The Invisible Woman

Posted September 07, 2007

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"Scientists Take Step Toward Invisibility." That was one of the headlines in the paper today. At least in the online paper, which is what I read. Assuming you count skimming the headlines as "reading." (My sense of world events has become a kind of impressionist painting of gloom and doom: I can see the shape of it, the swirl of disaster, but I can't make out any actual details because all I see are headlines -- and I don't even read those well. I say things to Michael like, "Get this. Some store -- I can't remember which one -- is taking health insurance away from their employees! Or wait -- maybe it's giving them health insurance." Pause. "That's all I remember." "Thanks, honey," he says. "That was very illuminating.") But: holy invisibility, Batman! A headline like that I had to click on. The article went on to suggest that researchers "had successfully cloaked a copper cylinder." A copper cylinder! That's what they wasted invisibility on. A copper cylinder -- a shiny, bright tube that was probably longing to be seen. To be known! "Look at me! The copper cylinder!" And we can't.

I wish they'd asked for human volunteers.

I'm just having that kind of week. In a meeting at work I was so spaced out -- in the extraterrestrial sense -- that when I thought I felt a hair tickling my chest, I pulled my shirt all the way out from my body and looked down its neck into my cleavage. Only when I looked up again did I realize that everyone was watching me -- what? Admire my own boobs right at the conference table? Create a kind of a world's record double chin situation? Act like I was invisible, but without the benefit of any actual invisibility? And I don't mean invisible the way Ben does, when we're at the Chinese restaurant in town and he says, "Don't you wish you were invisible so you could float over and stick your chopsticks into that thing that just went by that was sizzling and making that steaky sizzling smell? And the people would be like, 'Wuh?' They'd be like, 'Did you just see a piece of our Chinese food go floating right off the dish?' But you'd be invisible." (Yes, I do wish that. And so, as a matter of fact, does my father, who's been known to lean so admiringly over the tables of neighboring diners that he's been offered a taste of their short ribs with black bean sauce.)

But I'm not talking about cloaking myself in the happy service of gastronomical stealth. I'm talking about hiding from my children.

I know! What a terrible thing to say! But I'm saying it. It's not the kind of week where I simply can't pour another glass of milk or brush another lunatic molar or read one more book about kitties or talking dogs (although I've had those weeks too). I'm happy to perform my many parental functions -- I just want to do it the way a copper cylinder would, if you know what I'm saying. I don't really want to hear the word Mama. I don't want to "look." And I don't want to "listen."

"Mama! Mama! Mama!"
"What is it, Birdy love?"
"What's your name?"
"Um, Mama?"
"No. Say, 'Mary Jane.'"
"Mary Jane."
"No. Say, 'What's your name? Mary Jane.'"
"What's your name? Mary Jane."
"No. I say, 'What's your name.'"
"Okay."
"So say it, Mama."
"Mary Jane."
"No no no. Mama, no. I have to say it first. Mary Jane."
"Okey doke."
"But did you say it?"
"I think I did."
"The part about the drain, Mama? Did you say that part?"

I'd whirl around so fast that -- Hey! Where'd she go? -- I'd disappear completely from sight. ("Wuh? Did you just see a piece of our Chinese food go floating by?")

"Mama! Mama! I called my doll Proopie! Was that so funny? Proopie! Ha ha ha! Proopie, Mama! Haw haw haw! Proopie. Right, Mama?"

Zip! Obscured from view.

But then, even just now, I was forced to shed my cloak of invisibility because Michael and the children were playing guitars and singing "Rise and Shine" downstairs, and who wants to be imperceptible during a rousing chorus or two of "Rise and Shine?" I joined them in the living room, and Ben was on his feet, clapping like a little revivalist, swinging his hips back and forth like one of those Elvis clocks with the tick-tocking pelvis, and the kids were singing the word glory like it was true, which it always is once you're singing it, glory. And so I returned happily to myself. At least until the verse that went, "And tissue the vissue tissue, tissue and tissue the tissue, the tissue vissue. Is that so funny, Mama? Mama?" But that copper cylinder is probably wishing it were me. And I don't blame it.

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The Invisible Woman

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by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

The Invisible Woman

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