Circles

I have been thinking how inevitably we must each go back to our beginning. Now, there is no way I could claim that as an original thought but I think I have found a few original aspects of it.
First, let's look at the unoriginal: hair, for example. We start with very little and end with very little. The colour of ones hair does that 'back to the beginning' thing, too. It starts off without much colour, once you have lost that primaeval mop you pop out with, and what's remains is left without colour as you prepare to spend your last days on this earth. Accessible, recoverable memory starts off in a limited way. Babies do have memories but not so much capacity to store them, so those they can reach are fewer than subsequently they will have the capacity for. I believe, wholeheartedly, that the birth experience memory is retrievable but unlikely to be consciously accessible even when we have learned to speak words to describe it. You dont need me to tell you that that is a very recognisable place for an elderly person to go back to: gaping holes in the memory with unreliable conscious access to them.

I have a very dear friend who is 95. She has every single marble, and a few more than most, but she is physically not very able any more, nor can she see very well. Life is hazardous. There are things to fall over, (just as there are for a small child.) Now, I have banged on interminably about the discrepancy between the inner 40 year old and the outer old lady who has to admit to 75, and I think my friend feels the same. What made us laugh together, though, is that she has an au pair living with her, now. As it happens, she and her husband could not have afforded to feed another mouth when her children were little and, anyway, they were for the most part, war time babies when there was no help available of any kind and, what's more, her husband was away fighting in it. But, toward the end of their childhood, husband back and prospering, she did take in the daughters of foreign friends who learned english at the expense of a little child-care and ironing. Well, she has such a person to look after her now and the irony did'nt escape us. Not that her au pairs are necessarily learning english: at 95 she doesn't feel she can spare too much time while she waits for them to be communicado - communicada? - so her helpers are drawn from a pool of Antipodeans, or from South Africa. They tend to go walk-about when it starts to warm up so there has to be quite a bit of changeover. She is sanquine about this. Telling each successive girl how she likes things to happen is, at least, more interesting than watching paint dry.

When I had little ones I was fortunate in this respect, and was in a position to have some help, at least by the time I had more than one. I do remember a distraught figure with a toddler under her arm, first day fright on her face, running to find me to ask me what was a potty and where she could find one. There were also some hiccups over mis- translation. I was informed, by a delightful Portugese young lady, that she didn't feel she should look after the children on one occasion, when I had rather hoped to go to work, because she was "constipada". Feeling as sympathetic as I could manage, I ministered a laxative. Next day, inquiring in my baby portugese, how she was, she said she was still constipada but also, she now had an upset tummy. And thus I learned the portugese word for a head cold.

So there is another back to the beginning: acquiring language. ( Strictly, this is not a true parallel with babyhood and old age. You can speak a foreign language with the skill of a toddler at any age, but since it came to me, I thought I'd put it in for your contemplation. ) I do find I am losing words, which may well equate with having not yet acquired them. A picture came to me of a very old man in an archive, pushing his ladder ever more slowly, climbing up it even more slowly and finally, when I have given up all hope of ever retrieving the lost word, with triumph, finding it and bellowing down to my inner ear long after I and my companion have moved on to another subject. "Derision" I shout while he/she has quite forgotten we had been talking about scornful laughter and thus feels confirmed in his/her belief in my madness.

Just another word about au pairs . A mistress may serve as au pair for a perceived as over -demanding husband! I am not the first to have thought of that, I must admit, not wishing in any way to plagiarise, but it's a good idea, isn't it and worth exploring. What do you think? See you soon.

Resolutions

Well, it would be wouldn't it? On December 29th, one's thoughts may well turn to resolutions. But I do know I am not the only one to decide that the only reliable resolution is not to make resolutions. However, that, by now, is so unoriginal that I am rising to the challenge and making some that will stand, anyway,a bit of a chance of being kept.

The first and most far-reaching is to kick in to touch the concept of 'for now'. It will do 'for now' I say as I push another jumper in to the drawer without folding it properly and without stacking it, colour-related, on top of its cousins. Throwing things in to the bottom of the wardrobe because you "haven't time" to find another hanger and hang it up and it will do 'for now' is another from-now-on no-no. The fridge is another trap for the procrastinator. A milk bottle is clearly at risk of falling over in the too tight space in the door, but it will do 'for'now'. Of course it won't as you find out when you open the door and it falls in to your arms.
Milk, blood and rice are the very Devil to clean up don't you find?
The other day, I made up my face without much care, thinking, as you have guessed, "that'll do for now" and was invited out to lunch, spontaneously, no time for repairs, by people I would rather have had a proper face on for.

