Aaaah Substack, another week for all of us. So many things to write, discuss, lay down. A thread that seems to link the many thoughts, experiences and occupations of this past week is ageing, getting older. Aligning my thoughts this morning to share them with you, I find my chest aches from overly enthusiastic band workouts. Such is my desire to stay well and strong, an ever-increasing challenge, I’m suffering from a serious dose of over-doing it. Finding that balance between doing it/not doing it seems to elude me, I go at it like I’m 25 for two weeks and then my body protests, loudly. Waking me in the wee small hours with myriad aches and pains. I may be older, but not over and not even wiser. It would be prudent to realise my physical age, seems I’m intent on hastening my end by extreme efforts to remain here longer….ouch and am reaching for Paracetamol as I write.
Earlier in the week I finished an exquisite book and my intention had been to write entirely on it in this submission. However, things change over the space of days and while I include it here, I know it is only a part of what needs to be outed. My gift to you is it’s title ‘Lifescapes’ by Ann Wroe. I urge you to read it. Her subtitle ‘A Biographer’s Search for the Soul’. She found my own and touched it deeply in a way I don’t fully understand. This lady has a gift for seeing what’s invisible in us and translates it to the page in a way that sings from the depths. She uses beautiful language to tell her stories and at times I wept at her pinpoint ‘seeing’ of another human being. I saw the too. Ann Wroe writes the obituary column for The Economist so she explores lives and their content to the end. Not everyone dies when they are old, but for the most part she offers the rich experience of an individual and the impression they’ve made upon our earth speck. The ripple, in particular that of a carp called Benson. Have I wetted your appetite? I’ll leave it there. Read it, find your soul, review your mark and live to get old.
Furthermore on the subject of age and being old, I watch with some fascination the machinations of the current American political scene. What interests me is the obsession with Biden’s age. I have no affiliation to either party, but am enraged by the media’s blatant ageism. He is the oldest president…yes, but what kind of job is he doing? If he’s doing things well, then why is his length of years an issue? His memory, an obsession with them? Privately I recognise the benefit of a slower pace, a mindful thinker, a wisdom experience at the helm. It’s abhorrent to feel that validity is measured by youth and vigour. Wisdom is maligned in favour of a sharper mind, a glossier appearance and furious fastness. Speed does not the man make. I can hear my age in that sentence… is language also indicative of where you stand on the age spectrum…?
We’re told by age favouring instagrammers that ‘anything is possible’, the joys of advanced years is extrapolated from research data and shared to encourage a belief in those of us who are already there, that it’s a golden time. This is true in some respects, but what’s also true, the reality of ageing, is far from golden. It can be a time of invisibility, when our thinking is deemed out of date and irrelevant. Our purpose, questionable. I’ve been told I’m ‘woke’ and ‘passive/aggressive’ - 21st century terminology that deeply worried me. I felt a ‘walking on eggshells’ around my writing, messaging, communication. Then I wondered about these terms as being a kind of gagging mechanism, shut up and sit down type of thing, but in a modern, passive/aggressive way. Not for me, instead I started Substacking. A voice in the wilderness, maybe, there is still something to say from this quarter.
We tremble sometimes, forget a word or name, tread carefully or not, value breath, love, existence. Life has become precious precisely because there is less of it and maybe that’s reason enough to reinstate elders within and at the top end of community and at the forefront of important decision making. Maybe having made the mistakes and learned from them, we can offer experiential solutions to the many problems humanity faces. Youth isn’t the issue here or the answer. That vital energy is exactly that, vital, but is often charging into mistake making zones, bull-in-china- shop-mode, been there. We are all moving in the same direction, onwards. Like a glacier sliding down the mountain, centimetre by centimetre towards advancing years and the end. Together vitality and wisdom make a brilliant team. Let’s not dismiss one another, not make each other redundant by our cleverness or lack of reciprocal compassionate listening. I wrote a short poem at 3.30am:
Wisdom waits
It sits behind my eyes
And looks out at a
World that has no need of it.
We watched a film called Poms with Diane Keaton on Netflix. I’ve always loved her. She is an older woman, of course, with terminal cancer. She sells her stuff and moves into a retirement facility. It’s an oddly moving film. A bit silly, (cheerleading is not a serious subject for most of us above the age of sixteen especially in the UK), but I can happily tolerate silly when there is also a rich seam around friendship and living life out. It’s clearly aimed at an older demographic and is very, very watchable. Keaton has gone there to die, but in the process finds real life, shared with a living, loving peer group. It’s quite lovely and demonstrates to a degree what I’m banging on about here, this week.
A TV mini series we also watched ‘True Love’ was another that featured an older cast, Lindsay Duncan, Clarke Peters, Sue Johnston and Phil Davies, among others. Excellent casting. A group of old friends reunited at a funeral make a drunken pact. Rather than let each other suffer a slow and painful decline they would engineer a dignified death. But what starts out as a fanciful idea soon morphs into a disturbing reality. BB and I have made a few drunken pacts in our time, with friends, with each other, non like this. The programme is well made and hooked us in. Older people taking matters into their own hands agrees with my own take, it’s not over till the fat lady sings. It feels good to see subjects like this being aired and treated in a way that provokes thought. A whole programme about the older generation who are the main players and which addresses stuff that matters.
What can we surmise from all this age talk? I’m conflicted. Can you hear me laughing at myself? I see and feel my age in so many ways, but am not ready to let go of the reins. My gnarled hand keep a white knuckle obstinate grip even though I often protest ‘surrender to what is’ as the path to least suffering. I both love and detest what’s happening. I give in and stubbornly stand my ground. I feel 35 but look every minute of my age… not going to be coy about it, 68 this year. Hate ageism unless it favours the old. Hate yellowing teeth, but despise the glo-whites of celebrity status. Want to climb Kilimanjaro but am short of breath on Cleeve Hill. So can we agree that I’ve got things to work out, my wisdom is all well and good, but it fails me regularly. Perhaps this is the human condition? Where do you stand? Are you on the fence? A foot in each camp, painful. Share your feelings, loud and clear, be a voice. Till the next time,
A
ps. I’ll be including another section of Min in my next offering. The story unfolds. The first part, if you haven’t read it, can be found in my previous Substack submission ‘Missed It’.
Love your writing and taking a stand. As an American, we have a lot more to worry about than candidates' ages. Let's look at how they lived their lives, how they have dealt with personal and civic tragedy and vote accordingly.
Agreed, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one getting older 🙄. Xx