When I was small, there were intractable rules about keeping house. Beds must be made with sheets taken from the bottom of the pile or, in better regulated households, sheets fresh from the wash must be placed in the airing cupboard underneath those already there. At some very early point in the household's rule-setting, a decision must have been taken about which. Heaven forfend: if both methods were used, however inadvertantly, the same sheets would be constantly in use and wear overall would be seriously uneven. There is indisputable sense in this, but the nice lady who comes to help my arthritic hands with various tasks that require a degree of flexibility I am now rather short of, gives me one of those 'I've -got- a right- one-'ere' looks when I explain this proceedure, and, I suspect, puts the sheets where it is easiest to get them out of her hands. Why do I suspect this? Because there is one sheet with inky evidence of my having done the crossword in bed that keeps coming round far more often than its real rotation should allow. Another test is to do with humidifiers. It is built in to my way of being in the world that dry air is bad for you. (I guess that the Welsh have to believe this. By and large, the ambient air in Wales could not be described as dry). Anyway, with the advent of central heating, largely from what, in those days, we accurately called "the Continent" and from our American cousins, dry air became an ever present concern. The remedy was to append a humidifier. In case you are quite prepared to live with dry air and don't need truck with such a thing, a humidifier is a sort of jar with a hole at the top of it for a hook. Filled with water, you append this contraption to your radiator. The water evaporates in to the air and there you are, saved from the unmentionable effects of dry air. The test of good house keeping is whether or not all your humidifiers are consistently filled with water. Many an hotel in a cold climate has been crossed off the five star list because the humidifiers were empty.
One of the - many - difficulties about being 75 going on 40 is in reconciling what was with what is. I am unfailingly self-conscious when I say "continental Europe", obediently bearing in mind that I am also, on my island, living in Europe. Few people have time or inclination to furnish themselves with humidifiers, let alone traipse around with a jug filling them up. (I hasten to say I did do this even when I was working, so there.) The other Mother-proof test is light bulbs. Do you dust yours? No? Well, you would be more ecologically sound if you did so, since more light will get through, than if you use those don't-get-me-started-on-them energy saving bulbs. Hygiene is another issue. I have what is politely called a galley kitchen. As you know, this actually means there is room for only one person and a cat in it. If you are very fond of another and he/she is slender, you could manage two at a squash and worth the contortions if you would like him/her to mash the potatoes or drain the spinach while you make the gravy. There is totally and absolutely no accommodation for a bin dedicated to food waste. Even if there were room to change things round for it, in less than a day it would smell like a ripe durian. I know it risks showing off, but the stench of that Eastern fruit sampled when I, in another life, wandered through Malaysia trying all the delicacies offered, comes back to me in every evil nightmare my mischievous inner world dumps on me. As it happens, if you can hold your breath and swallow at the same time, the durian tastes very nice; it's not exactly nectar, but the diametric opposite of its smell. What enemy it is conditioned to ward off, I can't imagine, but it must need that smell for something. The point of this is to express my horror that I am going to have to separate my food waste from the rest and keep it in a bin of its own until the ONCE FORTNIGHTLY refuse collection. Is this good house-keeping, I ask myself. In my childhood home the rubbish was collected daily. Things are'nt what they used to be. I'll be back.
