This is 67: Lucy Sante Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire
"I'm living my truth. I knew that truth about myself for all those years, but there were a few dozen reasons why I couldn't live it until now."
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, author, critic, and artist Lucy Sante responds. - Sari Botton
How old are you?
67.
Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think?
I've long vaguely thought—and that thought becomes more vague with every passing year—of myself as 27. Because that was the peak of my youth. Peak as defined by interesting events, people, circumstances, etc. surrounding me. Personally I was miserable and unloved.
Do you feel old for your age? Young for your age? Just right? Are you in step with your peers?
I used to feel old for my age, beginning when I was 17 and grew a beard, so that I always had to make the liquor-store purchases (drinking age was 18 then). Not to mention that I was born in postwar Europe, so that I often felt as if I'd grown up in the 1930s. I'd spent the first seven or eight years of my life without the usual modern conveniences Americans took for granted, not out of poverty but because consumer culture in Belgium was twenty years behind the US. So I always felt a bit older, even as I felt twice as naive as the youngest.
It's a bittersweet recompense that in exchange for having lost out on my life as a girl and as a young and middle-aged woman I should instead have gained the unexpected ability to not give a rat's ass what anyone thinks.
Now as a result of transition I'm experiencing a wild burst of teenage energy that is exhilarating and wonderful, although I really don't have any place to put it—except when I'm performing, which I don't do enough of to take care of the problem. But I'm still way younger than most of my peers. I'm very lucky to have my health, or enough of it.
What do you like about being your age?
It's a bittersweet recompense that in exchange for having lost out on my life as a girl and as a young and middle-aged woman I should instead have gained the unexpected ability to not give a rat's ass what anyone thinks. I had thought I'd be slinking around, staying in the shadows, afraid to show my face as I transitioned. Instead I march into every situation as if I was born to it. And this following decades of intense, obsessive, crippling self-consciousness. That, for me, is as close to walking on water as I'll ever get.
What is difficult about being your age?
Remembering when things were better out in the world, generally speaking. Realizing that my new life that gives me so much joy has an unknown expiration date, which might be next week or twenty years hence, after decades of not much caring when I kicked off.
What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?
The fact that I'm still so much the kid I was fifty years ago. If that kid and I were set loose in, say, a picture gallery, I guarantee we'd be drawn to the same pictures. And even before I started transitioning I was this way, not anything like the way my parents aged, light years from their youth—but of course I didn't experience war and decades of factory labor. And it's not that I'm necessarily in tune with that abstract bloc "the youth" either. I follow my own nose and always have.
Fifteen was a big year. I became me then, the whole design set down on the blueprint with just the details remaining to be filled in. It's also, of course, the age at which I really should have transitioned, in a better universe.
What has aging given you? Taken away from you?
More compassion, I hope more patience.
A good bit of my hearing. Losing membership in the invisible telegraph of youth, the greatest news medium ever.
How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?
Well, in collaboration with the zeitgeist, it has allowed me to crack the egg and live my truth. As much as I hate cant and clichés, there's just no better way of saying it: I'm living my truth. I knew that truth about myself for all those years, but there were a few dozen reasons why I couldn't live it until now.
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 counting on anything, not big on anniversaries, not climbing any mountain ranges. I'm also not planning to attend either of my 50th high-school reunions (long story) next year. I would like to write a few more books. Maybe even find love again, but that's crazy talk.
...my new life that gives me so much joy has an unknown expiration date, which might be next week or twenty years hence, after decades of not much caring when I kicked off.
What has been your favorite age so far, and why? Would you go back to this age if you could?
Fifteen was a big year. I became me then, the whole design set down on the blueprint with just the details remaining to be filled in. It's also, of course, the age at which I really should have transitioned, in a better universe.
Walter Benjamin understood: "Like someone performing the giant swing on the horizontal bar, each boy spins for himself the wheel of fortune from which, sooner or later, the momentous lot shall fall. For only that which we knew or practiced at fifteen will one day constitute our attraction. And one thing, therefore, can never be made good: having neglected to run away from home." (One Way Street)
Is there someone who is older than you, who makes growing older inspiring to you? Who is your aging idol and why?
My people are all dead now, sadly, but I was shaped and grounded in a great many ways by my mentors Elizabeth Hardwick, Barbara Epstein, and Murray Kempton, who never for a minute gave way to age. They all three retained their style, swagger, wit, fun, enthusiasm, curiosity, and righteous anger when appropriate. I'll give it up to Susan Sontag, too, even though we didn't get along. She knew a thing or two about the daily theater of life, also about hair.
I would like to write a few more books. Maybe even find love again, but that's crazy talk.
What aging-related adjustments have you recently made, style-wise, beauty-wise, health-wise?
I don't know to what extent this is age-related—aside from the aforementioned sense of fuck-off—but I've revised a great many of my expectations about transitioning. I'm still binary—it's where I come from—and I want to look good always, but I've found that I don't care about changing my voice, enhancing my breasts, wearing difficult shoes, or perfecting the science of makeup. I'm following my usual self-advice regarding my work: if it doesn't give me pleasure, it's not worth the effort.
What’s an aging-related adjustment you refuse to make, and why?
I don't want to stop pursuing beauty, in all of its manifestations including via my person, to the best of my modest ability. I'd love to not stop dancing, if anyone could show me to a place where I could refuse to stop while other people did likewise and amplified music played. I don't want to stop following my intuition down whatever crazy alleys it leads me, now that I finally understand that I won't be risking my deep dark secret, since I no longer have a deep dark secret.
What’s your philosophy on celebrating birthdays as an adult? How do you celebrate yours?
I've gone back and forth on this for years—embarrassing times in my middle years when I'd declare I wanted no more birthdays because I felt too shitty and obsolete. Now, honestly, I want to spend that day with the closest of my people. Doesn't matter what we do, I just want to hold them close.
As the parent of a sixteen year old trans son, I found this post inspiring and reassuring. I am learning so much about the experiences of the non-binary and trans community and it really helps to get the perspective of the people who are older and have felt the oppressive force of societal expectations and rules about gender all their lives. I applaud you for being a trailblazer, even if it was internal and in secret, because without you and your cohort, these kids today would not have the courage to do what they are doing.
Thanks so much for featuring Lucy! I treasure stories about people who transition later in life. Love the Susan Sontag reference too! 😄