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 |   A tentative blog to test the temperature. |
| The Glories of Old Age Today I had cause to write the following sentiment: This writing business brings us face to face with many of the hard facts of life. One of those facts is death, of course (ooh, cheerful thought for a Sunday morning) but, more importantly for writers perhaps, there arises a growing acquaintance with the aches and pains, illnesses and degeneration of our once-youthful bodies, and a resultant more careful approach to what life remains to us. For myself, the evidence of my experience of these hard facts is that I write more frequently of old age. It has taken me some time to realise this, probably because I have had no aversion to growing older, finding it a useful and interesting area of study from a very early age. As my experience of the condition increases, it seems natural to record my thoughts and observations on the matter and only lately has it occurred to me that others might think this a rather morbid obsession. In my defence, I would have to say that it’s a subject that almost all of us have to deal with (the exceptions being those whom the gods love, if the traditional adage is correct). My generation ushered in the worship of youth but that is no reason why it should not also advance our understanding and interest in the process of growing old. What better chance for observation of an ongoing experiment is there than the opportunity to study ourselves? From the inside we can see and understand all sorts of things that the detached observer would miss. I had only just turned thirty when I noticed that scratches and minor wounds were taking longer to heal. This had never been pointed out to me before and I had missed any mention of it in the textbooks. Yet, now that I’m ancient, it seems so glaringly obvious, with scabs hanging on grimly for what seems like months and bruises fading with no urgency at all. As we slow down to avoid all the hazards of our world, everything in and around us decelerates as well. Except time, of course. All of us recognise how time speeds up as we get older, so obvious is its acceleration. Eventually the years fly by and we find it increasingly difficult to keep up, still aware of the awkwardness of starting each year with the number twenty rather than nineteen, wondering if there really was a decade called the nineties or whether it had been cancelled for lack of interest. It’s a different world from the one we inhabited in our teens and twenties. Of course we think life was so much better in those days; in some ways it was. But there are other ways in which this strange present in which we are now forced to live is better, if only we would forget our longing for hale and hearty bodies that function without pain. Just as an instance, I wouldn’t be writing these words on a computer back in the sixties - I’d still be bashing away at the keys of my mother’s heavyweight typewriter (no doubt she’d have bequeathed it to me in her will). And then there’s the fact that we don’t have to run anymore. All that sweaty exercise and puffing and panting just to arrive somewhere a little earlier. Totally pointless. As an experiment, a while back I actually tried to run, managed about three steps and nearly fell over. It was a frightening experience, never to be repeated. So cheer up, fellow wrinklies. There is still so much to enjoy and be grateful for. Every day we enter a world that is changing and growing in new ways and have this amazing opportunity to watch the process and make notes. As writers, we can leave behind us a document of the glories of old age for the instruction of the generations that follow. That ought to slow them down a bit. Word Count: 659 |
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