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Monday, 5 April 2010
Sea Air
In my experience, those of us brought up at the seaside at regular intervals suffer from ozone deprivation. This may occur at the sound of a pigeon or a Canadian goose, masquerading, to our starving ears, as a seagull or, simply, when the sun shines long enough to remind us that it isn't always cold, damp and grey in the U.K. Though, to be fair, my sea was in Wales so I should, more realistically, be reminded of the sea when it is cold, damp and grey. Anyway, I was overwhelmed by this longing a few days ago, so the Guru, who had a day off, kindly offered to take me to the sea second nearest to London. Why not the nearest? Well, that would have been Southend. Don't ask. I would have to bear in mind the law of Defamation. Brighton is where we made for. I have good feelings about Brighton. My best ones are of participating in the Brighton Run in a life I led a long time ago. (For those of you over the Pond or in the Antipodes, the Brighton Run is a challenge, never a race, to Veteran cars to travel, successfully,the road from Hyde Park in London to the Pillars, which denote the borough boundary of Brighton; a distance of some 60 miles. These old ladies - the cars, not me and my friends - were pre 1900 for the most part. The one I had the honour of driving in was built in 1902). It was a lovely outing, starting at 7.30am on an inevitably cold and misty November morning. I should, of course, have said in my explanatory note to 'outsiders' that the whole idea was to commemorate the date when it ceased to be illegal to drive a car without a man with a light walking ahead of it, thus, November, the nearest Sunday to the relevant date. What did one wear in an open top carriage with an engine on an unforgiving November morning? Think skiing. Sometimes it rained. I sat beside the driver wiping his spectacles which were not equipped with windscreen wipers. On one occasion, we were accompanied by a V.I.P. He sat with the driver and I sat in the back with his lady wife. This time I was assigned to baling out the rain so that her shoes would be only marginally ruined. From time to time, the driver passed his specs back to me and I stopped baling and wiped. Yes, we got there. All credit to the driver that my children were not left parentless, through disaster or pneumonia. The roads were always lined with cheerers-on. I loved it. It was great to arrive at the sea-front in Brighton and smell the sea and shelter from the wind in makeshift tents and feel the tingling in your skin calm down and wring your gloves out, although, it didn't always rain, of course; sometimes there was hail.
That was then. Now we struggled out of London in more or less ordinary week-day traffic and made our way sedately down the Motorway forbidden to the Veterans and in any case, developed since my voyages. (Perhaps, sedately is not quite the word since the Guru was driving). We indulged, first in a delicious lunch, but the pull of the sea became irrisistable so no coffee, only a pit stop and off to go. There was a strong wind, really strong, strong enough to make it seriously difficult for the external me to make any useful progress. The Guru insisted and urged me along with reminders of how I was here for the smell of the sea and nothing in life was easy, as one would persist when it looked as if the witch with the flying coat you had in tow was going to keel over and be an embarrassment to you and a hazard to others. My ears were so cold I ceased to hear his exhortations,but we made it to the seafront and started to walk along it. As it happens, the first sight of the sea, when I was able to forgo my concentration on keeping upright, was disappointing: it was gringe coloured. As a life-long seaside dweller, I was able to understand and explain to Guru that the wind was whipping up the sand underneath and discolouring it. The semi-safe habour of the pier loomed and soon we found ourselves in a sort of fun fair with all the games and screams you would associate with that. Not quite the exalted experience I had fought the elements for, but we emerged on to the walk- way and prepared to do a Scot of the Antarctic with the wind again. And the smell, the ozone, the raison d'etre of the expedition? Fish and chips, that's what it smelled of, or doughnuts, depending on which side you were being battered on. Not a whiff of the sea, not English nor Welsh: frying, that's what we could smell. Ah well, that's not the only disappointment I've had since I was really 40. So it's Cymru for me as soon as I can work out how and when and it was nevertheless, a lovely day out. Diolch yn fawr, Guru.
That was then. Now we struggled out of London in more or less ordinary week-day traffic and made our way sedately down the Motorway forbidden to the Veterans and in any case, developed since my voyages. (Perhaps, sedately is not quite the word since the Guru was driving). We indulged, first in a delicious lunch, but the pull of the sea became irrisistable so no coffee, only a pit stop and off to go. There was a strong wind, really strong, strong enough to make it seriously difficult for the external me to make any useful progress. The Guru insisted and urged me along with reminders of how I was here for the smell of the sea and nothing in life was easy, as one would persist when it looked as if the witch with the flying coat you had in tow was going to keel over and be an embarrassment to you and a hazard to others. My ears were so cold I ceased to hear his exhortations,but we made it to the seafront and started to walk along it. As it happens, the first sight of the sea, when I was able to forgo my concentration on keeping upright, was disappointing: it was gringe coloured. As a life-long seaside dweller, I was able to understand and explain to Guru that the wind was whipping up the sand underneath and discolouring it. The semi-safe habour of the pier loomed and soon we found ourselves in a sort of fun fair with all the games and screams you would associate with that. Not quite the exalted experience I had fought the elements for, but we emerged on to the walk- way and prepared to do a Scot of the Antarctic with the wind again. And the smell, the ozone, the raison d'etre of the expedition? Fish and chips, that's what it smelled of, or doughnuts, depending on which side you were being battered on. Not a whiff of the sea, not English nor Welsh: frying, that's what we could smell. Ah well, that's not the only disappointment I've had since I was really 40. So it's Cymru for me as soon as I can work out how and when and it was nevertheless, a lovely day out. Diolch yn fawr, Guru.