On reflection, many examples do seem to be to do with tidiness and keeping house. I rather like those domestic things and really, truly, definitely I am making a resolution to put things away where they should go and not dump them in a pile, however tidily, just for now. In the melee, fracas, bedlam, whatever word you think would best fit to describe Christmas with many - actually, several - people in a small house, it is certainly a test of one's taste for housework: the' for-now' principal was a very tempting quick-fix. However,as we speak, I can't find anything that I put somewhere "just for now". I have lost two DVDs and a leather notebook embossed with "Profound Thoughts". My hope is that they were muddled up with gifts the visitors took away with them and they will re-surface in due course. Since the visitors do not hail from the UK the things may not re-surface until next Christmas. Oh well, resolution number two, more acceptance, more tolerance.

I think I have spent far too much of the last 75 years trying to put things right, or righter, and/or fretting when I couldn't. That will be the 40year old, who still has that kind of energy and evangelism. I am resolved not to wear myself out trying to replace a broken glass with an identical one. I will tolerate five of one sort and one of another on my table. I am blessed with household help and I have decided to put up with the fact that light bulbs are never dusted or, better still, hoist myself up and dust them myself. What will it matter in the longer scheme of things? The concept of 'Good Enough' is one that I have lived and worked with for what seems like forever, but, suddenly I see that there is a tension between that and the 'for now' syndrome. How can I reconcile giving up 'for now' with 'Good Enough'? I know: 'for now' simply isn't usually good enough. 'For now' is a postponement of best effort; 'good enough' is acceptance of having given ones best effort. Whew: that's a relief .

Last one, anyway for to-day: I am resolved to be more tolerant of other people's life choices. If a dear friend chooses to ally herself to a person some of whose properties I can't, personally appreciate, it is up to me to behave as if I do appreciate them. I do have a much too finely honed insight in to what people are like and what they may prefer not to have me know about them. It is a very uncomfortable trait I'd rather be without. Someone once likened it to being a painter who sees twelve shades of green in a leaf, where I would see only one, but, although it can be maddening for me, I can see twelve 'beneath the surface characterisitics' where I would much rather see only what I was expected to see. That doesn't give me licence to react to the bits under the surface rather than to the public presentation. Ok, OK: I can hear you: I am resolved to improve my manners. That's all that that comes down to. There you are. See you soon.

Homesickness 2

It came to me the other day that homesickness can take rather different forms, even rather sneaky forms. The day came when I was off to hear "Les Contes d'Hoffman" which, you may remember, is the last opera at the Opera House for which I shall have to pay full price, being eligible for a 50% reduction with my disabled parking eligibility. Well, who should be there but he-to-whom-I-am-er-married, with his other arrangements. They were sitting in the same curved block, over to one side and, of course, a pound or ten further forward. It was only too easy to see them, to observe them, though I don't think they had seen me. In fact, moving through the crowded foyer before the performance, the arrangement had actually physically knocked in to me. She clearly didn't notice, being intent on getting wherever they were going, because she didn't look the type who would not have apologised for bumping in to an old lady with a stick, even in a crowd of the more-than-middle-aged, which, sadly, one does find preponderant at the Opera House these days. Himself hadn't noticed me neither so it remained my little secret.

Anyway, there I was, able to observe and assess. I found myself wishing I had not forgotten my opera glasses. ( Actually, truth to tell, I don't use them very often because when you wear glasses all the time, it is a bit of a nuisance to take them off or put them on top of your head in order to accommodate the binoculars, so it is quite easy to come out without them.) But, on reflection, I don't think there would, necessarily, have been any advantage in seeing them through a lens brightly; the distance was good enough. Interestingly, I found I was not primarily watching the lady. What surprised me was my reaction to Himself. He took off his glasses - he was always a glasses wearer - and puffed on them to clean them, taking his hankie from his breast pocket to finish the job. This was something I must have seen him do three million and forty five times when we were together and I was taken by surprise at the wrench it gave my little heart. There he was, exactly the same, but acutely different, if you see what I mean. Why hadn't I registered that he and his way of being in the world would be with him no matter who was sitting beside him? They shared a programme, another feature I, and others, had often teased him for: he would always buy only one programme. Still, we all have our meanesses and that was one of his.

