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

How to get rid of wrinkles - this works!

I have wrinkles.  Not those tiny fine things only visible under a 10x magnifying glass with the aid of a 1KW dentist lamp, but the real McCoy.  Two things conspired to bring this unwelcome reality home yesterday.

A little bit of historical and somewhat hysterical perspective is needed in order to understand this all.  So bear with me.  When I first attended an optician in N Ireland in my forties he did all the usual tests.  One included looking at a display that looked remarkably like graph paper.  To me it looked crooked in places as if bent by undulating hills.  This observation concerned the optician, I could tell.  He peered into the back of my eye with his little torch and told me to look up and sideways.  There was something wrong he told me.  Several tests later he showed me a picture of the back of my eye and there was an ominous black spot in the middle of each.  He made an appointment for me to see a consultant at the local hospital as I had it seemed macular degeneracy.  It was scary to be told this, as I already knew how quickly this disease could take away your eyesight.  I left the opticians needing not one set of glasses but two.  One for reading and one for far away and in my head the worrying thought that my eyesight could get a great deal worse than it already was.  Fortunately, the specialist, after much examination, said I had something else.  I have something that looks scarily like macular degeneracy but for some reason does not progress as fast.  That black circle in each eye has remained roughly the same over the past fifteen years.  Each year at the routine eye test every optician, it is never the same one, looks worried and informs me the bad news that I have macular degeneracy and I comfort each of them immediately with

“It’s okay, it just looks like that but it isn’t!”

After several years the opticians took on a new assistant.  He was French and young with eight leather bangles on his arm.  I was used to the young female assistants who when you put on a set of frames and asked their opinion would chew on their finger nails and shrug their disinterest.  This young Frenchman was completely different.  I chose one set of round frames and turned to him and he inspected me and then said in a lovely French accent,

“This makes your face look ‘grosser’,fatter!”

I hastily took the offensive frames off and hesitantly picked up another set completely different in design, very modern. Again, he paused and really looked at me.  It was quite disconcerting.  He said,

“These make your face look long like ‘cheval’, you know like a horse.”

This time I practically threw the frames back on the shelf.  I felt very nervous about making my next choice.  Goodness knows what he might say.  I don’t have a lot of confidence about my looks at the best of time, so this whole business was really crushing.  I reluctantly, picked one at random, I remember it was a bright violet.  What on earth was I thinking?  The truth was, I was panicking.

He held his chin with his hand and then spoke,

“This one makes you look clever…but ugly.”

By now I was incapable of choosing another pair of glasses.  I could not stand one more insult or there would be tears.  Instead, I asked plaintively,

“What frames would you suggest?”

He immediately slid over to a completely different display cabinet and selected two frames and held them out to me saying,

“Either of these would be fine, they suit your face and complexion.”

I nervously, put on one and looked at him nervously awaiting judgement.  He looked at me for a long moment, head held on one side judiciously and them said angrily,

“No, no, no try the other!”

I despairingly obeyed and again he peered at me and I awaited his judgment call with breath abated.  Perhaps these made my face ‘cochon’pig-like?  I was preparing myself for the next cutting remark, when he pronounced,

“These are perfect, they suit your face and skin tone.  The shape is really good on you.”

You cannot begin to know the relief I felt as I left the shop.  Strangely, every year from then on I would ask for the French guy when choosing glasses.  Despite all the hurtful comments I trusted his unflinching honest taste.

Yesterday, while walking down town in Sliema a young sales assistant accosted me on the pavement outside a beautician’s shop.  She asked me my name and then, like the Frenchman, peered aggressively into my face.  She announced,

“I have some cream that will get rid of those wrinkles around your eyes”,

she sounded sure of herself.  It was tempting to respond with,

“Look when you are three times your age, this will be your lot too.” 

But instead just told her I was fine with my wrinkles and walked on.  Later, a young student of mine, who is studying the book Purple Hibiscus pointed at a word in the text,‘wrinkled’ and asked what it meant.  I wrinkled my jacket up and pointed to the creases hoping that would suffice.  It didn't and so I pointed to the area around my eyes and said, “like this!”  She understood immediately and as we proceeded with the lesson my heart sank like a deflated balloon.  Later that evening I put on my reading glasses and looked at my face.

“What the hell had happened!”  Was this me?  Lines had appeared not just around my eyes in great abundance but also around my mouth as if I was permanently whistling.  The whole quality of the skin complexion had changed.  No longer smooth but with indents and river tracks burrowing into flesh.  When on earth had this happened and why had no one told me before?  I spent an unhappy evening googling for answers.  Apparently to not have lines around your mouth, avoid sucking on straws.  Darn useless bit of knowledge for me now!  To avoid creases around the eyes, stop smiling so much.  To never have creases on your upper chest area, a lady in her fifties on youtube informed me that she had never slept on her side her whole life.  Blistering barnacles I had been totally unaware of all these sneaky tricks.  There, I had spent years sucking down drinks, smiling daily like a lunatic and always slept on my side.  I inspected the damage carefully in the mirror and then came to a momentous decision to restore my looks to smooth perfection.  Slowly, I removed my glasses and as if a miracle the wrinkles became invisible.  I smiled amazed at the instant transformation.  Sometimes the solution to life is knowing more but seeing less.