Friday, 19 March 2010
Communication, again
First, I must expand on my "ironing" post. I would simply have edited it but I see that a goodly number of you have already read it. I made an analogy beween ironing and therapy and had a moment of take-aback when I wondered if the analogy were a good one, that the ironed-out creases of wrinkled lives would come back as quickly as those in a pressed linen skirt. That was my concern, but, of course, the analogy doesn't really work because all one can really do in the therapeutic process is to help people understand both that they do have an in-built self- iron and also that some creases are not only inevitable but liveable with, too. After all, life is short; one doesn't have to live it exclusively in the laundry.
That's quite enough over-stretching of a straightforward metaphor and I know you will all have leapt on the failure of communication it implies. What drew my attention back to communication, from which it rarely strays, of course, was an email telling me of the death of the Mother of a friend who is dear to me. I have gone on a bit, as you will recall, about electronic communication and the contemporary pitfalls of what I see as its gross over use. It was, in fact, quite a shock to open the computer and see "Ocado: this week's special offer" , "Virgin Media Newsletter" and then this death notice. However, I was seriously grateful to have been told and so much more quickly than via what has become a rather unreliable postal service. The lady concerned had lived a very long time, had a huge family and untold numbers of friends and friends of her family. I can see that it would have been a logistic nightmare to make known her death by any other means of communication. There was an announcement in the paper but how much more human and personal was the "Dear Liz" email in among the rubbish. (I can't believe I have said that. There you are, the Guru's attempts to drag me in to the 21st Century may be working in spite of myself). Nor would I have wanted my friend, her daughter, to have put herself through unimagineable numbers of telephone calls re-iterating the immense news that an era was over.
There are limits for me, though. I didn't feel I could email back. I wrote an old-fashioned letter of condolence. I was very conscious of my own Mother breathing down my neck. She died before the electronic age really took off. I found a cache of hundreds of letters she had kept after various deaths in the family, and births, for that matter. It will be much harder to keep emails. Confession: if I get one I may want to hold on to, I print it off and file it. ( That's not true. I put it on the desk in order to file it. Yes, yes, I know you know I never do and the clutter just grows). Nor is it environmentally friendly to print things. Oh dear: maybe the Guru is not doing such a good job after all. He sent me a text message, the other day, about his safe arrival after a complex journey. I was pleased; I had heard before I was anywhere near the worry time. I remembered my Mother, in the country during the war when I was small, trying to get through to my Father in a town that had suffered horrific bombardment because it was a significant seaport. The local Operator had to be called by clicking hard and continuously on the bar of the telephone receiver. When it was finally our turn, we had to wait until she could raise a colleague in that town only to be told that the lines were down. Nearly an hour this all took and no nearer knowing if he were safe or not at the end of it. He was, but many were not and the town burned for three nights and three days. My Goodness, that makes me 75 going on 6. C U l8r.
That's quite enough over-stretching of a straightforward metaphor and I know you will all have leapt on the failure of communication it implies. What drew my attention back to communication, from which it rarely strays, of course, was an email telling me of the death of the Mother of a friend who is dear to me. I have gone on a bit, as you will recall, about electronic communication and the contemporary pitfalls of what I see as its gross over use. It was, in fact, quite a shock to open the computer and see "Ocado: this week's special offer" , "Virgin Media Newsletter" and then this death notice. However, I was seriously grateful to have been told and so much more quickly than via what has become a rather unreliable postal service. The lady concerned had lived a very long time, had a huge family and untold numbers of friends and friends of her family. I can see that it would have been a logistic nightmare to make known her death by any other means of communication. There was an announcement in the paper but how much more human and personal was the "Dear Liz" email in among the rubbish. (I can't believe I have said that. There you are, the Guru's attempts to drag me in to the 21st Century may be working in spite of myself). Nor would I have wanted my friend, her daughter, to have put herself through unimagineable numbers of telephone calls re-iterating the immense news that an era was over.
