Amidst the bizarreness of the current world, I went off as happy as you like to replace my ten year driving licence which had finally expired. It’s a funny experience, the Driving Licence Centre, like a cross between going to the doctor and being in custody . You sit in a small booth with a curtain between yourself and the rest of the general public while the young woman behind the glass checks all your details; identity, address, health and age.
I am having a new photograph taken, it’s a simple process where your chair swings to the left and a camera machine offers you three options. While I am engrossed in this process, she suddenly announces “I can’t give you a ten year licence because in just eight years you will be 70 and you will have to submit to our medical exam for older people.”
It was a like a stake through the heart! Not because I am unaware of this fact, not because I dread getting older, it was just that I have never heard 70 and myself together in the same sentence before! I joked about it with the woman behind the glass, but yes I felt it. That’s 70 in eight years, I repeated to myself on my way out. That’s 80 in 18 years. That’s 90 in 28 years. How long have I got Ms. Driving Licence Doctor? How long as anyone got I hear a voice in my head reply…..
2016 has been a big one for losing people of my generation. This week it was our own local radio hero Billy Mc Carthy. He was my age exactly. Now when I see the beauty of autumn I think, that’s me, that’s us. There’s an eery beauty in the whole mystery of it. And that’s maybe why this poem came to mind, and why I am often longing “to rest in the grace of the world.”
The peace of wild things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
© Wendell Berry.
I think of myself as Peter Pan but my grandson recently told me he thinks of me as ‘elderly’ 🙁
Haha!!! Priceless. I was helping out at a children’s event recently when one turned to the other and asked “Is she your Granny???” and I went “Who me?? Of course not!!” :~))
Thank you for your beautiful writing. I’ve heard it said that “inside every old person is a young person wondering ‘what happened?’ “. At 62 I don’t think of myself as old but am acutely aware that my time is growing shorter. The poem you shared is one of my favorites & has comforted me often but never so much as in these past 2 weeks. It has been a dark year. Thank you for being a light.
Haha! Sara I love that quote! It is half the battle to laugh whenever possible. It has been a strange and dark year, let’s hope that our light will shine more brightly in 2017 xx
Thanks for making me see that I am not the only one who feels that way. (grin)
Haha! Welcome to our little club!!
Yesterday I went back to the school where I spent my entire teaching career, to talk to the children about the differences and similarities in school these days. I have done this before as part of the History class but this was the first time that I did not know the children as they had all started school a few years after I retired. It was a very interesting experience and hugely enjoyable for all of us. I would have taught some of the parents of these children and they were aware of this as they had been preparing their questions for the past few days. However one child asked me if I had taught his grandmother which really brought it home to me that life is flying by. His grandmother is about the same age as me but in her grandson’s eyes either she is much younger or more likely I am as old as the hills myself. Young children certainly keep us all grounded.
What a gorgeous story! You must a have such a treasure trove of knowledge and connections. “Old as the hills,” there’s another saying I’m going to reclaim. Because who doesn’t adore the hills and the magic they hold x
Children have no filters. That makes them fairly honest. I remember when we learned about slavery in school for the first time. Excited, I asked my grandmother if she’d been a slave. I love her even more for her answer as much as I loved her for the way she answered.
Another moving blog. I do so enjoy them when they appear in my mail box. 3 years till I’m 70! Life is slipping by quick so I try & live every day as though it’s for me to enjoy & just do as I please whether it be doing absolutely nothing, sitting engrossed in a book in front of a blazing fire, out in the garden freezing my hands off raking up the gorgeous autumn leaves or buzzing around with a trusty list in my hand of things I must achieve in the day. Life is for living so I try my best.
Sounds like you have the whole living life business sussed! I am planning to learn to do nothing. I’ve been struggling with it for years. Watch this space as I’m about to go rogue and make a bit of an announcement about 2017. Doing my kind of nothing should be a big part of it xx
When I think that my daughter will be 36 this year I shake my head and say “hey wait a minute…how can that be? I’m …like…40….” and then I think again and realize that was 17 years ago that I was 40!! oops!!!
Haha!! I hearya Kerry!! My eldest is now 36 too. Weirdest thing of all I still see a small child when I look at him sometimes….my baby actually!!
I have quietly enjoyed your beautiful photography and thoughts for several years since being introduced to your blog by Jean Tubridy. I never thought of commenting until now. I will be 68 tomorrow and I have been thinking the exact same things, that …I ” have never heard 70 and myself in the same sentence before!” It’s jarring, yet true! I am determined to live the rest of my life by always looking forward, not behind, and enjoying each day as best I can. Wendell Berry says it better than I can in the line, “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.” This Thanksgiving I am thankful for these words and thought that echo my own!
Yes Nancy I love that part too….”with forethought of grief” it’s the thing we have to hold at bay or we could become very morbid indeed! My Father used to wake up every morning in his old age saying…..”Another day is a bonus!” It used to make him so happy just to still be alive. Life is precious……And isn’t Jean a gem:~))
Oh how I hear you (smile). I was thinking similarly when my sweet dog Lucy passed away earlier this year at 12 years old and I thought about puppy possibility – another companion for my old Lab still very much alive. I wondered suddenly how many dog’s lives I have left! I don’t want to commit to a puppy if I may become too wobbly to care well for his/her entire life. I’ve got one, possibly two, dog-seasons left – how can that be?
Thoughts that go bump in the night:)
Here’s to aliveness and the fullness of it for each and every moment we’re given. Cheers:)
-Jennifer
Yes how can that be? How many dog’s lives have we left? Everything has to be given a different kind of assessment these days. But then we have our increasing happiness apparently…….and our older wisdom don’t we?!!? I would say yes to aliveness and living every moment……that’s all I know, everything else grows curiouser and curiouser every day. Thanks for the smile… xxx
It is jarring, isn’t it? I was hiking this week and a young lad passed by me and said “Good Afternoon – mam…” It went through me like a dagger, ha! I think of aging all the time. Not obsessed…but I do check in with myself to make sure I’m doing what I really want to do as the years continue to fly by. My biggest problem with aging is that I have so many things I want to do…projects…travel…and so little time as the days, months and years just fly by!! Wonderful post and I always love your spider web images!
Robin, if there is anyone I know who is using every moment it has to be you. You inspire me! But yes I agree, where the hell is the time going!!!!!
we were walking at Kirstenbosch and there was a well behaved group of schoolboys there. Every time we crossed paths with them they said … ma’am. I aged 10 years on that walk ;~))
O dear!! Ma’am…..like the Queen, and she’s 90 something!!!