you will. I know that even though I like to express myself in a variety of ways, there’s a rather solid and unchanging sense of self that stays consistent through lots of apparent movement. As I age I’m learning about how steadfast and sustaining I can be. I’m just not rooted to anything external.

What are some age-related milestones you are looking forward to? Or ones you “missed,” and might try to reach later, off-schedule, according to our culture and its expectations?

I’m not sure what the milestones are after 50. Retirement? I don’t think I’m the retiring kind. I love everything I do too much to stop, and I’m fortunate to be able to call my own shots as far as when, how much, and with whom I work (performing arts, writing, astrology, movement education). Children never occurred to me, and still don’t. So I’m not waiting around for grandkids. I never used cultural expectations in my time-mapping, so it’s hard to say if I missed any milestones.

Nakasue at 5, in 1977, with her late father.

What has been your favorite age so far, and why? Would you go back to this age if you could?

There are several standouts: 17-18, 22-24, 27-29, 31-33, 45-48. What they all have in common is that they were points in time that felt like I was tapped into a natural unfolding. They were times of such trust in a seemingly spontaneous flow of events. These were times when all I saw was possibility. There was a lot of big change that I just allowed myself to go with. This is saying a lot because I tend to be a little controlling and untrusting. I don’t feel a need to go back and re-live those moments. Those states of being can be experienced at any age…with practice…I think. It’s something I aspire to.

The most painful part of aging is losing people; either through death, disagreement, or change. To be alive is to change, but wow, the whole losing people thing really hurts. It’s like losing a chunk of your history…your story…yourself.

Is there someone who is older than you, who makes growing older inspiring to you? Who is your aging idol and why?

I think a lot about some of the older writers and artists I’ve known who have redefined and completely reinterpreted what it means to span time; people who’ve let themselves get weirder, more iconoclastic, more in love with life. I especially admire those who have shed a lot of skins and have been able to stay relentless in their pursuit of a deeper understanding of life and themselves. Our bodies are all decaying. Physical decline is inevitable, but there are some people who manage to stay hungry for a more intimate contact with life. Those who can use all of their experience to imbue life with richness, complexity, and constant discovery. That’s vitality!

Susan Sontag, Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Anna Halprin, Audre Lorde, Hunter S. Thompson, Sam Shepard, and Jessica Lange are some famous people that come to mind.

Most of these people dealt with grave illness toward the end of their lives and they managed to make it an almost erotic experience through artful creation.

What aging-related adjustments have you recently made, style-wise, beauty-wise, health-wise?

No heels, less makeup, more sun protection, less alcohol/tobacco, less bra, less sugar, less high impact movement, more warming up. My style is slowly devolving into that of the The Dude from The Big Lebowski. I used to dress up all the time. Now I just can’t be bothered.

What’s an aging-related adjustment you refuse to make, and why?

I flat out refuse the medical-industrial complex and its guidelines that would have me in a constant state of hyper-vigilance and adhering to “preventative” measures to stave off the inevitable. Our bodies are meant to be used up in living.

What’s your philosophy on celebrating birthdays as an adult? How do you celebrate yours?

Every year’s different. I try not to force something if it doesn’t want to happen naturally. It depends on what’s going on during that year, my mood, who’s around or not around. Some birthdays are quiet and intentional. Others are loud and debauched. I spent my 50th birthday at a writing retreat with a small press. I think I’d like to write books when I grow up.

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Cory Nakasue lives in Kingston, NY. She’s a published art critic and poet. Her performance projects have been presented on stage, screen, galleries, and non-traditional spaces across the US/Europe. She’s the astrologer-in-residence at AIM Higher/The Poetry Barn, dramaturg for Elisabeth Motley/Performance, and just received funding for a new writing-as-performance project (forthcoming 2023). She works as a movement educator/therapist in private practice, and also maintains a private practice as an astrologer. You can catch her live weekly show, The Cosmic Dispatch on Radio Kingston, Capital Media, and all the podcast channels.