“I love being a woman over 50. I’m invisible to the world, and it feels like a superpower. I can walk down any dangerous street and no one sees me.”
My daughter rolled her eyes. “Mom, the last thing I would call you is invisible. Everywhere you go people talk to you. You might be the least invisible person I know.”
I thought about that. “True. Maybe I mean I’m invisible to criminals.”
Eye roll.
I was out to breakfast last Sunday with my 18-year-old daughter after her college tour, and I was telling her about my hot date the night before.
With myself.
I was referring to the previous evening when I attended a Broadway show alone, then took myself to Chez Josephine for a glass of champagne and some rousing people-watching. I had walked from the Ambassador Theater to Chez Josephine on one of my least favorite streets in New York (8th between 48th and 42nd). The streets were filled with the detritus of Times Square mania, meaning people stumbling down the sidewalks in droves, their eyes going in circles like a Looney Tune cartoon of someone who has been hit on the head.
So picture, if you will, me in a sea of dipsomaniacs, flopping down 8th at midnight, in my platform flower pink flip-flops, purple velvet jumpsuit, pink feathered cape, round pink beach ball purse, and large pink flowers in my hair.
I would make an easy mark for any boozer with criminal tendencies, as there’s no way I could run anywhere in my flip flops and if I tried to smack them in the head with my purse, it would bounce right off as it’s basically a beach ball. I don’t know the current crime rate in NYC, but I imagine it’s lower than when I traipsed around Times Square back in the early 90’s, when you could see the pickpockets and purse snatchers in every doorway. Back then, I walked through Times Square on high alert with my arms wrapped around my purse.
Now I just carry it swinging on my arm because I’m invisible.
My friend Gabi is from NY but currently lives in LA. Every night she takes long walks around her high-crime neighborhood, where most people would never dare walk. When her neighbors ask her if she’s scared, she says she HOPES someone attacks her one night because she’d love to make them sorry. She’s small, but has a fiery temper, so I would actually be more scared for the criminal that tried to attack her than I would be for her.
I’m not from NY, I’m from Fairyland, and I don’t have a temper. I tend to float around in my own soft pink world with rainbow glitter unicorns bouncing around on marshmallows, so I’m not sure how I’d respond if attacked.
Mind you, about ten years ago, before I was completely invisible, I was walking in the Bowery with my friend Courtney. I was wearing a tutu dress, top hat, with feathers, and limping down the empty street, because I hadn’t had my hip replacement. We were passing mechanic shops with barb wire wrapped around their chain link fences, and laughing hysterically imagining that if any robber saw me, they’d decide to rob someone else because I’m wouldn’t be challenging enough.
So here I was, walking down 8th, careful not to step in anything unsightly.
I wasn’t completely invisible. Many women and young girls admired my outfit, even shouting at me from across the street how “fly” and “dope” my ensemble was, but I seemed to be invisible to everyone else who wasn’t admiring my outfit.
And I found I like feeling invisible. It made it easier to tiptoe through the detritus without getting knocked over by the crowds.
And in case you are wondering what detritus means, it means “what is left behind after destruction”, or after something is “wrecked,” which could very well describe my life at this point.
95% of my emotional support was destroyed a few years ago, losing my best friend, my marriage, my dad, and my mom.
As I walked, I realized, I basically am detritus—I am what’s left after massive destruction.
People say, “But you have your kids.”
To which I reply, “Yes, but they aren’t my emotional support, I’m their emotional support.
I don’t have my own, besides my friends and sisters, who are wonderful but have their own families to care for.”
As I walked, dodging the sloshed and zozzled crowds, I thought: I know this feeling. I lived alone in my 20’s, and attended hundreds of Broadway shows alone. I am not unfamiliar with this feeling, but it does take some getting used to. Then I thought about my ex-husband, and the one thing he was really good at: yucking my yum.
Still, I had lived under the illusion for two decades that I would always be able to call my husband and tell him what I was seeing and experiencing. But that illusion had disappeared faster than a bandit after robbing a stagecoach.
So I am learning to take myself out and not miss someone, to just be present in the moment and let it fill my soul.
So here we are, dear reader, and this is what I thought about after the show:
I’ve seen Chicago several times, as I LOVE the music and am immediately hooked on any story about murder, especially true stories about cute little flappers who murder their lovers. The last time I saw it, I thought I had seen the show enough times in my life. But then Pamela Anderson joined the cast, playing Roxie, and I found the clash of pop culture with theater culture irresistible. Add in the fact that Pam is 53 like me, and coming back into the public eye after raising her kids. She is not a singer or a dancer, and she doesn’t try to be. She is mesmerizing onstage with impeccable timing, and it doesn’t matter that she can’t sing because she can tell a story. I applaud risk-taking, and she is taking a big risk with this show.
As I sat alone at the bar at Chez Josephine, I hung my pink beach ball purse on the hook under the bar and ordered my favorite champagne. Before long, the bartender saw my purse and gasped, so I pushed it over to her. She slung it over her arm and paraded around the restaurant for people to admire her. The other women sitting at the bar began gushing about my feathered cape and entire ensemble. I was surrounded by red velvet walls, a blue tin ceiling, dripping chandeliers, and massive images of my favorite icon, Josephine Baker. Someone was singing boisterously in French, and the bar was lively with people shouting and laughing.
I sat quietly, bathed in the soft lights, and just… was.
