Face Value

I have one thing to say today and one thing only. If I ever get to such an advanced state of delusion and paranoia that I actually invest twenty pounds or more of my hard earned cash in a pot of anti wrinkle cream (or age reversal moisturing products as they’re tactfully labeled to avoid the W word.) If that occurs, then you, dearest readers of this blog, have my express permission to shoot me. I think if I ever sink to such a moral and intellectual low, even if I am starting to have a face like an elephants behind, then I will be so far gone and so far removed from sanity that the only kind thing to do would be to put me out of my misery.

Seriously though, I was waiting for a phone call this lunchtime and eased the hanging around by watching some daytime TV. This is something I have an explicit policy not to do, but hell, I was feeling rebellious and bored and thought ‘fuck it’. In hindsight, I wish I had thought ‘read Shakespeare’ or ‘listen to the new Grinderman album’ (which is excellent by the way) or even ‘go for a shit’ but no, instead I thought “let’s watch ‘This Morning.’ That will kill a few minutes.” Anyway, I didn’t even get as far as watching Fern Whatsherface and Suited Man because when I switched on it was the adverts. In one break there were about three commercials for anti aging products, each more stupid than the last. By the time I turned the TV off five minutes later I had lost faith in humanity. Not middle aged women; in some ways they’re the people I blame the least. They’re just the victims of this stupid manipulative, pseudo scientific, anti integrity, paranoia feeding and hate spreading propaganda. As express targets of this highly charged emotional headfuckery, I feel that sort of diminishes their responsibility to see through it. But why are we, as sons and daughters and friends of these women not attempting to point out the whole stupidity of the ridiculous scientific claims the adverts make, why are we not telling them the truth? Why do we buy them these products for Christmas even when we personally think they are nonsense? At the risk of sounding weird why do I, when I go home to stay for weekends, always sneakily have a sniff of my mum’s moisturiser that she keeps on the bathroom shelf and feel comforted? Hell, why are we not complimenting their wrinkles, they’re only folded bits of skin after all?

I have been thinking about these questions, and whilst things like career advancement, fashion and social pressures answer some of the questions, the answer that cuts right to the heart of the matter is expressed in the following equation

Age + wrinkles= imminent death.

Most people are terrified of death. Most people are also terrified of their wives, their girlfriends, their friends or their mothers dying. We love them, we need them. Wrinkles are a very visable sign of the aging process and therefore transform the hidden taboo of death into an surface marker of decay that nobody can ignore. We generally recoil at things that are taboo. Including wrinkles. What an anti wrinkle cream offers, in a not so subtle way, is a magic potion, complete with a modern scientific formula, that promises to prolong life and maybe even elude death. It’s very, very seductive and cuts right to the core of our psyches. So even if we suspect it might be nonsense we all play ball. Hence the multi billion pound industry. Hence ‘Oil of Olay’ being the number one Christmas present for mums. After all, it’s morbid to dwell on death. Much better to pretend aging and death isn’t happening, and now you have a secret weapon to help you. Much better to act like an ostrich than face the fact that life is, as my meditation teacher jokes, a ‘100% terminal sexually transmitted disease’. There ain’t no potion that’s going to help cure it, let alone a face cream based on ‘Aloe Vera and micronutrients from crushed pearls’.

WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. YOUR LOVED ONES ARE GOING TO DIE.

YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.

The Buddha said,

‘Contemplate death like your turban is on fire’

I doubt wiser words have ever been said. As a culture we need face our own mortality. We hide signs of aging with creams and under layers of botox, foundation and makeup. Then, as the ‘disease’ progresses we commit atrocities like locking those 'suffering' from its advanced stages in virtual prisons letting them rot unseen and unheard. Rather than doing this, we should listen to the dying man, talk to the old woman, prepare ourselves for what, one day we will all have to go through. If we did it with great urgency rather than telling ourselves we’re Peter Pans, then maybe we would have a more peaceful death and a less delusional life. One thing I can tell you for sure, this Christmas my mother isn’t getting her usual Boots moisturiser wrapped under the tree. And one of these days, when I’m feeling brave enough, she’s going to get a compliment on her wrinkles.

Grandma

I have spent a lot of today thinking about old age. My grandma died at around about this time of year (such a dutiful granddaughter: I can’t remember the date/month/year), but I’m pretty sure it was in the spring, with the daffodils just about to die. So she has been playing on my mind for the last few days. She died in an old peoples home as the family couldn’t cope with her severe, aggressive dementia. Within eighteen months she went from being my lovely cuddly grandma to a husk of a woman. Being witness to the journey she underwent; the accelerated decaying process that left her unable to remember her own name or the name of her husband, children or, well… me… it was one of the most influential things that has happened to me. You just don’t forget shit like that. I was walking the walls of the city, and memories of her last months floated back into my conciousness: the smell of the pine air freshener that she had to breathe all day and the fish tank in the home's hallway with the moldy goldfish that swam in tiny circles. The guest’s "sign in" book that recorded our weekly visit and the tragedy of the fact that on more than one occasion there were no other names in the book to separate our Sunday signatures.