There are limits for me, though. I didn't feel I could email back. I wrote an old-fashioned letter of condolence. I was very conscious of my own Mother breathing down my neck. She died before the electronic age really took off. I found a cache of hundreds of letters she had kept after various deaths in the family, and births, for that matter. It will be much harder to keep emails. Confession: if I get one I may want to hold on to, I print it off and file it. ( That's not true. I put it on the desk in order to file it. Yes, yes, I know you know I never do and the clutter just grows). Nor is it environmentally friendly to print things. Oh dear: maybe the Guru is not doing such a good job after all. He sent me a text message, the other day, about his safe arrival after a complex journey. I was pleased; I had heard before I was anywhere near the worry time. I remembered my Mother, in the country during the war when I was small, trying to get through to my Father in a town that had suffered horrific bombardment because it was a significant seaport. The local Operator had to be called by clicking hard and continuously on the bar of the telephone receiver. When it was finally our turn, we had to wait until she could raise a colleague in that town only to be told that the lines were down. Nearly an hour this all took and no nearer knowing if he were safe or not at the end of it. He was, but many were not and the town burned for three nights and three days. My Goodness, that makes me 75 going on 6. C U l8r.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Ironing
Have you noticed, there is a very thin line between making life run smoothly and interfering? The other day, I was ironing. Actually, I iron every day. This gives rise to the assumption that I enjoy it. Just because one does something every day is not incontravertible evidence that one enjoys it: cleaning teeth, cleaning shoes, changing the cat litter and so on and so on qualify more as 'take it or leave it' jobs, as I see it. As it happens, I do rather enjoy it; what I'm not sure of, is how comfortable I am with the assuming bit. Anyway, the significance of this ironing day was that I suddenly understood that what I really like about it is that you can make smooth the wrinkled and see the result immediately. I then realised that a very important facet of my way of being in the world was the drive to make the wrinkled smooth. If I see a dilemma, a predicament, a mess, I am driven to find a way to put it right. Clearly, there are pros and cons to this characteristic.
I have been staying with a dear friend in another European city. She appreciates my problem-solving 'gift' and sometimes invites me to solve her problems in a practical way. You know the situation: small cupboard, big accumulation of impedimenta. What to throw out, what to give to charity and what to keep. (She would put them in the opposite order of priority, I suspect.) We spent a couple of days with this task and, all to her credit, in the end there was less keep and more dispose of than one would have expected. Now, this was a pro in smoothing out. However, it did emerge that some of my earlier making smooth had had a less happy outcome and she had ended up cross and resentful that she had 'done as I said', as she saw it, 'taken my advice' in my own view. I did appreciate her coming clean about this and, again, it highlighted the inherent dangers in making the lives of others, as well as ones own, run smoothly. Among my loyal followers there may be some who remember me telling you about the thorough tidy-up I gave the home of an absent, loved relative. Her sole comment on her return was that it would take her ages to get it back the way it was: con. Sometimes, as a retired therapist, I do wonder about the balance of pro and con in the work I did. Helping people find ways to iron out the wrinkles in their lives holds a mammoth responsibility. When I think how quickly an ironed garment is creased again I do worry about this therapeutic analogy. Are there scores of people out there whose crumpled lives ran smoothly only temporarily? Doesnt bear thinking about.
There are bizarre manifestations of this phenomenon. At the top of my road is a yellow board announcing there are to be road works. As you know, this really means that the road is not going to be working. That aside, I am constantly irritated because this board is headed "Advanced Warning". Personally, I would be quite content with a standard warning. My difficulty is in stopping myself from taking a paint brush to the 'd' and making the warning read as it should. Behind this is also some fantasy of doing something about an education system that would allow someone in touch with the public so to expose him/herself as being out of touch with his/her participles and adjectives. The notice does not run smoothly, damn it. But, you may say, everyone knows what it means so where's the crisis? Where indeed? Attempts to make the lives of my young run smoothly were another minefield. They were not all that old when 'making things work for them' became 'an intrusion'. Perhaps we have all to learn that it is in our better interest to do our own ironing, but I tell you this: I shall never be one of those people who think that linen clothes look better crumpled . See you soon, Wizard of Cyberspace permitting.
