The benefits of invisibility

Peek-a-boo, I see you. My dad would grab me from behind the chair and I would giggle hilariously. It felt good to be seen.

I grew up, of course. My dad is no longer with us and, if he were, we probably would not be playing hide-n-seek.

We want to be seen, and one of the hardships of growing older is that so often the stereotype of “old person” plus the values of our youth culture can cause us to become invisible. At least we’re often tempted to feel that no one sees us anymore.

I’m currently reading a book entitled, How To Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency (2019). The author, Akiko Busch, presents the challenge of our culture that inordinately values visibility. She writes, “Visibility has become the common currency of our time, and the twin circumstances of social media and the surveillance economy have redefined the way we live…. It has become routine to assume that the rewards of life are public and that our lives can be measured by how we are seen rather than what we do.” People on the margins of society—due to ethnicity, poverty, age, gender, and other factors—can experience a sense of erasure under this set of values. Invisibility.

But Busch goes on to elaborate on the positive counter-cultural values of invisibility. In the introduction, she describes a time she entered a forest, found a suitable tree, climbed it, then quietly and deliberately tried to make herself invisible in order to observe the wildlife. It took time and patience, but she saw things she would never have seen under any other conditions. Of that experience she writes, “I am reminded of the grace of reticence, the power of discretion, and the possibility of being utterly private and autonomous yet deeply aware of and receptive to the world.” This experience becomes an extended metaphor for the benefits of invisibility in life outside the forest.

On the value of intentional invisibility, Busch says, “A reduced sense of visibility does not necessarily constrain experience. Associated with greater empathy and compassion, invisibility directs us toward a more humanitarian view of the larger world. This diminished status can, in fact, sustain and inform—rather than limit—our lives. Going unrecognized can, paradoxically, help us recognize our place in the larger scheme of things.”

Retiring from our profession, recognition, or even the central place we held in our family provides the opportunity to cultivate the inner life. As Busch believes, embracing invisibility can mature us into greater empathy, compassion, and wisdom. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ description of heaven in The Last Battle as a place that is much larger and splendid on the inside than it is on the outside.

I see another, not nearly as grand, benefit of invisibility. It’s related to Busch’s experience in the forest, hiding in the tree. And that is—my invisibility greatly enhances my vocation of being a spy.

One of the things I love about living in this retirement community is discovering my neighbors as the interesting, experienced, and funny people they really are. Since I’m better at listening than I am at talking, I’m able to overhear many fascinating conversations. Here’s a sample of some overheard comments: “What I hate about aging is my jiggling arms. I try to buy things that hide it, but my clothes don’t work that way.” “If I bought all the insurance I should buy, I’d have to live under a bridge.” “What I hate about this walker is that it destroys my dream of skipping down the halls. I used to skip a lot.”

Sitting in the auditorium, waiting for some event to begin, I overheard the gentleman behind me ask this riddle of his friend: Question—"What sound does an aging sea lion make?” Answer—“AARP! AARP!” If I hadn’t been hiding up in my tree, I wouldn’t have heard that riddle.

A recognition of the benefits of invisibility doesn’t negate the very human need both to see and to be seen. I think these are part of our being created in the image of God.

I don’t want to over-emphasize the invisibility of older people. While there is truth to this experience, it’s not the only thing going on. We are all visible to some people—family members (although not always) or close friends—even as we’re friendly to many others, people who could become close friends as we come to know (see) them better. Maybe we should be content with that small circle of people who see us, which is of great value.

And there is One who sees us to the core of who we are. And cares about us.

I love that strange Bible story about Hagar, the Egyptian slave girl. Hagar was the epitome of an invisible person. A foreigner, a slave, and a female. She served as servant to Sarai, Abram’s wife. Sarai, being barren, gave Hagar to Abram as a concubine. Did Abram even know her name? He used her in order to produce an heir. When Hagar foolishly bragged about her pregnancy, an infuriated Sarai abused her to the point she ran away into the desert.

There in desert, Hagar experienced complete isolation, a brutal kind of invisibility. But there was One who saw her. An angel of the Lord found her, conversed with her, promised her survival and many descendants, then sent her back home. Once again alone, Hagar prayed, “You are the God who sees me.” She then said, “I have now seen the One who sees me” (Genesis 16).

Psalm 33 says, “The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love….”

It may seem like we older folks are invisible to many, but that’s not the whole story.

There is One who sees us.

