Growing old can be expressed musically as a diminuendo of life expectancy. Actually it’s more (or possibly less) than that: it’s a list of things one can no longer do. Poignant and ever-growing.
I can no longer: ski, do distance swimming, find solutions to quite simple DIY tasks, resist draughts, read omnivorously rather than specifically (with a tendency towards re-reading), find much pleasure in buying expensive wine, take VR to art classes because she has had to give up art, visit Christmas markets in Germany, find a French teacher who can meet my exacting standards, attend music recitals in Birmingham, face shopping at Tesco with a cheerful mien, tolerate the dreadful treadmill of laundering and drying clothes, feel inclined to wash the car, sleep continuously every night, regard the vacuum cleaner with anything other than loathing, accurately remember time-spans of various periods in my life, usefully vary the inevitably simple meals I prepare for VR.
I could go on.
But let’s be brief. My life has become limited as has my expectation of anything new. And this affects my writing as I have discovered when I read my posts of the earlier oughties. Understand, I don’t aim to record newness (a very limited objective), I look for newness to trigger my imagination, send me off down untravelled byways.
Singing lessons are the exception; for me that is, but not for others. It’s a discipline (which I welcome) but the experience is private, gradual and, more or less, unconvertible.
I do chat en route to Tesco but the common bonds tend to be familiar rather than unexpected.
Imagination is at the heart of writing but she’s flirtatious. She comes and goes. I must learn to make myself more inviting. Got my hair cut recently. There’s new.
My diminished list matches yours where housework, laundry and cooking my own meals are concerned.
ReplyDeleteBut I try to put a few items in the right hand, credit column of later life.
Always loving motorcycling has meant giving up the large, fast (and heavy) machines of yore. So I have bought my first new bike in many years. It's a little 125cc tiddler, but has a prop stand, electric starter, a low seat height (for easy mounting) and weighs in at only 125 kgs. Its top speed is only about 60mph but one adjusts to such a machine accordingly. Don't ride it much because of adverse weather but it greets me cheerfully when I open the garage door and confirms to me that I still have one.
I have been an enthusiastic club cyclist all my life too, but a couple of strokes mean that I have a weak left leg. But an electrically assisted bike means I can continue to explore the Romney Marsh lanes and so I have bought the latest model with battery sited in the front downtube for excellent balance.
I do more miles on the ebike than the car or motorcycle (about 3,000 per annum - car is only about 2,500 and motorbike is insured for a maximum of 1000 per year).
Like you I read and it's often re-reads. I find my Kindle useful as it is lighter and more convenient than a real book and one can adjust the print size to suit.
Two recent cataract ops have meant that a whole new world has been revealed. Brighter, sharper and more colourful. I no longer need specs for distance vision for the first time in 50 years.
However, on the debit side, outweighing any credits I can muster is the loss of my wife. My companion for 65 years, 63 of them married
Avus: Antipathies nearly always turn out to be more interesting to read than enthusiasms. With the latter it's quite hard to expunge all hints of self-regard.
DeleteThis is particularly important when classical musicians discuss their repertoire. If we are to believe them it would seem that big-name composers only only wrote masterpieces. For negative proof, may I refer you to Beethoven's Scottish songs.
My heart went out to Vladimir Ashkenazy (a great pianist) in a reminiscing interview about life in the USSR before he married a woman from Iceland and went to live there. The Soviets used to - perhaps Putin still does - run the international Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, though which many great names have passed. One year it looked highly likely that the American, Van Cliburn, would win it. The government insisted that Ashkenazy take part for the sake of Mother Russia. Vladimir recalled: "I wouldn't have entered if it had been up to me. I didn't particularly like that showy kind of music." Of course he could hardly have refused given that the USSR had paid for his musical education. He competed and tied for first place with Van Cliburn.
But the point is this: to call Tchaikovsky "showy" is unheard of among musicians of all nations. They keep quiet about the stuff they're disinclined to play. The anecdote stuck because I too am not particularly a Chike fan.
