Listening

by Carolyn Lancaster

Kate put on her glasses and looked in the bathroom mirror to check out a pimple that was trying to make a break for freedom. She looked closer. My God! She thought. Two tiny chin hairs! Not one, two. How long have they been there? As if it wasn’t bad enough getting older. Now I have chin hairs and I can’t even see them? Shit. She thought about her younger friends at work. Had they noticed? 

 Kate had decided to keep three pairs of tweezers around. It made her feel safe. A pair for the car, a pair for her handbag, in case she was out of the house and discovered one, and a pair for the bathroom. The rear-view mirror was perfect for catching the sun on any new hair intruders at traffic lights. It made for a productive commute, along with the Deepak Chopra meditations.

 Ageing felt like it was pulling her ahead to unknown train stations. Next stop 80! One day she’d woken up and had already passed the old train stations she knew, the ones she thought were hers. It happened last year, after she turned 55. Somewhere inside her, she could feel the loosening hold of her younger self, a place where it seemed she’d had all the time to keep practising getting her life right. Something back there felt unfinished. It kept calling to her, but she couldn’t hear what it was saying. She wasn’t ready for middle age. But here she was, stuck at an unfamiliar train station. When does one decide to wear polyester elasticised pants and tropical colours? Not yet, she comforted herself. She wondered if she would care less about it if she didn’t live at Bondi Beach. She loved the beach, the ocean, the sky and clouds, changing its beauty every day. It was her refuge. Lately, she was starting to feel a bit confronted by the big bum cheeks, boobs, eyelashes and lips bouncing around the streets and on the sand, reminding her of her own softening body, like a taunt. Big bums were not in fashion when she was young. Oh, that sounded old.

 She decided that this was the time of her life for self-pampering. She’d never bothered or had time or money for it while raising the kids. She booked a detox facial at the organic salon down on Hall Street, a short walk from her apartment. 

 While she relaxed back on the bed, under the antioxidant serum being painted on her face, the eyes of the beautician glowed blue, peering at her skin under an overhead lamp. Then, like a cold UFO captain beaming information to the mothership, the young woman recited the names of Kate’s facial topography: marionette lines, nasolabial folds, frown lines, heavy eyelids, sagging jowls, droopy neck and sunspots. Kate felt exhausted after the inventory, like this newly mapped landscape that she owned sucked out more of her energy. The girl brightened (Kate wondered if she’d fed off her energy?). She said it could all be improved with fillers and botox, giving her a refreshed look. The girl admitted in whispers to using botox to prevent even starting wrinkles. 

‘I don’t even want to get started with them! Does my face look that bad?’ Kate said aloud. The girl then offered to freeze pockets of fat on Kate's body, at 30 per cent off for a series. 

‘Now, what part of your body and face are you unhappy with?’ she asked Kate, smiling with wide lips pulling back over wider whitened teeth. 

Kate felt confused. My face? My body?

 ‘I’ll meet you at the front and work up a treatment plan just for you. I can give you the 30 per cent off now, if you pay for the treatments today.’

 Rushing home, her chest feeling tight, Kate shut the door behind her, put on her reading glasses and went to the bathroom mirror. She saw, for the first time, that her eyelids looked heavier. She’d never noticed the lines near her nose before now. What were their names? Nasolabial? Marionette? She lifted her head to look at her neck. Her jowls looked softer. She ran her hand under them and pulled them back towards her ears, as if they were misplaced objects. They landed back, obedient to a force greater than Kate.

 Then she heard something inside of herself. It was the voice. The one that she’d left back in the past. It was now calling her, as if from far away. She still couldn’t make it out. She took off her glasses and saw the lines of her face in the mirror soften into blurs. She walked outside to her balcony and sat on the couch in the sun. She looked up and saw a cloud gliding over the bluest sky. She closed her eyes, felt a breeze touch her face, and listened to the voice inside her. 

© Carolyn Lancaster, 2020