by Cath Nichols
I am studying older women, women
older than me. I am studying the texture of them,
the way they talk and move. This is where I will
move in the future. I am observing the spots of gravity
above and below their eyes. The softened pouch
at the jawbone. The blur of hair to sky; the frizzes,
the too thick fall of it. The places where things turn grey.
Is my hair too long? Is it time to attend to the colour of it,
time to pay more attention, take more care?
I don't hold with 'maintenance': the wasteful
cost and time. Never struck me that 'pampering'
is all it's cracked up to be. Yet I do not want
to be thought… I do not want to be thought
to be 'she can't be bothered'. (But I do not
want to make that effort!) I feel a pressure
stronger than that of adolescence to conform.
Let me say now, I never wanted
children, I will not miss the bullying of oestrogen,
its deathly mood swings. I do not want
my twenties back. I don't mind being older --
it's the getting there, the small unfamiliar
adjustments of bone and muscle.
To ease myself to this new place I need to know
the textures of it; the new sounds.
I will practice my voice and poise. I am
studying older women, and when the time comes
I plan to fit in. At the post office there is talk
of litter, the Church and politics. I eavesdrop
on buses, where it's schools and colleges. They talk:
work, children, husbands, food; discuss
their mothers and fathers. Deaths. They praise chocolate
and diets. They talk of cancers, giving up smoking.
I try and get a grip, long for my stop, the swift walk home.
