A brief pause to discuss face blankets and other stuff

Is invisibility a super power?

Josephine Clofullia

My friend and I were discussing the weird stuff that happens when you are a woman and you reach a certain vintage. I’m sure there are similar things for men, but I am not a man, so I cannot speak to that.

One such weird thing is what I call the face blanket. This is when, as an older woman, you sprout fine peach fuzz on your face and pretend it has always been there, you just had no time to scrutinize your skin to see it. My friend told me no, that was not true. Our faces in youth used to be smooth and semi-perfect. The fine hair sprouts when your hormones start exiting the building and such.

She says she shaves the fine hair off her face. I haven’t done that, convincing myself that it has been there all along. I am considering it a kind, warm face blanket.

So I pluck those really thick, wiry hairs that sprout and seem to grow two inches overnight? I do. They really bug me, and I can feel them, and I want them gone. You probably don’t want to know about any of this personal stuff, but here it is. I pluck my beard hairs. If I let them go, maybe I could be in a seniors production of THE GREATEST SHOWMAN. Given my theater experiences in the last two years, though, I am inclined to think the The-ah-tah is through with me.

This is part of the invisibility piece. I’ve had three separate incidents over the past two years that have knocked me off my feet, theatrically. Let me elaborate so you can see why I feel invisible.

ONE: I was offered a fantastic lead role in a local production of a small theater I had supported for years. I was beyond excited to tackle something so fantastic, and the writing was wonderful. We went into rehearsals right after Thanksgiving, and we opened in early January. In case you don’t do theater, I can tell you this: this is a shit rehearsal window. Many days are off limits for holidays, and people are missing etc. I did nothing but work on memorizing my lines from Thanksgiving forward.

With this very small rehearsal window and 800 lines to memorize, I gave it everything I had. I felt like we were getting better at every rehearsal, but the director, who had a habit of berating all of the actors anyway, focused on me and how he did not like the way I was doing the part. Rather than ask me to step down, he bullied me to the point where I quit. It didn’t feel great. I asked if he could be supportive instead of yelling and stalking out of the theater at my hideous acting, but he did not.

Prior to that, I had agreed to take on the task of directing a play for a friend who had lost three directors on the project already. The show was to be presented at a local festival, and I was excited to direct again. I had a lot of ideas for the show, I felt that the cast was good, and for the first couple of weeks, things went well.

But as we got into it, the writer (who also starred in the show) told me she didn’t like what I was doing. She didn’t directly ask me to quit; she just kibbutzed every move I made and didn’t like how I was running rehearsals, I guess. She never really talked to me about. As things became more tense, I wrote here an email, suggesting that maybe she’d like to take over directing duties. I thought she might protest, but she didn’t. So, fired again.

And finally, prior to THAT, I had worked for a local theater festival for several years, doing PR and media contact. In the last year I worked for the group, I took on several producing roles as well, and really worked very hard to be sure the festival was well attended and that artists were taken care of. Within the first seven days of the ten day festival, we had made back our costs, which had not happened EVER. I felt so validated and good about my work.

My fatal flaw was that I questioned where all the grant money for the festival went. I dared to question why the director of the festival was absent from most tasks, and why he was paid $50k per year for not doing anything much. That hubris led to a phone call after the festival where the director told me they were having budget issues, and he’d have to cut my pay in half. So I quit.

The message I take from these experiences, and from my beard hair, is that I have come to a point in my life where I don’t allow people to treat me as invaluable. I used to allow it. I let people use me and always thought it was my problem if things were not working. I did not trust my worth.

I feel more at peace now with everything, although I also feel like all the things I used to love to do are now closed to me. I can write, but so far, nobody wants to read it. I can do theater, but I’ve been told by several people that I shouldn’t. I could do art, but why? There are about a million people better than I am at it.

I’m looking for direction in what to do next. All the things I thought I’d spend retirement doing appear to be closed to me. So again, I’m floating in this weird liminal space. I think part of this is also the ridiculous world surrounding us right now. Like many of you, I sort of want to scream and I sort of want to hide. I’m going to protests every week and doing what I can, but it all feels futile.

If you have any wisdom to impart on any of this, I’d love to hear it, even if it’s not complementary. Thanks.