There are various ways that aging presents itself in all species. People will look at an animal and although exact age is a “rough guess”, it is usually not that far off, give or take a year or two. Dogs and cats have a wizened, mature look about them, horses that have had a labored life could have swaybacks, and there is the old adage about teeth and the horses mouth…”Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” It is , as we all know, tabu to ask a woman her age, and there are quite a few ways we can mask greying, wrinkles and other general signs of aging through the wonders of medicine, and a good plastic surgeon.
There are however a few places that will give one a moment of pause when considering a persons age. One well known spot is the neck. Nora Ephron had written about that in one of her later books I Feel Bad About My Neck. Hands are tough, but there is definetly a marked difference in a youthful hand vs a matured hand.
The one spot that I newly discovered is Feet. This has come about since I bought a new pair of boots. When “breaking in a new pair of shoes” feet will never win without mega-casualties, and here is where the age part comes in. Feet stop being resilient as they mature. They fight back with a vengeance, becoming old gnarly images of what they once were. The only advantage that this telltale age point has is that feet can be stashed away in shoes and occlusive sandals, similar to the portrait of Mr. Dorian Grey covered and hidden in the attic.
Grafedie in the Library 