Elderhood: at first blush, I’m tempted to write about the pleasures of wisdom, or to be more accurate, the pleasures of occasionally being thought wise. And then Reality moves in and takes a seat atop my computer monitor. “Get serious,” he chides. “Remember this morning, when you were figuring out how to part with those needlework projects you can no longer do? And what about that strange creaking when you get out of bed in the morning? Call that pleasure?”
Oh, all right! Here is how I really feel about elderhood. Almost everything in life is a mixed blessing; why should growing old be any different, I ask you. One of my images of growing old is that various layers of my Self wash off as the days go by. Gerard Manley Hopkins uses a similar image of purification when he describes his struggle with despair: “Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie sheer and clear.” (“Carrion Comfort.” Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose, Penguin Classics, 1985). I love that image. It fits my experience of elderhood like a glove.
So, elderhood, grain and chaff: with age, I am more realistic about what I can expect from those around me. I remember, having cared for parents and children for many years, thinking that my turn would come when I retired. But by then, my children were on their own, and the elders for whom I had cared were gone. It was hard to be content that my children were doing relatively well, but had no energy or interest in caring about me. As the years go by, my anger and disappointment no longer keep me awake at night. I am glad that they survived when the odds were so stacked against them, and I am content with that. That’s hard-won wisdom.
I make peace with some things more easily than with others. I surprised myself with the ease with which I gave away my beautiful custom-made bagpipes with the Tiffany silver ferrules. That acceptance came more easily because I had mentored a young woman pipe major who will play them with as much joy as I did. It was time. But I kept my chanter and a small set of shuttle pipes that were made for me. I can’t play them, but can’t give them away yet either. Wheat and chaff.
These days, I find that I claim my cussedness with panache. A few months ago, I tackled a Person Of Note in my retirement community because he repeatedly interrupted me at the dinner table. I bided my time until I could stand it no longer, and several days later, “cut him off at the gulch” to finish what I have been trying to say earlier. Then I told him not to silence me ever again. And ” high dudgeon”? That goes along with it. I do both well now.
At the same time, I apologize so much more easily these days than I did when I was younger. I’m not so invested in being right, and more willing to allow that I might be wrong. And I found that I can be wrong without being ashamed. Shame is still in my repertoire but it doesn’t leach the joy out of my days as it once did. In fact, I’m not sure where it went. I can feel regret apart from embarrassment. Best of all, I no longer think that I will go to hell for being normal. God is really glad about that.
At this age, I take pleasure in small things. I no longer have much interest in Big Ventures, and I don’t feel the loss. At 63, I bought a Vespa GT Gran Torino because I was terrified of motorcycles and didn’t want to die being afraid of any the last thing. So that took care of that, and now, I love simply looking at the clouds… while I am sitting still. I could sit for hours at my desk watching towhees take their daily swim in the birdbath just outside my window. I love the sound of Philip Glass’s minimalist operas and Arvo Part’s liturgies; Bach gives me auditory indigestion.
These days, I have a very large capacity for joy and contentment that I don’t think I had time for earlier in my life. I remember my 80-year-old mother commenting on the beauty of an old dead tree while I was in the midst of getting her and my children fed and to appointments. I remember thinking at the time that she was fiddling while my Rome burned. I notice the irony in my current hobby, photographing interesting tree bark. Lots of chaff through the years.
But the grain! Ah, the grain! Most of all, I love Who God has become for me. As a good Catholic, I paid a lot of attention to liturgy and devotional practices. But my spiritual life has become minimalist, too, and (most days) I tire of thinking I should be or pray some other way than feels comfortable. I handle and show raptors for a wild bird refuge near where I live. God stands with me while Odie, a little disabled Western screech owl sits on my wrist or nods off into my shoulder. God and I marvel at the magnificent design of each feather, and all three of us take such ineffable pleasure in the warmth of the sun.