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/