This is what it means to be grown-up; to still choose to dream big …
Walking crosstown on 59th towards Broadway in a cropped sheared black mink, vintage marcasite lizard pinned at the throat of a Róisín Gartland shearling collar, Amiri men’s low-rise skinny jeans emblazoned with black leather stars tucked into a pair of Bottega Veneta Chelsea lug boots and a swingy, fringed artisanal messenger bag (made in a backstreet Venetian atelier), a fine, fly Gen-Zer heading east gives me the once-over and says “Outfit. On fire!” Game recognises game. Yet … the uncool girlchild in me cannot get over slaying it, being seen, and by someone young enough to be my grandson.
Catching up with an old friend at an Upper West Side diner, Carlos, a hugely talented writer, wonders why commercial success appears to elude him. He reminds me, ruefully, of advice I’d apparently given him while lounging in a pool decades ago, in response to his plan to juice what he viewed as the ossified corpse of contemporary theatre: “Doll, maybe you should just write a really good play,” I’d said back then. Harsh? I remind him (over negronis) that it’s not too late: he can still write rings around lesser screenwriter gods, like I can still parlay girlish dreams into tangibles, but I wonder: at what age does fear set in? Sometimes I marvel at things I managed to do in my early 20s, like when, with no credit card and zero resources apart from $60 cash and a thrift store suitcase festooned with world travel stickers, I left New York for Rome and made a life. What was I thinking? And, more importantly, what Alice-in-Wonderland magic potion can I drink to think like that again?
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” EE Cummings
On a whim, I convince my husband we should parlay unused Ryanair vouchers into flights to Ibiza, because if not now, when? If not us, then younger, hipper versions of us. For Himself, I pack black T-shirts, a fistful of rockstar rings and, post ankle-replacement, his late dad’s silver-capped walking stick. Pour moi, a pair of Galliano Gazette jeans and Cavalli corset top. We push Play. Destination: Finca Legado, a dreamy rustic retreat run by the two Andreas, a couple of visionary older Austrians with younger spirits and a soft spot for artistic freaks like themselves. From the Legado get-go, we feel all sexed up, refreshed, the mojo we’d feared was lost, now found. It didn’t take long to get adopted by Dublin honeymooners, adorable millennials back for a second Finca Legado stay, who appear to have found in us their (much older) soulmates. Channelling Marianne Faithful, Patti Smith and both Absolutely Fabulous train wrecks turns out to be an absolute blast. The kids take us clubbing; Himself (avec cane-asbaton) and I dance all night alongside a thrillingly ageless throng, neither the youngest nor the oldest sexymotherf*ckers partying like it was 1999.
And did we get what we wanted from the island? To get our groove back; to be grown-up without growing old, to remember how to play as hard as we’ve had to work to make something from nothing. To loosen the chokehold of fear, the fear of losing it all, because grown-ups know that where there is great love, there will, inevitably, be great loss. Next time we see our younger friends, we’ll school them to embrace starting over, and, if needs be, to embrace starting over yet again. To risk, to love. To play. To life! To Ibiza! @susanzelouf
1. I’M RUNNING rings around millennials in an Archaic Gold Dot Ring, from Irish jeweller Erika Marks.
2. I’M TRAILING perfume in my wake, known as sillage (as opposed to equally heady silage) in a Michael Kors scent pendant.
3. I’M BOOKING a grown-up Balearic stay at www.legado-ibiza.com.
4. I’M COMING up Centifolia roses in Le Labo; www.cultbeauty.com.
5. I’M COVETING wearables like Lemaire’s sold-out flask pendant. Better yet, a Acme Whistle Necklace instead; you may need it.
6. I’M PINNING down vacay plans in a Jane Moore enamel brooch.
7. I’M AGEING à la older Chanel SS26 model Stephanie Cavalli.
8. I’M CARRYING on Celine’s Luggage Bag in Yves Klein blue.
9. I’M STRAPPING on a Magda Butrym utility jacket.
10. I’M NAILING it in Nour Hammour’s Milo wide-leg suede trousers.
11. I’M PACKING slap in a Saie Hello train vanity case.
12. I’M TIPPING my Johanna Ortiz Artesano Heaven and Earth straw bucket hat to Boomers-at-play.
13. I’M KICKING up my Manolo Blahnik Myconia 50 heels.
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