As my 81st birthday approaches, a mere four months hence, I am happy to report that the ravages of old age have not yet caught up to me - yet! I am still able to lead a group of naturalists on an all-day outing where 12 to 15 km travelled is not unusual, and barely break a sweat. I still teach and I still learn, actively and avidly. On Friday I made a seven-hour return trip to Cobourg, On to discourse on owls to a large and enthusiastic group of naturalists, leaving with the cry, "You HAVE to come again" ringing in my ears. Now that's satisfaction. As for my relationship with the vacuum cleaner or the toilet brush, there is a good deal of reticence, but that has nothing to do with old age. I do what I need to do. I still very much enjoy preparing a good meal, however, and we recently enjoyed perfectly grilled sole with a fine bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. Such are life's pleasures. May they long continue!
ReplyDeleteDMG/Avus: Ever since I was eight-ish and first sat down at my mother’s twin-keyboard typewriter (ie, no shift keys) I’ve wanted to write. Problem is “write” means different things to different people. To me it’s not enough to create parsable and/or purely factual sentences describing an event, phenomenon, opinion or experience, my aim has been to come up with something original: original in style, in approach, as a feat of exploration, arriving from left-field. Unexpected in some way or another. To quote Faulkner in his Nobel acceptance speech “to create… something which did not exist before”.
ReplyDeleteIn this I have failed more often than I’ve succeeded. Obviously. Also, this aim is complicated by the fact that I need raw material on which to build what is frequently a rickety structure. That’s why I created the detailed “can no longer do” list in the post. Not that I want to write about, say, ski-ing; rather that I need the springboard that ski-ing represents and from which I may depart tangentially into newness.
Novels are one way of getting there, verse is another although I’ve probably arrived too late for me to use verse wholeheartedly. In some respects blogging is a way of interrogating myself and a safer option than taking a walk in the park there to declaim and mutter into my beard. I must confess that although Hereford, where we’ve lived for twenty-five years, is a much healthier place than Kingston-upon-Thames it will never be famed for its intellectual stimulus. Never mind, in the end it’s up to me.
Writers like to write about writing, knowing in their hearts that no one sympathises with those who willingly don this particular hair-shirt and spend the rest of their live moaning about how it itches
Then I am glad that a plunge into the deep end of writing has not plagued me! I have no hair-suit to wear uncomfortably, no itch to scratch. I am thankful for that.
ReplyDeleteDMG: You're well out of it. And I haven't touched on the worst bit. When you've worked and revised until you're wearied and must now act as judge, jury and executioner on the end result; realising all that shows is the strain and effort in a piece of pretentious gibberish.
DeleteBut there are better moments. Here are the first three stanzas of a longer verse on the Annunciation (a strange thing for an atheist to be considering). I thought it was OK but you don't have to take my word. An expert thought so too and published it.
A table, sturdy, quite a craftsman’s job,
Supports a cruse of oil in which a flame,
Gutters an orange glow which circulates
Uncertain circles on the heat-baked floor.
Light to inform the evening’s minor tasks
A rest from daytime’s harder labouring,
More fit for finer fingers and an eye
That understands the lines of warp and woof.
A linen apron needing TLC,
Roughed by the surfaces of plain-cut beams,
Slit by a blade that slipped against a knot,
The wood’s not what it was ten years ago.
My twisted, also aging brain dashed through your title, Fan the Spark and for some reason I processed this as Spark the Fan. Which doesn't greatly change the intent of your words, but perhaps puts a new Spin on them...pun unintended, but couldn't resist. My favorite fan is an oscillating fan, doing an entire 180 degrees. Perhaps you just need to oscillate a bit. Treat the mundane bits with a bit more flourish, be it words, meals, laundry, and the singing, everything sounds better with a bit of flourish. My favorite orchestra director, when we were required to perform something over done or mundane would announce winking..."With more Schmaltz". Somehow that would breathe some new life into a tired piece, at least some humor as we chuckled during the first notes.
