Wrinkles, Invisibility and Other Superpowers

There is an ageing population here in Malta. I include myself in that category! However, there is also a proportion with massive disposable incomes, and many of them invest in cosmetic surgery, facial treatments and laughably expensive creams in order to roll back the remorseless ageing process. It is certainly the deterioration in the facial region that jumps out at me when looking in a magnifying mirror or wearing really strong reading glasses.

I know it can be distressing to see the reality of one’s aged face. Have you, like me, looked up in a lift and been appalled by the harassed, cross old woman glaring back from the mirrored interior?

There are coping strategies that do not include cosmetic surgery or expensive creams. Mine is not to wear glasses, which creates a sort of soft haze of uncertainty about what actually exists. It’s almost an aspect of special relativity, where the glasses create a different frame of reference that includes length contraction (finer wrinkles) and time dilation (a more youthful appearance). Mind you, only in my frame of reference does that reality exist. It does not affect or impact what others may see. But one has to factor in that other important superpower acquired with age: our cloak of invisibility.

I remember, as an adolescent, getting into my swimsuit on the beach beneath a huge beach towel with much difficulty. My mother asked the wounding question, “Who is looking at you?” She was undoubtedly right, but the younger me smarted under this perceived insult. Now, I recognise it as a fundamental truth. 

No one is looking at me, provided I don’t wear my pants on my head, put my clothes on inside out or leave the house in my slippers. I must, in all honesty, also confess to committing two out of the aforementioned three mistakes in the last year. One needn’t dwell on such things. My memory, like the elasticated waist of my trousers, can shrink and expand at will.

Gone are those adolescent years when embarrassing mistakes caused flashbacks, trauma and many tears, even when remembered months later. I have grown kinder to this older, flawed self. I can giggle over small mistakes, try to cover up the larger ones and generally beam at the world with good-natured intention.

Strangers have become universally kinder to me. I am offered seats on buses, and people even offer me their arm when I gingerly step off. Drivers lower the bus to aid my entry and exit without being asked. It sometimes feels as if the bus is kneeling and paying homage to all my infirmities and weaknesses.

At such times, I am reminded of those parts of the world where the elderly face poverty, hunger, disease and neglect. Famines and wars add to the misery and agony of their old age. Forced displacement and refugee camps cause much suffering, and perhaps we should all, like the buses, lower ourselves in recognition of their pain.

"Be ye a refuge to the fearful; bring ye rest and peace to the disturbed; make ye a provision for the destitute; be a treasury of riches for the poor; be a healing medicine for those who suffer pain ..."

ʻAbduʼl-Bahá

If looks could kill!

Sometimes it’s only decades after a person has passed away that you begin to gain perspective on them and their life. One member of our writers’ group, in Northern Ireland, was an 87-year-old English lady called Winnie. She was from Yorkshire and spoke of wearing clogs with metal soles as a child, making sparks fly as she and the other children ran down the road.

Her poetry was about simple things like fish suppers, fuel poverty or just living on her estate. It was one of the rougher estates, and whenever I visited her in Coleraine, I remembered my own time living in such challenging places.

We had so much laughter in that particular writing group, and I remember the warmth of their voices and their openness. I suspect it was the desperation in all our lives that made honesty necessary. Those who live in relative affluence probably have just as many problems, but seem to cloak themselves from others and hide their indiscretions better. Winnie has since passed away, and I miss her smile and her jokey sense of humour.

There was a retired local policeman who was also in the group. He was like a breath of fresh air, causing everyone to erupt in laughter over the simplest things. I remember he once ended up spending a night in custody through no fault of his own.

He’d been awakened in the early hours of the morning in his block of flats by the sound of a woman screaming for help. When he came out of his apartment, he could see two figures, a woman and a man, having an altercation on the walkway outside the third-floor flats.

Climbing the stairs, he joined them on the walkway and discovered that the man was beating the woman severely. He intervened and brought the man down in a rugby tackle. When the police were called, it turned out to be a domestic violence incident, but both the man and the woman blamed him for instigating all the violence, and he ended up spending the night in custody.

Poor guy! He swore he wouldn’t help anyone ever again: the risk was too great. But he made us all laugh with his tale of the evening and the confusion—thinking he was doing his good deed for the day, only to end up in a jail cell.

Winnie had her own issues. She and her husband had been unable to have children, so they had adopted two brothers, aged seven and nine. Unfortunately, the boys caused no end of trouble during childhood and went on to commit worse offences as they grew older. As adults, they seemed to gravitate towards trouble, and trouble seemed to gravitate towards them.