There were two intervals and I was careful about where and when I moved about, feeling I would rather watch and imagine than be introduced and face the reality. But she looked nice enough, unexceptional, dressed appropriately - his appropriate - with pearls just like the first gift he ever gave me. I found I wanted to find fault with her; she was plain, she was badly dressed she didn't look very bright, and so on and so on; all of which would have been difficult to see, really, with or without opera glasses. However, it came to me that it didn't really matter. She was loved and enjoyed and was sharing the life which was very familiar to me and it was that which was causing the homesickness for what might have been, had he and I been more nearly in tune. It was not, simplictically, the man with whom I had shared all those decades of married life whom I was missing .( In any case, from the anecdotes he, himself, tells me he is a very different 'husband' to her at this stage of his life from the one he was to me.) But what I was missing and, indeed, envying, was the sharing of the life I knew so well, missing, perhaps, (and you can miss what you have never had) how he is now, retired, less busy and making things work tenderly and with care.

I remember when I was first on my own and would find myself in a restaurant or other public place, I would look around me and, perhaps, see a woman in a dress so ghastly I couldn't even picture the kind of shop where such dress might be bought. I'd criticise and analyse her and feel superior in my nicely-turned-out self. Then my inner voice, seeing her turned in to her companion, laughing, smiling, would challenge my right to judge her, when she was not eating alone and was well and at ease in her 'ghastly' clothes. Salutory, wouldn't you say?

On a lighter note: if you are in the UK to-day you will know that it is currently very cold, wet and drearyissimo. This morning, I found myself carrying my clothes in to the bathroom to dress under the wall-heater. So what's new? 65 years ago in the winter I would dress under the bed-clothes or run down to the living room coal fire and dress in front of that. That would make me 75 going on 10, would'nt it?

Homesickness

This follows quite naturally from the last post: if you suffer from rejection you are very likely to suffer from homesickness, too. What and where is home? Well, we've been told often enough that home is where the heart is. But the heart can feel at home in a particular physical place at one time and not at another. When you were little you will have felt at home at your Gran's when she was soft and cuddly and had made Welsh Cakes for you and not at all at home when you had been left there - without your permission - when your Mum and Dad had gone away and there were strange night noises and nothing smelt like it did in your own house. You may well have felt at home in your own house until, again unasked, someone provided you with a little brother or sister who, as of right, took over your Mother's lap, your Father's shoulders and was even forgiven for pulling the cat's tail.

Someone I know well is aware of the capacity to feel at home in the South African veldt while missing his feeling of at-homeness on an island in Scotland, walking on Welsh cliffs, and with certain people no matter where he and they may be. I think I know about the at-homeness with people. I think of the people with whom I feel at home as those with whom I feel entirely myself, no adapting, no modifying, no awareness of self, simply being. Unexpectedly,( for me, that is), I feel very much myself in the context of this blog; I feel at home in it. My heart is in it so home is where etc etc. I don't feel entirely at home on the computer, though. That, as you have guessed, is because of the wizard of Cyberspace. I know he is there, waiting to gobble up my thoughts, or, anyway, my words, the moment I have put them down. I have learned one or two tricks to grab them back before he has gone too far but there is no way I am going to tell you about them because he will prempt those, too. (To prove the point, I first wrote the first 'c' in 'Cyberspace' lower case and was so afraid of retribution I couldn''nt get back fast enough to change it.)


I am really afraid of stuff you have to click on, or, even, not click on, simply do nothing : afraid I will wipe out the entire memory on this thing. It's not helped by my Guru whose repeated "you must have done SOMETHING", I have told you about before. As I said, and keep saying, I have done NOTHING, never. The words are simply not there anymore. How to reconcile my feeling of being at home while writing with my fear of the medium? Perhaps it is symbolic. Maybe one has to fear the medium in which one finds one's heart in case it has the power to wipe the feeling out, to carry it away in to the inner -world equivalent of Cyberspace. Anyway, maybe we have to qualify "home is where the heart is " to "home is where the heart feels safe".