I have always hated old peoples homes. With a passion. I used to work at one, I know the shit that goes on there. People, good people who have given so much to their families and their communities are just left in high backed chairs to rot. There is no respect for the intelligence, individuality, history or needs of that person. Yes, they will get fed, even if it is the same tinned grapefruit or stewed prunes every day. Yes, they will be dressed, if they no longer can for themselves. Yes, they will get toileted once every couple of hours. Unless the staff forget, and then they have to physically sit in their own piss and shit for hours on end. In these places, there is no dignity. None. Most people in old peoples homes are not really people at all, in my experience, they are just empty shells waiting for their next 10 minute family visit, or if they have no relatives, they sit there and look forward to the day they finally stop breathing.

Now, call me silly if you will, but to me that’s no way for even one life to end. And for thousands upon thousands of these broken people to be abandoned, (not just by their families but by their communities), exploited of their hard earned life savings, neglected, drugged beyond recognition until they finally lose the will to live and croak…well….to me it is beyond dubious. This is abuse, plain and simple. Abuse of a whole generation, abuse of the most vulnerable group in our society. This is happening now, every day and it’s a fucking travesty. The friends and the relatives of people who have had to go through these systems and have seen our mums and dads, grandmas and granddads, friends and even enemies destroyed by them should be screaming about this abuse through megaphones outside polling stations and TV stations. We should be burning the places to the ground. We should be suing the corrupt owners of these establishments who bleed their residents dry. We should be going into the thick of it and helping those poor bastards who after all did much more than fight in the much toted wars; they raised us, read us stories, fed us home cooked meals, made sacrifice after sacrifice for both this country and our communities and our own families. This is the thanks they get? We should be so ashamed.

Yet I am not talking from a holier than thou perspective. My immediate family committed my grandma to one of these places. It made her worse and she died. We have that on our consciences forever. However, like many people in that situation we believed all the shit the system told us, that we couldn’t manage her at home, that she’d be better there, that she was a danger to herself and others, that she was unsafe in the community. We acted with the best of intentions. So do so many of us. But I think most of us know, I think in my heart of hearts we knew, that we acted with blood on our hands. Who hasn’t been to an old folks home and retched at the barely disguised smell of cabbage and piss? Who hasn’t noticed the woman in the corner with her dress on back to front and her teeth hanging out? And who hasn’t looked around at all the vacant expressions staring at countdown on the telly and thought; "shoot me, please, before I get to this stage"?

There is a cancer at the heart of our society. Maybe one of the reasons we’re all so obsessed with botox and anti wrinkle cream is because we know what’s waiting for us at the end of the line. It's not the thought of endless bingo nights and tepid institution food that creates the horror of the situation, it's the fact that these things are, in an old people's home, life's highlights.

News flash, people. We’re all gonna die. You won’t avoid it however hard you try. Science isn’t going to find a miracle cure, you’ll be pushing up daisies before you’ve even really had a chance to realise the implications of being alive. And when you do die you will probably be in a lot of pain and very scared. Dying well and dying bravely is one of the hardest things there is to do. Trust me on this. Wouldn’t it be nice, then, if our very last years were spent with our families, or if not with them, then in places that valued us and our wisdom, where we were treated with respect and compassion rather than as if we were nuisances at best, simple commodities at worst? Wouldn’t it be good if, even on our death beds, we were still being asked; "What can you teach us?" A dying person has access to some of life’s most potent wisdom, yet he is dosed up with morphine and goes screaming into the night surrounded by people who don’t know how to help, or have been taught, for professional reasons, not to get too involved.

My grandma died four years ago, almost to the day. I don’t know how yet but I don’t want her to have died in vain. I tried writing a play about it, one day I will try to write, or do, something else.

For today this little blog will have to do.

Body Image- (To Joan)

I loved your fat,
handfuls of it.
Breasts so big
they flattened me against
the wall in the hallway.
A scuffed knee,
a broken toy,
a sore throat;
all my worries
ran to your open arms.
Clasped to your chest:
rising and falling,
rising and falling.
Your heart beat
a tribal drum
that spoke to me
in ways your
stubby tongue
and cracked lips
could not.
Your clothes bursting
with rolls of blubber.
Wild eyes
and double chin.
No lipstick,

a faint moustache,

false teeth.

I had yet to encounter
Miss World on her
callous catwalk.
To me you were
woman,
old woman
in all her glory
and I was proud
to sit beside you
on the bus.