The Folded Clock: A Diary

Chapter 77: April 27

Today I went to a Virginia Woolf reading. For some reason this reading was held at a law school. At the front desk I was asked by an old woman holding a hand-written sign that said VIRGINIA WOOLF, as though she was a chauffeur picking up Virginia Woolf at the airport, if I were going to the Virginia Woolf reading. I confirmed. She said, “I guessed that about you.” I got offended. Why I didn’t know. When I entered the library where the reading was being held I knew. I am of that age now where I am looking for the next age I will be. How will I dress? How will I act? Here were women in their last ages; they wore kimono blouses and ethnic scarves and had buzzed, asymmetrical hair. I felt like I was in a late-80s women’s studies class. I’d once admired women who looked like this; what had changed? I said to myself, They’re only dressing for women like themselves. I often claim that I dress for other women. But this crowd felt more insular and hermetic. There was a formula to belonging.

Since I am older but not yet old, I try not to judge even while, to protect myself, I’m totally judging. So trying not to judge, I surveyed these women and thought: Maybe when you get older you want to be part of a visually defined group. Maybe it is easier to be recognized and acknowledged as part of a group because to be acknowledged individually becomes harder over time. I’ve noticed that I have to look harder at older women in the face to see their faces. I stare and I stare and then suddenly — there they are. I have to look harder at my own face to see myself in it. My face was signifying me so well for a while; now, again, it is failing. When I look in the mirror I literally feel like I’m boring down through a surface that doesn’t catch the light, that isn’t quickly bouncing back a discernible message. I am starting to fail on the streets to communicate with my face because pedestrians don’t have that kind of time. They are in a hurry. Recently I started wearing a bone around my neck. It’s a seal vertebra I found on a beach that’s for sale; I hope, if a seal spirit sees fit to deliver unto me a massive windfall, that the beach will someday be mine. The bone makes pedestrians stare, not at me, but at it. This seems a good first step. Who is that woman wearing the bone? Who wears a large bone around her neck? This woman does. Please take the time to look at her.