I have been staying with a dear friend in another European city. She appreciates my problem-solving 'gift' and sometimes invites me to solve her problems in a practical way. You know the situation: small cupboard, big accumulation of impedimenta. What to throw out, what to give to charity and what to keep. (She would put them in the opposite order of priority, I suspect.) We spent a couple of days with this task and, all to her credit, in the end there was less keep and more dispose of than one would have expected. Now, this was a pro in smoothing out. However, it did emerge that some of my earlier making smooth had had a less happy outcome and she had ended up cross and resentful that she had 'done as I said', as she saw it, 'taken my advice' in my own view. I did appreciate her coming clean about this and, again, it highlighted the inherent dangers in making the lives of others, as well as ones own, run smoothly. Among my loyal followers there may be some who remember me telling you about the thorough tidy-up I gave the home of an absent, loved relative. Her sole comment on her return was that it would take her ages to get it back the way it was: con. Sometimes, as a retired therapist, I do wonder about the balance of pro and con in the work I did. Helping people find ways to iron out the wrinkles in their lives holds a mammoth responsibility. When I think how quickly an ironed garment is creased again I do worry about this therapeutic analogy. Are there scores of people out there whose crumpled lives ran smoothly only temporarily? Doesnt bear thinking about.
There are bizarre manifestations of this phenomenon. At the top of my road is a yellow board announcing there are to be road works. As you know, this really means that the road is not going to be working. That aside, I am constantly irritated because this board is headed "Advanced Warning". Personally, I would be quite content with a standard warning. My difficulty is in stopping myself from taking a paint brush to the 'd' and making the warning read as it should. Behind this is also some fantasy of doing something about an education system that would allow someone in touch with the public so to expose him/herself as being out of touch with his/her participles and adjectives. The notice does not run smoothly, damn it. But, you may say, everyone knows what it means so where's the crisis? Where indeed? Attempts to make the lives of my young run smoothly were another minefield. They were not all that old when 'making things work for them' became 'an intrusion'. Perhaps we have all to learn that it is in our better interest to do our own ironing, but I tell you this: I shall never be one of those people who think that linen clothes look better crumpled . See you soon, Wizard of Cyberspace permitting.
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Communication
Don't laugh: I have been sitting at the computer for ages, thinking about how to start a post on 'communication'. It might have been wiser to write it on 'irony'. Anyway, communication has an unending fascination for me. For decades I earned my living through it, understanding, interpreting, translating, so you may well be treated to the occasional return to it. I'll never get it all said in one. Take my cat: she presents the greatest challenge in communicating. She knows exactly what her orders to me have been. The problem lies with me: can I understand and carry them out? One of her favourite things is to have me sitting down, preferably with my legs up but even a legs -down lap will do, and then to sit on top of me. This is all very loving and seriously warm during this horrible winter, but it is also incarcerating. Anything that is not within paws reach is out of bounds.There is no question of answering the phone or getting a drink or finding a pen to do the crossword. You are as trapped as if bound by chains. Lately, she has taken to non-stop meowing soon after breakfast. When I say meowing, I really mean whining. It goes on through changed food, changed litter, strokes and nibbles - her of me, that is - and it is not until I take up one of the above positions and she is installed on top that the whining stops. I was never brilliant with whining children; how do I do better with my cat? 'It's time to get up' is not difficult to communicate. You just jump on the 'two-legs' hidden in the bed you recently slept on yourself, and then jump off again. Repeat thirty four times and, miraculously, there is food in the dish and water in the bowl before you can say"mouse". Scratching: antique furniture or any fabric are best to convey you are really cross and impatient. You have to endure some loud calling of your name and even the lightest touch of the paper on your behind, but 'she' gets what you are on about and sees to it at last. Less subtle but useful in an emergency is the hiss. Don't touch me, don't touch her, get out of my space, get out of my house can all be communicated by a hiss so protracted the breath control would shame many a robust soprano.
However, what triggered the impulse to discuss the question of communication, now, as opposed to then and from now on, was actually a comment from a two-legged one. Coming out of the kitchen the Guru started me straight in the eye and said that the dish-washer needed to go on. I was left not knowing whether this was a declaration of intention or an instruction to staff. It turned out to be the latter. What would you have done? I put the dish-washer on. Excusing my self to the angry inner me, I decided that my compliance must have been an unconscious wish to communicate my warmth towards him. I know, I know: there doesn't seem to be a polite word for the response I can feel you all communicating through the ether. I am thoroughly spoiling both the Guru and the cat.
