Our family is on a road trip. I introduce my aged mother to other travelers. 

“Her name is Persona Non Grata. You can call her ‘Persona’.” 

What a weird dream, my waking mind says, then does a double take. Of course! Of all the unwelcome persons in the world, who is less wanted than an old woman? 

Books have been written about crones, old women viewed as disagreeable, even sinister. In past decades, younger women have tapped into Jungian psychology to describe the Crone archetype as an elder woman with wisdom developed over a lifetime of experience. But alas, our culture hasn’t really laid hold of this concept. 

Now we younger women have become old. It’s been said that no one is more invisible than an old woman, and I can see that. We—myself included, old woman that I now am—are often guilty of letting our eyes slide past the old person we see before us, overlooking their many identities and adventures. 

Aging is a process of letting go, but it is also an additive process. Reflecting on my life, my mind embraces the five-year-old running barefoot in the rain, the 22-year-old teaching English in Somalia, and the 38-year-old at my mother’s funeral. They’re all nested within me, along with innumerable others, like so many Russian dolls. 

I’ve been editor of the Townships Sun for four years now. It’s been a challenging, learning experience, but now I feel plum tuckered out. That’s why I’m resigning at the end of this month. 

Maybe, just a little, my dream was expressing my fear of becoming my mother, Persona Non Grata. She spent a lifetime stifling her voice. 

For inspiration, I turn to the poem by Jenny Joseph, “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple / With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.” She vows to indulge in a whole bunch of other unacceptable behaviours. To be free, as only a Persona Non Grata can be. 

Well, I’m hoping to gather my resources and explore my Russian dolls (aka memoir-writing). In the meantime, I hope you come celebrate my graduation at the Townships Sun’s AGM on Saturday, September 27, at 3 p.m. in the Cookshire-Eaton Art Gallery, 125 Principale West (downstairs). 

Come early and take in the Where are the children? exhibit upstairs. It ends October 5. You’ll remember it forever.