Roz Chast has done it again! Chast, as her fans well know, is a cartoonist for The New Yorker with a gift for pinpointing in hilarious fashion the neuroses of our prosperous-but-ever-anxious upper middle-class, especially its female members. And in today’s issue, Chast coins a phrase that I swear will soon be as much a part of the general vocabulary as Tom Wolfe’s “Me-Generation”: “your ‘Goddess’ Years.”
If you’re in your Goddess Years, you know who you are (but I don’t think too many of you are readers of the InkWell). And if you aren’t, you’ve got relatives, neighbors, co-workers, and members of your book group who probably are. Chast offers an illustrated quiz (sorry, it’s not posted on The NewYorker website) designed to help women figure out whether they’re entering their Goddess years (or perhaps are already there):
“1. Do bright-colored tunics and big, bold jewelry suddenly appeal? Are you starting to carry an eccentric tote bag? What’s with the hair?
“2. Have you gotten heavily into herbal tea, especially the ‘soothing’ varieties? How about aromatherapy? Magic crystals? Yoga?…
“5. Has your husband recently purchased an expensive sportscar?”
In Chast’s droll illustrations, a daughter screams with horror at her tunic-wearing, ethnic jewelry-draped mother: “Mom, you’re starting to look like Aunt June!” In another, Mom in her wide-legged Goddess Years slacks muses, “We should all become vegans…or move to Tuscany…or….” And there are the stacked boxes of the soothing teas: Nappy Time, Restful Rutabaga, Vallium Valley.
Don’t miss this sample of Chast at her best. You do know someone who’s entering her Goddess Years!