A gradual process of erasure

I’m part of a book club with good selections and lively discussions (that don’t always stick to the book). Our reading for this month was Kristin Harmel’s The Book of Lost Names, an historical novel based on the people who forged documents to help Jewish children escape capture by the Nazis. The book deals with the problem of a person’s identity being lost or “erased.”

In the first part of the story, the protagonist, now an older woman, has this encounter with a younger co-worker in the library:

“Mrs. Abrams?” It’s Jenny again, addressing me by my surname, though I’ve told her a thousand times to call me Eva, just as she addresses the younger librarians by their given names. But alas, I am nothing to her but an old lady. One’s reward for marching through the decades is a gradual process of erasure.

While Eva is obviously not a Jewish child being given a false identity, erasure happens in other spheres of life. Old age is one of them.

Erasure leads to invisibility. A gradual slide into invisibility is a challenge of growing older.

I remember my first hint that this would someday be my experience. My pastor—a funny, intelligent, and very outgoing man—said the hardest part of aging for him was becoming invisible the moment he stepped out of his home. A youth-oriented culture stereotypes people in different ways, “old man” and “old lady” being examples. “Old man” and “old lady” don’t have names, just white hair, wrinkles, and maybe a cane or a walker. Easily overlooked.

This may be changing somewhat, due to an aging population that makes up a greater number of voters. At certain times in the political calendar, candidates running for office see us. Sort of. And numerous TV adds attest to the value of aging consumers. I’m not sure if this means actually seeing older people or merely tweaking the stereotype.

In a sense I’ve been invisible a good part of my life, due to being an introvert. Especially as an adolescent and young woman, I was painfully shy, hardly daring to speak up in a class or group of over three people. No kidding. I remember once at the end of a church party, a friend ran into me at the door and exclaimed, “Nancy! Have you been here the whole time?” I had been. And it wasn’t a big party. That remark has stayed with me.

Through the years I gained experience and a measure of social confidence. In short, I grew up, got married, had a career, and somewhere along the way stopped being invisible. But now that I’m growing older, a different kind of invisibility is raising its ghostly head.

I talked with some of my friends here in the retirement community. The moment I asked the question, “Do you ever feel invisible?” I got emphatic Yeses. One friend told me, “When I went to Paris as a young woman, men ogled me. When I went back a few years ago, no one even noticed I was there.” To combat invisibility, this friend wears bright colors and talks to as many people as she can. This comes naturally to her as an extrovert, but she still feels invisible at times.

Novelist Ayelet Waldman said in an interview, “…I’m used to being taken seriously professionally. And suddenly, it’s like I just vanished from the room. And I have to yell so much louder to be seen…. I just want to walk down the street and have someone notice that I exist.”

Living in a retirement community such as ours helps. Since all of us are more or less in the same age group (roughly 70-100, quite a range!), we don’t need to feel alienated because of age. At least from each other. But even that’s not always true. Another friend told me that because she is not part of the Friends Church, the group that founded this retirement community, she often feels invisible, noting all the long-time relationships and shared values among the Quaker population. She often goes to the local coffee shop when she wants to engage in conversations and feel “normal” again.

Several have told me that the sense of invisibility is most painful when it happens in the context of the extended family. One of my neighbors told me of a recent multi-generational family reunion where the younger generation totally ignored her. It was as if she wasn’t in the room. She confronted her erasure by walking around and speaking with each youngster.

I understand. As a child I sang the old song, “Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go,” and imagined that when I became old, Grandpa and I would host holiday dinners and be the center of the expanding circles of the generations.

That’s not how it happened. Our apartment here in the retirement center barely has room for small dinner parties. As the family grew and kids married and had their own kids, the center shifted. We are no longer in the middle, which is right and good. But it doesn’t always feel good. We increasingly find ourselves on the periphery. Sometimes we feel more like relatives than family. We’re visible only when someone makes the effort and actually looks at us.

Why is the invisibility of aging so painful? Maybe it’s because we’re still fully human beings and we want to be seen as such. We want to be known as we really are. The stereotypes make that difficult. Changes in family structure make it difficult. Changes in the way we look and the ways our bodies work (or don’t work) make it difficult.

I love that old movie, Avatar, a fantasy about life on a distant moon. I especially enjoy the idealist depiction of relationships between the inhabitants. The way friends greet each other is by looking into each other’s eyes and saying, “I see you.”

I see you. Whatever our age, we need people to see us. And we need to see them back.

[To be continued….]