A few years ago, I wrote a piece on my Bookphace blog called The Invisibility of an Aging Woman. It’s a subject I return to in my head from time to time because it’s still very pertinent and very apparent. Here’s the link to the piece if you’re interested in reading it.
https://bookphace.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-invisibility-of-ageing-woman.html
But I’ve had further thoughts that I’m exploring here today.
Many older people, particularly women will tell you they feel invisible. When I was younger, and I heard folk say this I dismissed it. But now as I am old, I realise exactly what they meant. I was standing at the counter in the local bakery shop, (I am of average height and easily visible I would have thought.) waiting to be served when the counter assistant served someone who had come in after me. I felt a little miffed, but I am a patient soul, so I said nothing until the assistant turned to serve the next person who came in! Once I had their attention, they were profusely apologetic saying, I’m sorry I didn’t see you there.’ I believed them. I really don’t think they saw me; in that they did not register my presence. Why would that be? Is it because there is a perception that people of older years are not as interesting? Not worth engaging with on a subconscious level? It rankles mostly because it is not true.
Some years ago, when my spinal problems first began to impact on daily life and a general feeling of unwellness caused a doctor to diagnose me with a condition called fibromyalgia (a diagnosis I dispute to this day but maybe that’s a whole other post!) I joined a seated yoga class. It was for individuals who couldn’t manage a standard yoga class for myriad reasons and was run by an ex-ward sister who had a passion for yoga and believed it was for everyone whatever their state or circumstances and an instinct for perceiving peoples’ weaknesses or problems. So, there was quite a mix of people, old and young.
There were two lovely ladies who lived in the block of flats opposite the venue. They were both in their eighties and one looked after the other. Joan trundled across using her walker and Anne cleared the way of any obstacles and people who simply hadn’t noticed the duo. I think they may have been lovers, but they had lived in the age of love not daring to speak its name. However they had lived together for several decades. As I got to know them their stories astounded me. I realised these two old ladies whom people passed by without a thought had possibly lived more exciting and adventurous lives that most of us can only dream of.
Anne spoke of the time when she was a WRAF in the war. When the war ceased, she ended up in Canada for some reason. I think she had been loaned by the RAF to help Canada set up their CWAAF (Canadian Women’s’ Auxiliary Airforce). But then the war ended, instead of returning to England Anne bought a beat-up truck, a sleeping bag and a camping stove and drove all over Canada and the United States. All on her own. Given it was the 1940’s I think it was quite a courageous and incredible thing to do.
Anne wore a wrist support when she did yoga and I asked her once, what the problem was. She said that she broke it when she fell off her motorbike years ago! That was not the answer I was expecting. She went on to tell me that she had been working in the theatre at the time, in the chorus. She was running late for a matinee and decided that to save time she would get her costume on before arriving at the theatre. Whatever she was wearing wasn’t suited to motorcycle riding and something caught as she set off causing her to fall off the bike and break her wrist. The show must go on, however, so she adjusted her clothing got back on the bike and rode to the theatre. Maybe if she’d gone for medical attention right away, the wrist wouldn’t have continued to give her problems throughout her life. And those were just a couple of the stories she told me. And to look at her, you wouldn’t have thought it possible that this frail lady had such spirit.
Joan, too, spoke to me of her earlier life. Her mother’s early death led her father to place her in the care of another family, so she grew up almost as an orphan or foster child. She said her father just didn’t know what to do with a little girl. During the war, Joan was a telephonist and spoke of one occasion where she’d been working several hours without a break and was asked if she could swap and do another girl’s shift to which she grudgingly agreed. It saved her life. For when the shift was ended, and she went to go back to her home, she found that it had been bombed. So, she was left with nothing. She went back to the family who had cared for her when she was a little girl. She and Anne got together when they both worked at the same insurance firm in London.
And so, two elderly ladies, whom no one really gave a second glance to as they saw them meander their way across the road and back again once the yoga session had ended. And yet they lived such full and rich lives, they didn’t deserve to be invisible.
