Buff Buffy

Take a good look at the woman in the photo below and guess how old she is...

What are you thinking? 45, 50 ish? That's Buffy Sainte-Marie and she's 70 years old. 70! This woman is my new hero. I'm determined to look that good and be in that great a shape at 70. To find out how she keeps lookin' this fine, click here.

Now, you may be wondering: who the hell is Buffy Sainte-Marie? Well, she's a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. In other words, she kicks ass. She was even blacklisted by the Lyndon B. Johnson administration for being a vocal advocate of the peace movement. 

What I love most about this photo and the accompanying article is the flouting of stereotypes about aging. For instance, there is a commonly held belief that, after a certain age, we should expect our bodies to start falling apart and resign ourselves to bad hairstyles and the use of canes and walkers. To this, I say: F*ck that! I'm in much better shape now than I ever was in my teens and twenties, and it's only gonna get better since I became a gym bitch about six months ago.

I was definitely active during my pre-gym days but adding lunch hour workouts to my current physical activity regime really upped the ante. There are signs that my body is aging but only superficial ones. I feel like I'm getting younger, and rediscovering my sense of play. My existential angst is waning with every passing year, giving way to childlike wonder.

What I also love about the photo is that, although Buffy looks f*cking amazing, she doesn't look like she's had work done. Like Meryl Streep. Yeah, we know these ladies have been around for decades and are not what is generally considered to be "young" anymore but they look great and still have an ineffable glow about them. In other words, they don't look like circus freaks desperately trying to hold on to some warped idea of youth. They seem to embrace their advancing age with verve.

I suspect the pharmaceutical and cosmetic surgery industries have a lot to gain by brainwashing people into thinking that, by a certain age, they'll need a nip and a tuck and some pills. If a man can run a marathon at 100 (it's been done, look it up), then we need to re-frame what it means to age. I, for one, will not be slowing down anytime soon. I plan to be hitting the slopes and mountain bike trails well into my nineties, if not beyond.