Birthday Bounce

Even at 68, birthdays are fun. Mine yesterday was. Gal Pals treated and joined me for lunch and the movie "Australia." More on "Down Under" shortly. First, though, a word about living to a fine young age and feeling grateful.

Growing old is fascinating. The thing I notice most--even before physiological complaints--is the distance between how others view my age and how I view it myself.

As a person pushing 70, I am seen by the world as a "senior citizen," yet I see myself as a person who is the same age I've been since voting in the Nixon vs. JFK election! That is, I'm the same liberal Democrat, the same interested person in friends and family, the same talker/writer/jokester/philosopher, and the same traveler with the same ends and destinations I've had in mind and on my calendar forever. I even like the same kinds of men I've always liked--smart, funny, physical, literate, self-aware.

Yet for all of it, "senior citizen" is the view that prevails. I even get caught in it myself . But I usually recover in time to laugh and remember my dear, departed mother who--well into her 80's--developed a crush on a much younger man: one who, thank goodness, never knew he was the apple of her dimming eyes and active imagination. I hope to remain the acorn that so far has stuck pretty close to that colorful redhead's sturdy green tree. Meanwhile...

"Australia" is not a great movie, but it IS a great movie to see and get swept up in. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are good as the English noblewoman and hard-driving "drover" who move a huge herd of cattle to safety from predatory neighbors and poisoned drink. There's a significant strain of aboriginal magic and magical Aborigines mixed in. Definitely worth seeing and having it remind you of "Gone with the Wind" in its sweep and grandeur, if not in its broad history. The two films even share the year 1939: the tales in "Australia" start there, and the film "Gone with the Wind" was released in and won the Oscar that year.

But for an overly fussy interpretation in the first half, Nicole Kidman takes charge of the role and fills out her character wisely by the end of the film. Likewise, Hugh Jackman is commendable as the drover and the lover of Nicole Kidman. His white dinner jacket sexily slung over the shoulder in a party scene excepted, Jackman is believable as a man of the wilderness who falls in love with a woman of nobility. I fell for him myself!

So there's my REAL gift: Hugh Jackman's ability to bestir a 68-year-young "senior citizen." Happy Birthday, indeed!