I am having difficulties with this post and thus the irony continues. My head is reeling and my thoughts tumbling with examples, no, experiences, of communication, through words, signs, movements, music , but, for the moment, no coherent frame in which to express them. Perhaps there are too many or the subject too all-encompassing. I am passionate about it which may well explain the problem. It is notoriously hard to keep clear-headed when consumed by passion, wouldn't you say? I might just have to leave it there for now, lie down and let my cat lie on top of me. By implication, I let you know I shall be looking forward to communicating with you again, soon.
However, what triggered the impulse to discuss the question of communication, now, as opposed to then and from now on, was actually a comment from a two-legged one. Coming out of the kitchen the Guru started me straight in the eye and said that the dish-washer needed to go on. I was left not knowing whether this was a declaration of intention or an instruction to staff. It turned out to be the latter. What would you have done? I put the dish-washer on. Excusing my self to the angry inner me, I decided that my compliance must have been an unconscious wish to communicate my warmth towards him. I know, I know: there doesn't seem to be a polite word for the response I can feel you all communicating through the ether. I am thoroughly spoiling both the Guru and the cat.
I am having difficulties with this post and thus the irony continues. My head is reeling and my thoughts tumbling with examples, no, experiences, of communication, through words, signs, movements, music , but, for the moment, no coherent frame in which to express them. Perhaps there are too many or the subject too all-encompassing. I am passionate about it which may well explain the problem. It is notoriously hard to keep clear-headed when consumed by passion, wouldn't you say? I might just have to leave it there for now, lie down and let my cat lie on top of me. By implication, I let you know I shall be looking forward to communicating with you again, soon.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Boredom
"Boredom" is hardly the most alluring of titles for a post. Anyone who has experienced it may run a mile from a dissertation on it and anyone who hasn't will find the prospect, well, boring. I feel moved to write about it, however, for a few reasons. First, there can be only about half a dozen variations on the theme of what it is like actually to be 75 when your inner world reacts as if it were 40. The'run after a 'bus, climb up a ladder, sweep the snow off the steps' theme; the' I can no longer go to the ball' theme, the ' turn over passed the fashion pages' theme, the experience of going alone to a restaurant theme, the what the H... has the Wizard of Cyberspace done now' theme, and so on and so on. The blogposts were in danger of becoming a bit of a moan along limited lines. You may all lose interest. What to do? Give up writing them slid across my creation screen. Find some new themes - obvious, but not followed by inspiration. Face up to it. That's what I was left with and that's what I shall try to do.
Further, consultation and observation convinced me that most people my age are troubled by boredom, particularly after retirement. Retirement is more demanding than work and the expert is the one who has been planning for it ever since he - or she - left school. Someone I know well has a specification for retirement that can actually bear the description " idyllic" not to say, ideal. A home that couldn't be more central to where it's at if it were poised on top of the Eros statue in Picadilly, constant companionsip of like-minded people, a lively mind unaffected by anno domini, a younger woman friend who adores him and enough money to support all that. Whew, I wish. There are, of course, levels between that and the low -grade depression which elderly boredom may well masquerade as. (That ending with a preposition still leaves me with a feeling of guilt and a red mark in the margin. Nor do I feel any happier with the 'up with that I will not put' alternative which those others of you educated in the 30s and 40s may well remember). That's another strand of depression masquerading as boredom: guilt. The acts one neglected, the kindnesses one eschewed, the relationships one lost. The weight of this may well turn in to a can't- be- bothered way of living. The get- up and- go needed for a fuller life has a real struggle with the can't- be -bothered, my research tells me. Sometimes it is clear from a gathering that the participants are there for want of better. It takes some courage, though, to turn up at a literary reading, a lecture, a reminiscence of diplomatic life in Outer Mongolia simply because the alternative is a book that cant hold your attention or an extension of your relationship with the characters on the telly you have come to know only too well. At least you will have overcome the can't be bothered factor. Given the present cold, damp dark winter nights, it does, indeed, take courage. But it is hard to stop the impulse of my young inner self, when she sees someone under 5o at such gatherings, to look him/her straight in the eye and say "get a life, for Heaven's sake". The remark being intended, of course, primarily, for that very inner self fighting the good fight to reconcile herself to the boundaries of 75 year old possibility.
