In the Powder Room

I am writing this post as an entry into the competition hosted by In the Powder Room. The prize is a couple of nights in London’s Hoxton Hotel, and a ticket to CyberMummy 2011. The challenge is to write a post about who you would like to meet in the powder room of the Hoxton Hotel. This is my entry. (If you want to have a go yourself, the details are here, but you're probably out of time. The deadline is at 8.00pm on 31st May.)

I have an idea. It’s just a tiny little germ of an idea. I believe it’s quite a good idea, but it’s one I know I’ll never pursue under my own steam. I would like to see it become reality, but I know that if it ever does, it will be by serendipity. Perhaps the powder room at the Hoxton Hotel could help. Perhaps it could be the setting for a chance meeting. I don’t know exactly who the other person in that unplanned encounter would be. We’ll come back to her later. But I see us getting chatting in front of the mirrors, the conversation starting with the trivial, but moving to deeper waters. I’d share my idea, and it would catch her imagination, and she’d say “What a fabulous thought, and funnily enough, it just ties in exactly with a project I’m involved in. Can you give me your name and number? Would you mind if I contacted you? I’m so glad we started talking. I’m so glad I happened to come into the powder room just now.”

My idea is this: I would like to have a go at being a model. Not a full-time job, not a long-term commitment. Just one short contract to prove I can do it. You see, two years ago this Saturday, I had a double mastectomy. When that happens, you have all kinds of choices to make, about whether to have reconstruction or not, and if so, how to go about it. All of a sudden, just as you’re dealing with words like 'cancer' and 'prognosis' and 'percentage chance of survival beyond five years', you also have to think about whether you want to have squishy boob-like objects implanted underneath your skin, or whether you’re happy to wear them in a bra over the top. For all kinds of reasons which I don’t have space for here, I opted for the latter.

So far I’m happy with that decision, though of course I have times when I think “Should I? Shall I? It’s covered by insurance…” Of course I do. But mostly, I have come to the conclusion, intellectually and emotionally, that I’m happy in my own body as it is. It’s terribly ironic. The years my body was at its best, when I was young, hadn’t been pregnant, had nice boobs, were the times I was most critical of it and unhappy with it. Now, wrinkly saggy tummy and flat scarred chest, I really quite like it.

Hang on a minute, though. When I say I want to be a model, don’t race ahead with the scheme. I’m not thinking Vogue or the catwalk at London Fashion Week. No. I have in mind the Land’s End catalogue, or some other publication for the mature woman. You know the kind of thing. Smiley women of a certain age in tasteful pastels. I’m tall, and maybe slim enough (maybe...). I scrub up ok from time to time, and I can look wistfully out at sea vistas with the best of them. My hair is, unfortunately, a rather over-bright red hue at the moment, (it said “root beer” on the packet – since when has root beer been red?) but it’ll wash out over time, and I’m sure they can shade that down before sending to print. In any case, don’t they have armies of attendants with make-up and hairstyling skills to make you look presentable before you go in front of the camera? And can’t they do clever things with airbrushing? I mean, if the worst came to the worst, couldn’t they photoshop Angelina Jolie’s head onto Pippa Middleton’s body and call it me?

Now you’ve got your heads round my idea (your own heads, not Angelina Jolie’s), I’ll tell you why I want it to happen. When I had my mastectomy and was trying to make sense of it, and what it was going to mean for the future, imagine what it could have done for me if a friend had sent me a Land’s End catalogue with a post-it sticker on the front saying “look at the inside back page”. There, alongside a headshot of a woman with hair a rather startling shade of red, could have been an article which read:

Iota, who appears on page 32 in the unadventurous knitwear and sensible trousers section, is a breast cancer survivor. She opted to have a double mastectomy, and has chosen not to undergo reconstructive surgery. But doesn’t she look great?! She had no previous modelling experience, and says that before she had cancer, she hated being in front of a camera. We asked her how it felt in our photographer’s studio, and she told us “I loved it. At first I was nervous, but everyone was great and put me at my ease. By the end, I was feeling so attractive and feminine, and that’s a great feeling when you’ve been through breast cancer surgery.”

Wouldn’t that have been a hope-giving, comforting, encouraging story to have read? Do you see how I could now BE that story for other women?

Who, then, do I need to meet in the Hoxton Hotel powder room to make this idea happen? Is it the marketing manager of Land’s End? Is it an advertising or PR exec? Is it someone from a breast cancer charity? Is it a journalist, or a photographer? It’s someone who has come into contact with breast cancer in their own life, I’m sure, either facing it themselves, or standing alongside a friend or relation who has done so. Who is this person? I don’t know, but if it’s you, please come and bump into me. Come along and tell me “I’m so glad I happened to come into the powder room just now”.

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