Sometimes, my heart doesnt feel safe out there in the commercial world. My 40 year old self watches my current self opening her purse, searching for money, closing it, pushing it back in to my bag, with horror. It takes FOREVER. That will be the physical stiffness, you see. I am occasionally driven to apologising to the trader or the queue, recognising that I had no patience with people like me when I was not a person like me. (See stationary escaltors and stairs to Ladies' loos in previous posts.)

That's enough tempting fate - and the Wizard. See you soon.

Rejection

I have had to read through all the blogs to be sure but, to my surprise, I don't seem yet, to have written anything about rejection. It ranks up there with homesickness as one of the most painful of inner world conditions. (Illnesses may be a better word to describe their effect). People do suffer in varying degrees, no doubt, but it would be very hard to find someone who, hand on heart, could say they had never felt its force.

I confess I have it in spades: well you would, wouldn't you given my marital history and too many other nonsenses to bore you with. One of its manifestations for me is a ridiculously heightened awareness of where it may occur. For Heaven's sake, I have even been known to put in to my shopping basket a battered old grapefruit I had picked up before noticing it was clearly past its sell-by date. I couldn't bear the thought of the pain it would feel if I put it back amongst its healthier brothers and sisters. Actually, I don't do that with bananas. I eat bananas out of a sense of what's good for me and if they are squidgy and over-ripe I can't begin to get them down. Mind you, the state of a banana is much more obviously assessable than that of a fruit that doesn't have a front and back.

For years I went to a dentist who was rather far from efficient. It was many more years before I could bring myself to make other arrangements. That had to be taking the notion that he may not feel lovable enough, of being rejected, just a touch too far, don't you think? A friend with a new(ish) boy friend was telling me how easy he was to get on with, going along with just about anything. This matters because we shall spend time together over the Christmas period. The one thing he couldn't tolerate, she explained, was what she called being left out. I should explain that he is living and working in a country other than his own and doesn't speak the language. She took him to a party where nothing but the native language was spoken and he just freaked out. She was annoyed with herself for not being more observant, assuming he was just thinking his own thoughts quietly in the corner. He wasn't. He was in the corner quietly being seriously pissed off. I have had this experience myself. Actually, now I think of it, it is a doubly poisonous situation combining homesickness and rejection in the one catastrophe: a country whose tongue is closed to you and isolation within the group. Talk about Muggle. During one of the worst cases for me I had to resort to making a call on my mobile phone, tough for someone with a touch of meanness, across several countries and a bit of sea just to hear the voice of a loved-one speaking English; ironic, given his English accent is a combination of Slovak and Irish, but you know what I mean. At that moment he represented the known and the loving: the including.

My friend's fella knew that, in principle, he was with her, part of a mutual agreement, as it were, that they were an item. It didn't make any difference. He suffered. What his - and my - predicament owed to previous life experience, this is not the place to explore. Oops, I think I meant earlier life experience, but who knows, perhaps my unconscious was right, perhaps we do have to deal with rejection inflicted on us in all our lives past. Pause for thought.

Interventions

Have you noticed the longer you stop doing something - jogging, pilates, dieting, not drinking, blogging - how hard it is to start again? Well then, you understand my predicament. Do you agree we say no more about it and get on with now and the fact that I am back? I am not at all sanguine that I haven't lost you all but I can only hope.

In the interim, life at 75goingon40 has been more of the same: some worse, some better. Sadly, I am no more accustomed to the dictates (I think I mean restraints) of my elderly body than I was when you last heard, but I have discovered a few more of the advantages. I have a Blue Badge, (makes parking easier for the disabled, if you not in the UK and are not familiar with such things). I found out yesterday, that I, therefore, qualify for 50% discount on some opera tickets! Imagine! Mind you, that doesn't make going to the opera cheaper, only more frequent. I found out while I was booking a ticket for one of my favourites, The Tales of Hoffman, but, of course, an application would take two weeks to process so I had to pay 100% for that one. I shall enjoy it, knowing I never have to pay that much again.

Talking about entertainment, there is a plan to go to a play about Edith Piaf. At my great age I have been able to decide that she is, in fact, my all-time favourite ballad singer, even above Neil Diamond and What'sisname Sinatra. I said to the proposer of this outing, a man about 40, I guess, "being so much older than you, I can say I have actually heard her in the flesh." "Oh really," he came back, with envy. "Did you see Evita?" This was a musical the lass playing Piaf had had great success in some years ago. "No," quoth I, "I mean your actual Edith Piaf, herself ". Oops, potential for red faces but all was well because I know how hard it is for the younger to imagine himself in to the life of the older, and he would know I could take it.