When her husband died, things seemed to get worse, and the two men seemed to take ridiculous pleasure in upsetting Winnie. I remember her telling us about one occasion when she was walking with her younger son Paul walking on the pavement in front of the shops in Coleraine. As they walked, he was saying the most offensive and hurtful things to her. He was cursing and shouting so loudly, and gesticulating with his fists so aggressively, that two middle-aged women walking behind them challenged him about his behaviour and intervened.

Pulling him aside, away from Winnie, they called the police and gave him a good scolding as they stood on the pavement waiting for the police to arrive. Middle-aged ladies working in tandem can give a powerful ticking-off, and these two were well built and very well intentioned. I think her son was more afraid of these two well-built and thoroughly outraged middle-aged women than of the small policeman who eventually appeared to take down the details.

Winnie said her son was completely shocked by how they spoke to him and by their fearlessness. The small policeman gave him a warning not to behave in such a manner, but apparently the two middle-aged women needed to be restrained by the policeman from giving a more physical response to his misbehaviour.

The police had been called on many occasions to deal with her son, and he had no fear of them. But Winnie said that, over the policeman’s shoulder, one of the women pointed two fingers at her own eyes and then at her son—a warning that had him scared indeed. Who knew when he would encounter them again? And without police intervention, would he be safe?

I remember calling Winnie once and hearing her son shouting furiously at her in the background. I was so angry at his tone that I told Winnie to give him the phone so I could give him a piece of my mind. She told him I wanted to talk to him and offered him the phone. There was silence, and then she told me he’d run out of the door and onto the street rather than talk to me.

I visited Winnie several times and was so upset to see her in her big armchair, wrapped in blankets. She told me that was where she slept now. Apparently, the upper floor, where her bedroom was, was far too cold. It upset me to think of her life being restricted to this one tiny room and the armchair. I wish the world were more aware of what age and poverty do to so many people.

During one of my visits, her son was there. I was pretty annoyed with him but tried not to show it. I didn’t want to make things worse for Winnie, but I couldn’t stop myself glaring at him. He was in a placating mood, all smiles and very subservient in the way he greeted me. That made me want to slap him really hard.

Then my son suddenly appeared, helping to carry in some things from my car for Winnie. He is six foot two, and Paul, thought I’d come to get some justice and had brought a heavy along for that purpose. He practically fell to his knees before us. However, my son greeted him warmly and shook his hand, and I could see that Paul was beyond relieved.

I had to stop myself copying the middle-aged lady’s two-finger warning, pointing to my eyes and then at Paul over my son’s shoulder, just to freak him out.

Paul continued to plague Winnie’s life with his violence, his moods and his anger. It seemed so unfair. One of Winnie’s stories was about Paul’s neighbour down the street, who had attacked and frightened him. I enjoyed her story, but I’m afraid I knew exactly how that neighbour felt, as I’d really wanted to give him a good thrashing myself. Winnie was a lovely lady and didn’t deserve any of this.

Sometimes you have to ask what lessons are learned in life. I think Winnie had a wonderful married life with her husband, and when they decided to adopt two children, they did it for all the right reasons. It’s just a shame that some children are so scarred by what they’ve been through that they seem never to find their feet or make a better life, despite all the help and love they receive.

Addiction played a big role in much of the harm I saw in those lives. Alcoholism blights many Irish lives and causes so much distress and heartache. I wonder whether those who make so much money out of this dirty business ever think about the anguish and violence so often associated with their product.

Lessons learned by granny this month

 

I told my grandson that he was so cute.  "How did you get so cute?" I asked. Then I asked a harder question, "Do you think I could be as cute as you?" He did not hesitate, he said "No, you are too old!" Out of the mouth of babes!!!

He lost his first tooth and excitedly hid it under his pillow expecting the tooth Fairy to do her business.  No money appeared and he was telling his younger cousin that he's waited days and the tooth was still there but no money.  Although, only five his cousin broke the brutal news, "there's no such thing as a tooth fairy it is just parents who put the money under the pillow".  My grandson digested this news with stoic resignation.  The real world is a tough show.

This youngest grandchild is not really interested in computers but I found he had carefully constructed a cardboard version for himself and was happily playing on it!

Baxter is the family dog and his good nature is tangible.  He approaches everything and everyone like gigantic puppy happy and really for fun.  When he is greeted with a growl, snap or shout he quickly runs away to safety.  He is not the sharpest pencil in the pack and is totally terrified by feathers, even the little tiny ones that come out of pillows.  But all of it makes up a very loveable character to have around. I hope now like me you are happy to hear about all these cheery chappies and valuable lessons learned from them.