However, I have learnt much in all that time. I might try little homilies on you, based on wisdom gained. I shall continue to find the humour in the predicament of the elderly with a stick, an umbrella, cat food, human food and a raincoat she hadn't bothered to do up to contend with when the skies have opened. Humour there is, too, in remarks overheard along the lines of "where's her zimmer frame; don't get behind her, she'll be ten minutes fumbling in her purse; shouldn't be let out without a keeper". I have devised a sign to wear hanging down my back as well as my front: I am old, not deaf. There you are, useful occupation for the under-occupied elderly: sandwich man/woman. But should I advertise an elderly/single woman friendly restaurant or an erudite lecture on troglydites? And what about my aching back? Keep reading: it's not all a bore.
Further, consultation and observation convinced me that most people my age are troubled by boredom, particularly after retirement. Retirement is more demanding than work and the expert is the one who has been planning for it ever since he - or she - left school. Someone I know well has a specification for retirement that can actually bear the description " idyllic" not to say, ideal. A home that couldn't be more central to where it's at if it were poised on top of the Eros statue in Picadilly, constant companionsip of like-minded people, a lively mind unaffected by anno domini, a younger woman friend who adores him and enough money to support all that. Whew, I wish. There are, of course, levels between that and the low -grade depression which elderly boredom may well masquerade as. (That ending with a preposition still leaves me with a feeling of guilt and a red mark in the margin. Nor do I feel any happier with the 'up with that I will not put' alternative which those others of you educated in the 30s and 40s may well remember). That's another strand of depression masquerading as boredom: guilt. The acts one neglected, the kindnesses one eschewed, the relationships one lost. The weight of this may well turn in to a can't- be- bothered way of living. The get- up and- go needed for a fuller life has a real struggle with the can't- be -bothered, my research tells me. Sometimes it is clear from a gathering that the participants are there for want of better. It takes some courage, though, to turn up at a literary reading, a lecture, a reminiscence of diplomatic life in Outer Mongolia simply because the alternative is a book that cant hold your attention or an extension of your relationship with the characters on the telly you have come to know only too well. At least you will have overcome the can't be bothered factor. Given the present cold, damp dark winter nights, it does, indeed, take courage. But it is hard to stop the impulse of my young inner self, when she sees someone under 5o at such gatherings, to look him/her straight in the eye and say "get a life, for Heaven's sake". The remark being intended, of course, primarily, for that very inner self fighting the good fight to reconcile herself to the boundaries of 75 year old possibility.
However, I have learnt much in all that time. I might try little homilies on you, based on wisdom gained. I shall continue to find the humour in the predicament of the elderly with a stick, an umbrella, cat food, human food and a raincoat she hadn't bothered to do up to contend with when the skies have opened. Humour there is, too, in remarks overheard along the lines of "where's her zimmer frame; don't get behind her, she'll be ten minutes fumbling in her purse; shouldn't be let out without a keeper". I have devised a sign to wear hanging down my back as well as my front: I am old, not deaf. There you are, useful occupation for the under-occupied elderly: sandwich man/woman. But should I advertise an elderly/single woman friendly restaurant or an erudite lecture on troglydites? And what about my aching back? Keep reading: it's not all a bore.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Objects
There has had to be some serious thought given to the title of this post. Driven by retirement, I have been tidying. I have a small house. At the moment it houses two people and the belongings of three. The third, non-resident, lives in what is virtually a garden shed on an island off an island: not much capacity for storage, then. The only objects over which I have control are my own, so that is where the tidying has been focussed. I hoard. This is not a good basis for a tidy-up. I am sentimental: even less helpful, but, Dear Reader, I am courageous, so I and my rubbish bags set out to do their best...worst?
I started with my desk. Picture it: on the right are papers that need urgent attention. On the left is stuff that needs seeing to one of these days. In the middle is anything which will have to be kept safe and, certainly, dealt with, but not just now. Three days later, I found myself with a black rubbish bag full to the brim and a glimpse of green leather that hadn't seen daylight for a very long time. It has all been burnt in an iron wheelbarrow, my shredder having gone green, too, at the thought it may have had to deal with disposal all by itself. I started with the desk because, with papers, I thought I could be less influenced by sentimentality. This was a mistake. They seemed to have the same charisma as photographs and school reports. When I saw that the 'keep' pile had outgrown the 'throw' pile, I did have to call on all my resources ruthlessly to redress the balance. What did it was thinking that my nearest and dearest would have it to do eventually and would do it, no doubt, without even reading the stuff. ( Some long time ago, I answered the phone to a dear-one as I was in the middle of a similar tidy-up. Referring to one of my young, I said that, after my death, before ringing the Undertaker, she should first order some skips to accommodate all the paper rubbish. He suggested that having ordered two skips, she wouldnt need the Undertaker). At some level there is a fear that I have thrown out documents essential to a smooth-running life. I shan't know until called upon to produce something that is, at this moment, a pile of ashes at the bottom of the garden. My Mother came to mind. Shortly before her death, she had had just such a tidy-up. Sadly, current insurance policies, unpaid bills and other hassle-ridden documents had bitten the dust. With pride, she showed me her impeccable desk, totally unaware that I would be months, years chasing the written evidence that she had existed, never mind insuring herself, her home and its contents. Nor that she would obsessively pay every bill on the day it arrived before she lost touch with the niceties of an orderly life. I ask forgiveness in advance if I have put people in a similar position. It is worth it just to see that streak of green leather.
