VIEWPOINT
Dutch for 60, the word zestig perfectly sums up the dawn of a new age full of life, laughter and realising your dreams – so says the multimillion-selling novelist planning a year of celebrations for her milestone birthday
Those birthdays that end in a zero can be scary. On the day I turned 30, I felt as if I’d aged a decade overnight. Thirty seemed so much older than 29. Then over the years, you lose dear people along the way and your mindset changes. So now I rejoice every year I chalk up because having another birthday is a privilege, not a right. And a ‘zero’ birthday should, I do believe, be a year-long event to ease you into that new decade.
That’s exactly how I’m approaching turning 60. I’m not about to shy away from it, I’ll race headlong into its embrace. It’s a special birthday because, for once, it’s going to be all about me. I’ve spent my fifties worrying about my boys turning into young men – they’re now 24 and 25 – and I’ve been caring for elderly parents. I think women especially feel themselves squashed out of their own lives by duties to others.
I love that the Dutch word for 60 is zestig. It makes it sound juicy and bursting with deliciousness. Zestig seems a perfect way to describe this new phase, this age of opportunities and new experiences. So this spring, to start my 60th celebrations, I’ll be satisfying my ambition to sleep on a train, and not just any old train. I’ll be travelling to Venice and dining in style, hoping I don’t encounter a murder on board. And in May, I’ll be cruising to Italy, Spain and Malta. It’s not selfish to be ‘self-ish’ sometimes. We don’t expect batteries to run on empty, yet we do expect it of ourselves.
I also want to reunite with old ambitions I haven’t realised yet, like learning how to do Northern Soul dancing – the coolest moves on the planet – learning to belly dance, and digging out my easel to do some painting.
Reaching 60 is a massive deal in Japan – they call it kanreki. Traditionally you have to don a red vest, red hat and sit on a red cushion holding court with a white folding fan in your hand. I may well do this in The Ivy. Red is my colour and apparently it’s very lucky – and the colour newborns in Japan wear. This is because the Japanese believe you have completed one full 60-year cycle and are, in effect, born again.
The Swedes are more practical. At 60, they start thinking about ‘death-cleaning’, which isn’t as horrific as it sounds. We all have too many unwanted and unused things in our houses. I know this because I wrote a book about the art of clutter-clearing based on the decluttering I did after my divorce. The Swedes believe that 60 is an ideal age to embrace minimalism, organise, de-junk, partly I imagine as a courtesy to relatives who might be left one day with your collection of 1
