This essay was inspired by an excellent profile in the New York Times Magazine by Jordan Kisner about Frances McDormand the actor. In the article McDormand who is sixty, riffs on the post-menopausal life. She explores how as an actor she has had to search for scripts that treat aging women as interesting, creative characters.
Kisner drops in a quote from “Pause” in Mary Ruefle’s book My Private Property. The notion that being invisible is a gift and an opportunity runs counter to the lament so many older woman voice about being unseen and discounted. Ruefle suggests being invisible is an opportunity. “There are no longer any persons on earth who can stop you from being yourself….You would never want to be a girl again for any reason at all, you have discovered being invisible is the biggest secret on earth. The most wondrous gift anyone could ever have given you.”
Menopause is a faint memory now. I do remember the bands of fire wrapping around my torso arriving like an unwelcome guest whenever they desired and staying as long as they felt like. The soaking sweats during the night drenching me repeatedly were annoying and exhausting. Each night I knew I would need to strip off the wet nightgown, tee shirt or pajama I had gone to bed in and put something dry on which would soon be soaked as well. I tried to keep all the ruckus of changing clothes and constant tossing and turning from awakening my husband. I suppose moving into the guest room might have been a good idea but habits are hard to break and the familiar bed was comfortable.
I knew that there was little to ease or speed up the course of this change. I cursed the trials being demanded of women from my first painful period to the last. These menopausal assaults in my fifth decade signaled the end of fertility, the diminution of hormones and the gradual acceptance of an inevitable process to a new stage in my life. Like Mother Nature always does, she had her way with me and left me tossed onto a new shore.
What was that new landscape? In some ways, no longer worrying about fertility was freeing. No more periods—amazing! How many years did my life circle around that moment when ”OK, I’m not pregnant!” could be voiced. No more cramps, migraines, irritability. No more pills. So now what?
It has taken me another twenty years to understand what I have not really thought much about before. Just a few generations back women my age were preparing to die. Women who didn’t die in childbirth, rarely lived much beyond menopause. I can and have. I have lived a rich, full energetic and healthy life twenty years beyond menopause. I do have hormones and I do have desire for physical love and expression, but here’s the bigger realization most woman my age must face. We’re invisible. Or we feel we are.
Yes, Helen Mirren is magnificent. Judy Dench is too. Gloria Steinem is serene, charismatic and lovely. Joan Baez sings and plays her guitar as always. Her voice is no longer a silvery bell, but it is beautiful and so is she. They are not invisible at all, but they’ve had to fight and fight hard to be seen. It wasn’t long ago that women with gray hair felt compelled to dye their hair to be considered a competitive applicant for any position other than secretary while men their age with heads of silvery hair were distinguished and highly regarded.
I am in a new life. I am living alone for the first time. I like going about my day exactly as I wish. I don’t strive for attention although I like it when it happens. What I do want is to be seen and heard for myself. My wrinkles and spots are only part of who I am. I am a vital and interesting woman. Being older does not mean loss of wisdom, insight, generosity, or delight. It means being able to open to those who see you and all that you have to offer in friendship and in love. What we have to offer is huge. A reservoir of memories, knowledge and desire ready to share with those who will part the veil and see beyond the notion that older woman are done, dried up and uninteresting. Older women are beautiful.
Frodo used his Elven cloak of invisibility to enable him to accomplish his mission. My mission is to live my life fully and to use being “invisible”
to accomplish my goals.
Once in a while someone turns an acute gaze and a curious mind toward me. They part the cloak of invisibility and say, “Hello. I’d like to know you.” I happily drop the cloak, smile and say “Come on, let’s go.”
Take life with big strides, don’t stop for anyone.