ReplyDeleteSandi: You've got the hang of the difficult thing I was trying to say. The way words act like little balls of mercury (Not permitted in school chemistry labs these days), glittering sometimes, dull at other times. Jumping this way and that, elusive, difficult to entrap. No reason why one shouldn't expatiate on a swinging fan; look at what D. H. Lawrence did when his subject was a snake.
ReplyDelete"Schmalz" is often used pejoratively and I know what it means - literally - in Yiddish. I'm against clichés but it's often possible to use them knowingly provided you're sure those listening are in on the joke. Thus "schmalz" which usually means insufferably sentimental, even glutinous, becomes a sharper, quite precise instruction. You're way ahead of me in discussing music and it's no use my saying you started earlier than I did. I don't have enough time to catch up. But we do have some common ground. We may both say: there's the score, read it, understand what the symbols say, now damn well play it. And on days when the sun shines and we have a following wind we get to know what a clever-clogs the composer was.
Mazel tov!
Loved your reply...and Mazel tov back at you. Yes, Schmalz is a good thing...lol.
DeleteI just turned 72, but I've got a bead on my 80s. A lot of good that does, because one can't eliminate the future without eliminating everything. I try to exercise, eat well, and now I have even stopped drinking alcohol. Sheesh. I'll go down fighting until I must surrender. As for the creative imagination, well, you've inspired me to write a post. Thanks, pal.
ReplyDeleteColette: It's a mutual enthusiasm. I always tempted to comment on your stuff too. But here's something out of left field. Occasionally I wonder whether the way I write and the subjects I tackle (other than those specifically about old age) , reveal - indirectly - I'm an octogenarian. Not for me to say, I suppose. However if it's any comfort your spirited attitudes and your style of writing do not betoken a septuagenarian, rather someone who - breathlessly and somewhat reluctantly - has just crossed the fifty mark and has recently taken a secret vow to remain thirty-nine for the rest of your life.
DeleteI think you write with the perspective of a very unique individual. As for revealing one's age by the way one writes, I'm not sure that rings true for unique individuals. You reveal yourself. If occasionally the subjects are dated and reveal our age (the Sea of Joy video in my recent post would tell everyone of my age group where I fit it), that hardly matters, except to make the post more interesting.
DeleteColette: We are all unique which, BTW, cannot be qualified. As to the basic question, I did except data that immediately gives the game away; like mentioning one loaded an anti-aircraft gun at Pearl Harbour. Do I, in fact, sound like a fuddy-duddy? But there I go again, sending you scurrying off to consult the English English dictionary. I worry that I'm thought to reveal myself. I always thought that was the least rewarding of all the quotidian sexual perversions.
DeleteAs our minds and bodies age our lives change. My memory has crumbled into bits lately. Not just the "Did I forget to...", but failing written drivers tests and wondering why I got up to do something. It is challenging to lose such essential parts of ourselves, but we let go bit by bit and say our long good byes to our younger selves. (NewRobin13)
ReplyDeleteNew Robin: Driving standards must be more lax in the UK; my new licence was OK'd by mail within a week. At 88! Your piece about failing the written test was quite salutary. You mentioned that several of the questions weren't covered in the crib you used. I may face retaking the test as I approach 100. Were these "difficult" question totally unexpected?
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ReplyDeleteTrying again. But aren't there things that get better with age?
ReplyDeleteLiz Hinds: This old-age benefit springs to mind: one may be rude and get away with it. But it helps if there's a soupcon of wit as a side-dish.
DeleteI prefer not to think of the things I no longer an or do do but rather all the things I can still and do do.
ReplyDeleteellen abbott: OK if they don't include laundry and its aftermath. And getting the days right for the green and black wheelie bins.
ReplyDelete