Clothes drawers and cupboards are different. A kind of ruthlessness I don't possess is required to move clothes along. I have items from a stone ago, (about 7 kilo, if you are in continental Europe, 14 pounds for kind readers in the States). They are part of my life. I am so used to the sight of them that I could no more challenge them than I could challenge the sofa, the carpet or the oven, nor the pictures on the walls. So drawers and cupboards will have to wait for another burst of energetic courage. However, perhaps the first task is to train myself to disimbue objects, whether paper, cloth or whatever material from their emotional element, from my habit of personification, from the profound inner world belief that an old jumper has feelings and wouldn't want to be thrown out. And, yes, the new washing machine is in no way as user friendly as the old I was forced to throw out - see below; its programming is less efficient and so on and so on, but I have been refunded the delivery charge because the deliverers were nasty to me: so there: a happier ending.
I started with my desk. Picture it: on the right are papers that need urgent attention. On the left is stuff that needs seeing to one of these days. In the middle is anything which will have to be kept safe and, certainly, dealt with, but not just now. Three days later, I found myself with a black rubbish bag full to the brim and a glimpse of green leather that hadn't seen daylight for a very long time. It has all been burnt in an iron wheelbarrow, my shredder having gone green, too, at the thought it may have had to deal with disposal all by itself. I started with the desk because, with papers, I thought I could be less influenced by sentimentality. This was a mistake. They seemed to have the same charisma as photographs and school reports. When I saw that the 'keep' pile had outgrown the 'throw' pile, I did have to call on all my resources ruthlessly to redress the balance. What did it was thinking that my nearest and dearest would have it to do eventually and would do it, no doubt, without even reading the stuff. ( Some long time ago, I answered the phone to a dear-one as I was in the middle of a similar tidy-up. Referring to one of my young, I said that, after my death, before ringing the Undertaker, she should first order some skips to accommodate all the paper rubbish. He suggested that having ordered two skips, she wouldnt need the Undertaker). At some level there is a fear that I have thrown out documents essential to a smooth-running life. I shan't know until called upon to produce something that is, at this moment, a pile of ashes at the bottom of the garden. My Mother came to mind. Shortly before her death, she had had just such a tidy-up. Sadly, current insurance policies, unpaid bills and other hassle-ridden documents had bitten the dust. With pride, she showed me her impeccable desk, totally unaware that I would be months, years chasing the written evidence that she had existed, never mind insuring herself, her home and its contents. Nor that she would obsessively pay every bill on the day it arrived before she lost touch with the niceties of an orderly life. I ask forgiveness in advance if I have put people in a similar position. It is worth it just to see that streak of green leather.
Clothes drawers and cupboards are different. A kind of ruthlessness I don't possess is required to move clothes along. I have items from a stone ago, (about 7 kilo, if you are in continental Europe, 14 pounds for kind readers in the States). They are part of my life. I am so used to the sight of them that I could no more challenge them than I could challenge the sofa, the carpet or the oven, nor the pictures on the walls. So drawers and cupboards will have to wait for another burst of energetic courage. However, perhaps the first task is to train myself to disimbue objects, whether paper, cloth or whatever material from their emotional element, from my habit of personification, from the profound inner world belief that an old jumper has feelings and wouldn't want to be thrown out. And, yes, the new washing machine is in no way as user friendly as the old I was forced to throw out - see below; its programming is less efficient and so on and so on, but I have been refunded the delivery charge because the deliverers were nasty to me: so there: a happier ending.
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