(Turned in late via SASS accommodations)
I felt a lot of anxiety at the thought of our first senior center trip. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I think a lot of my anxiety came from the worry that I would say or do the wrong thing and accidentally offend someone. Age is so often treated as something impolite or even taboo to discuss explicitly, so the idea of talking about it with a group of actual seniors made me very stressed. I was honestly terrified while doing the word association exercise because I was worried that if I put anything negative in the senior category the womxn at my table might take it personally and it would ruin the discussion for all of us. Imagine my surprise when every single senior at the table had one or more negative traits associated with age written on their card. As someone who’s queer and nonbinary, I think I was also nervous that someone was going to say something about Molly and Frankie that would make me uncomfortable. There was also some anxiety about how the conversation would go, if all of us would be able to share our ideas in a way that was both accessible and interesting for everyone else at the table.
To say I was pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. The womxn I sat with were incredibly open, kind and welcoming. I felt almost immediately at ease with all of them. It was interesting to me how excited they all were to share with me about themselves, and how genuinely interested they seemed to be in me and my life. They were all obviously happy to be there, and their enthusiasm was contagious. Even before the class officially began I found myself so much more relaxed and excited than I had been just minutes before.
We spent a considerable amount of time on our discussion My Man Bovanne, mostly because it spiraled in so many different ways. We talked about everything from motherhood to sexuality to the concept of intersectionality and the work of the Combahee River Collective. I enjoyed how freely the seniors shared their own personal insights and how excited they were to hear ours. They were so eager to learn more about how we saw the world, and they were incredibly open about their own thoughts, personal and academic.
Our conversation on They May Not Mean To But They Do, while shorter, was just as compelling. One thing that really interested me was the observation made by one of my group mates that the majority of characters in the book were, in one way or another, driven by their own guilt at the situation and their part in it. We also had a fascinating discussion about the ways in which the expectations that shape our lives are often gendered, and how that affected Molly and Joy throughout the book. We also talked about how the children’s fear of their mother’s sexuality and autonomy was mirrored in both My Man Bovanne and They May Not Mean To But They Do. The senior womxn at my table were kind enough to share their own experiences and the experiences of some of their friends when it came to controlling children and their fears about their parents. I had a genuinely wonderful time, and I can’t wait to do it again.
Coming to Age 