It may not surprise you, in regard to the opera, that the story of a man who falls in love with several women, each of whom represents a particular aspect of womanhood would fascinate me. It seems to me in real life that that works well for many men: Mother and Mistress, not always accommodatable in one woman. (shall I discuss how it works for women another time?). Anyway, that won't be for a few weeks and in the meantime, I am preparing for Christmas. It can be a logistic nightmare so I am making sure to do all possible in advance. Cat food, logs, cleaning materials, none of those goes off, nor does wine, of course, nor beer. All those can be dealt with, ordered or bought in now so that there is more time available for the last minute inevitable crisis.

You may be wondering why I called this blog Interventions. Well, I had intended to tell you some of the reasons why I have been gone so long. I may still, but not in this one because I have run out of blogging time, so, please, don't go away. My name is Liz. I am a recovering not- follower-through, so I need your support. (By the way, do take the recovering thing seriously)
See you soon.

holidaying

I owe you all an apology: I went away without saying I was going to and you may well have decided I had given up blogging. I haven't. I just hope you haven't all lost interest and moved on. My Guru will tell me how I can let you all know that I'm back. I seem to have had quite a few little trips since I started telling you what it was like to be a 40 year-old in a body that is 75. This last trip was a real holiday though, not specially to see a loved one or check on unsaleable flats. I have been on what the young call a road trip; touring would describe it for me. I have been touring through France ultimately making for a seaside resort to which I first went in 1963.

It was definitely one of the best holidays I have had; no airport hassle, no limit to liquids, no confiscated favourite nail scissors nor make-up remover, no standing in endless check-in queues, just sitting in a shortish line of other cars waiting to board an old-fashioned ferry with SOMEONE ELSE DRIVING. What could describe bliss better? Actually, someone close to me did describe motoring bliss as a full tank, empty bladder and you own choice of music on the C.D player. I am in very good accord with my recent driver, though, who tells me when we need petrol, is sympathetic about pit stops for the bladder, and whose choice of music is tolerable, considering he is only twenty- one. Anyway, we do have some favourites in common so between his, mine and ours there was lovely music for all of 2000 miles. (I don't really do kilometres so had to do some serious brushing up on my eight times table to convert to miles.)

We made three stops on the way south and three on the way back so were able to take advantage of minor roads as well as motor-ways, not being in a mad dash. I was remembering that, on one occasion in my other life, our family of five made five stops on the way to the sea and I was left with twenty-five pairs of dirty underwear to deal with when we got there. The following year I issued them all with disposable pants. There was outright rebellion and this is still just about the only thing they remember about their childhood summers and have never let me forget. I rather miss those days of "when-will-we-be-there? I-need-the loo. He/she keeps hitting me." But there are certainly compensations to grown-up touring.

The 40 year-old would have loved to explore some of the ancient places where we stopped much more thoroughly than the old lady had energy for. It is hard to get used to. In some ways I am turning in to a cliche: less capacity for on-foot exploration, a smaller appetite for delicious French food, a touch hard-of-hearing and, Dear Reader, 'D' shaped. If you have been following my posts, you may remember a scarlet swimsuit I treated myself to. Well, the truth is even that couldn't disguise the horrible reality that I no longer have a waist. I am the shape my daughters were when they were between, let's say, two and six. You must have noticed, life is circular; you start off with thin wispy hair, bandy legs and, for girls, anyway, no waist, and that's how you end up. Being careful how I move is hard, too. There is the fear of slipping. My inner voice and I are in constant conversation as she tries to stop me from the riskiest of my too young aspirations. This is all summed up in the spectacle of getting me in to the sea: a helping hand over the slippery slope of the first few feet and then - whoosh: plunge straight in as I always used to and strike out in a creditable free stroke. Only a handful, mind you, before the back rises in horror with the equivalent of " have you taken leave of your senses, woman ?" and I revert to a decorous side stroke. It was huge fun when the sea turned a bit rough and one could get away with playing in the waves. Hair? Oubliez les.

Anyway, I did have a memorably lovely time and will no doubt think of more to tell you another time. Do you know, I might even take a lap-top with me in future so that I don't have to stop the blog. I missed it. See you soon ( or l8tr, if that means more to you)