Seeing Red
- Cynthia Sciberras
- Nov 13
- 4 min read
Reflections on Elinor Carucci, Midlife, and Transformation
Words by Cynthia Sciberras
Images by Elinor Carucci
Featured in YOKE: An Experiment with Destiny
The truth be told, I’m not entirely sure when I first realised I was middle-aged. Was it the desperate attempt to tame a wild, greying hair-bun that resembled a bird’s nest? Or maybe it was the upsized white Bonds bootleg panties, clinging heroically to a belly bulge that seemed to have arrived overnight.
And yet, there was an unexpected upside. The endless cycle of abnormally heavy bleeding that had defined so many years of my life was gone, along with my uterus. A pain body that had once been my shadow—a body and mind that so often demanded I push through discomfort—had finally loosened its grip.
But hold on. I may be pain-free and middle-aged; but now I was fucking perimenopausal. When did this happen?
The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone—the Triple Goddess—has me searching for new ground. In the joys and challenges of this archetypal lifecycle, I find myself asking: where am I in this triad of womanhood? What do I need to bring forth to journey through this climacteric stage of life?
Childless (by choice), peri, and cat-owning (multiple), I discovered a startling and transformative truth: I may have felt like I was going crazy, but I was somehow free. Free in not giving a fuck or sweating the small stuff. And the ultimate gift—finally, my body was no longer a battleground. With that liberation came a new perspective on life, albeit one laced with contradictions.
My journey into midlife evokes a mix of emotions—grief for what was or what could have been, gratitude for what is, and curiosity about what next. This in-between space, while liberating, feels disorienting. How does one navigate the unfamiliar terrain of a body that no longer functions or looks as it once did? How do you reconcile the loss of youth and fertility with the freedom from pain and societal expectations?
For me, the transition into perimenopause feels like stepping into a void where the familiar markers of identity and vitality have shifted. There’s this sense of disconnection, a feeling of being untethered, even as I relish in my newfound ability to not give a fuck.
And yet, this unmooring also carries the promise of reinvention. Like Elinor Carucci’s photographs, it’s an invitation to rewrite the story of what it means to be a woman in midlife. I feel a quiet yearning to reconnect with my own essence, to redefine myself on my own terms. There’s power in embracing the contradictions—freedom and fear, grief and joy, loss and gain—that make midlife such a potent cauldron for transformation.
It’s this intricate dance between liberation and loss, resilience and vulnerability, that threads through Elinor Carucci’s work. It’s this emotion that hooked me.
In her series Midlife, Elinor captures her own body and the intimate, ordinary moments of her life, inviting you to witness the beauty and complexity of aging.
Elinor’s photographs are not just art—they’re a raw, visual diary of a woman’s transformation. When I first encountered her work on Midlife, it felt like she had captured not only my story but the stories of countless women. Her exploration of the colour red, in all its visceral and symbolic intensity, particularly resonated.
Her abstract photographic paintings, made of her own blood, echoed within me, resonating with the colour that has followed me, too. “Red has always been an emotionally charged colour,” Elinor writes. “It’s about life, creation, love—and also loss, violence, and endings.”
For me, red was not just the blood of womanhood but a symbol of rage, anger, and humiliation—a body out of control, a uterus burdened by its inability to hold life or fulfill its design.
Elinor’s exploration of red is also a story of connection. Her work threads through generations: her mother’s lipstick and nails, mirrored now in her daughter’s; the sexy red dress her mother urged her to wear “while you can.” Minus the red lipstick and nails, these moments remind me of my own mother, her strength, and the ways she navigated an immigrant’s life’s transitions with quiet resilience.
“Midlife is full of losses,” Elinor reflects. “Our children grow up, our parents grow old, and our bodies change in ways we don’t always feel ready for. But there’s also immense beauty in this time—a wisdom and strength that comes from knowing who you are and what matters.”
Through her lens, Elinor doesn’t just document these truths; she transforms them into something timeless, a celebration of life in all its messy, red-streaked glory.
Midlife is an unfolding of layers. It’s a time when loss is fragrantly palpable and intense—fertility, youth, identity, and the roles we’ve held for so long—but it’s also a time of discovery.
Her images are not just about loss but about what emerges in its wake. “If this is how midlife feels, I want to fully see it,” she says. Her images invite us to do the same, to look deeply at ourselves, our bodies, and our lives without flinching. They remind me that even as we lose parts of ourselves—whether physical or symbolic—we gain something too: a softening, a strength, and the ability to laugh at life’s ridiculousness.
Welcoming the Crone is unapologetic magic and divine, rich beauty. Like the Crone, nothing frightens her. She is the final trifecta that manifests out of the Maiden and Mother. In her heroine’s journey, she has witnessed endless cycles of death and rebirth, rising above the duality of life. There is no longer clinging to good or bad; she accepts all as it is.
Maybe this is why we women no longer give a fuck. And maybe this is why she is so feared.
Midlife isn’t the end; it’s a metamorphosis.
Through her lens, Elinor invites us to embrace this transformation, to see ourselves fully—not just as women at a crossroads but as creators of beauty and meaning.
Elinor so brilliantly reminds us, that we are midway through, and that’s enough. “For now, we love more, laugh more, and feel more than ever before”.
