Beat The Clock

The clock has always been my enemy, glaring at me from its pedestal, looking down at me, frowning on my constant procrastination. Stealing my Sundays and my half terms, sucking the joy out of every holiday I ever had, constantly on countdown to the next deadline, which was usually the return to school or work (and for a long time, both).

In recent years, it has been an increasingly cruel tormentor, picking up speed, sneaking wrinkles onto my face while I slept, sapping the colours from my skin and my hair, and joining gravity in its crusade against me, rendering me insignificant and invisible.

When my Mum died and I spoke to my sister V about her, I said

‘I miss the lines on her face and I’m so sad that I won’t ever see them again’, and she said ‘Oh don’t worry, you will.’

She was right, and although I am a little bit pleased that I get to see a reminder of my mum every day, I wish it was something I could just see when I miss her most, and not every time I look in the mirror.

When I was a teenager, Mum told me that I should take care of my skin, and cited my older sister V, saying that she had looked after her skin from her early teens, using Oil of Ulay (as it was then called) regularly, and that’s why she had such lovely youthful skin. I followed her advice and applied moisturiser daily, and it’s only now that I realise that I have been duped. The reason, I have come to realise, for my sister’s lovely young looking skin was because at that time, she was only 30. Which may have seemed old to 15 year old me, but which I now know to be very young indeed!

I am now at the stage where I am thinking that my skin needs to be covered up. I have always worn eyeliner and mascara. But foundation is something of a mystery to me. L has a whole collection of primers and powders, mousses (or is it mice?) and creams, and big paint boxes full of rouges and blushers. I love watching the girls on Love Island do their makeup, although I’m not sure it is any more than a case of The Emperor’s New Clothes – spending all that time and money attempting to look like the perfect natural specimen. My favourite is the gold powder that they apply to the tip of their noses and between their breasts. I am definitely going to buy some of that. Although I would no doubt end up looking like one of the Top Shop mannequins circa 1985. Which would still be an improvement on me circa 2020 with my pale droopy jowls and baggy shadowed under eyes and red face and nose (even though I rarely drink).

With the gold highlighting powder of Love Island on my mind, this week I embarked on a trip to buy some new makeup. I ditched the black kohl eyeliner, which I realised was really aging me, and replaced it with brown eyeliner and mascara. I am not even considering the ridiculous false lashes of those love islanders which look uncomfortable to wear, stick together and shrink their eyes. I can get the same effect from wearing an angora woollen jumper, which sets off my allergies and makes my eye lids puff up and stick together.

I also bought some green colour correction liquid, although I think I may have overdone it as I looked like a corpse by the time I had finished. Hardly able to look my dead face in the mirror, I covered it with a new liquid foundation I had bought, all ready for a night out with Mr C.

Sadly I have now discovered that my red face can permeate multi layers of makeup and looks like it is here to stay. Perhaps I need to make a feature out of it, just wearing red clothes all the time and pretending that I have co-ordinated my make up to match. Or I could embrace it and accept that I am going to forever have a red face and that I am the only person it bothers.

I also purchased an eyebrow shaper and pencil thing – it’s so alien to me that I don’t even know what to call it. In my day, eyebrows were a bit embarrassing, and were just shaped to minimise their appearance. I loved my eyebrows which were inoffensive and largely insignificant. And I felt sorry for my friends who had to spend hours every morning engaging in eyebrow topiary, to make it appear that they did not have huge Groucho Marx eyebrows. But today, they are most definitely a thing, and my eyebrows have become an object of ridicule; my daughters mock them and remark upon the thinness of them. For goodness sake, the one part of my face that I always thought was OK is now a laughing stock! On the flip side, T tells me that I have a ‘good bum’, which I believe means one which is large and sticks out a lot. What a pity I had to wait for 50 years to receive the recognition, hiding it under smocks and long cardigans. And now that it is a bum to be proud of, I’m too old to shake it. And to prove this, I attempted a slut drop at the weekend, and spent the rest of the day having to move quite carefully as I think I may have undone some of my insides. See, time is still playing with me, making me think that I have a fashionable bottom and then reminding me that my body is old and inflexible, punishing me with pain if I dare to try to shake it.

When I left my job as a teacher in 2018, I thought I had escaped the clock, and felt liberated by its absence, but now I am beginning to realise that I had just drawn a veil over it. It was still ticking all that time, and now, instead of ignoring it, it is perhaps time to embrace it and use it to my advantage.

The second half of 2019 was (as I have said many times) a dreadful time for me, during which I drifted passively, did what needed doing, got on with it, but achieved very little. Time is healing me, and I am beginning to feel the need to achieve and succeed again.

And so I am going to harness time, and use it as a force for good, to drive me towards the final version of my book. And then towards finding an agent. And I will do this by setting my own deadlines. So I am declaring, that my book will be finished in time for the Easter holidays, when my friend Foxy, a literary expert, will have time to read it, and all being well, I will once again begin the process of submitting it to agents. I don’t relish the editing process at all. I could spend forever working and reworking it, never being totally satisfied. Last week, I listened to an interview with the singer/songwriter James Taylor. A listener asked a question, along the lines of ‘how do you know when it’s right, and when to stop tinkering with the song?’ He answered that if it weren’t for deadlines, he would continue to tinker indefinitely. It struck a chord, and made me think that perhaps the absence of the clock is causing me more problems than it is solving. I am going to write myself an action plan, with deadlines and try really hard to stick to it. And if my first written novel is not the right one for today’s market, then perhaps the subsequent one will be. Only time will tell!