48. The face of old age (replay)
The face of old age, your own old age, takes a bit of getting used to. When I was only 74 and I still had a bad case of ageism, I didn’t like the look of old people. Now I look in the mirror and I see an old woman’s face — and strange to say, I don’t particularly care.
Dr Susanna Kent and I recorded this episode on my 85th birthday and we had a lot of fun, which I’m keen to share with you.
Why the face of old age is not a pretty one
I demanded that Susanna explain why I’ve got dead-gorse-bush hair, non-existent eyebrows, and so many scars and wrinkles. I questioned random pedestrians: as you’ll hear, most said they don’t look at the face of a new acquaintance but into their eyes — or in one case, at their clothes! They look to see whether a person is approachable. They look for the essence, the spirit of a person. Which has nothing to do with wrinkles.
Poems about making beautiful faces
Turns out I have written at least three poems about faces and makeup. You could almost call it an obsession:
- Making Faces (written in my 30s)
- Beauty Tips for Older Ladies (written when I was 79)
- Aging Beauty — instant poem, (written when I was 82)
Do you really want to know about the face of old age?
We barely touched on the topic. But a quick glance at the NIH National Library of Medicine gives the facts about facial ageing, sometimes in excruciating detail.
- The facial aging process from the inside out (PMC, National Library of Medicine)
- Facial aging trajectories: A common shape pattern in male and female faces is disrupted after menopause (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6771603/
