Quotation of the Week (41/2010)

“You know you’re getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.”

~ George Burns (1896 – 1996) ~

Another quote I came across while trying to find out who the man behind last week’s quotation was... American actor, writer and comedian who lived to be no less than 100 years old. I have no idea how old he was when he first uttered these words, though! ;)

Quotation of the Week (40/2010)

 
“How beautifully leaves grow old. How full of light and color are their last days.”
~ George Burns ~

Quotation of the Week (50/09)

Age is an issue of mind over matter.

If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Mark Twain

May I Remember

Birch trees

Wood anemones

Ferns uncurling

Down by the creek

The woods are bursting with life just now. We are still enjoying beautiful spring weather here, and the trees are getting greener every day. These photos were taken yesterday at a small nature reserve / wildlife sanctuary close to where my parents live.

I wish I could say that the pictures sum up the day; but sadly, they do not. The walk was my "breathing space" in a day otherwise filled with aches, pains, worries and confusion all around. My mum's memory seems to be slipping away from her more and more every week, and dad's isn't reliable either. I'm getting less sure all the time now how much longer they will be able to stay on in their own home, even with more help. So my feelings yesterday were a strange mix of early May (in nature) and "late November" (in the lives of my parents)...

On my walk, I passed over a little wooden bridge over a creek. Somone had carved some words into the railing. Not quite the usual graffitti, but this message: "It is exciting to live."

I can only hope I'll be able to hold on to that.

Aches, Pains and Worries

"Aches, Pains and Worries"... When I created my blog in January, it was really as a kind of escape from these three words. But this last week they caught up with me again.



Since it seems my blog has somehow managed to gather a handful of followers over the past few months, it is perhaps time I at least mention that the APW:s are there. The Aches and Pains are concentrated to my neck, shoulder and arm; and they very much limit my ability to do things I like to do (including reading, writing and blogging), as well as all the things I don't particulary enjoy but that one has to do anyway... (It was a seemingly minor accident at work that started it, and I've now been in early retirement with disability insurance pension for five years.)

Right now, there are additonal Worries connected to suddenly having to take on sort of parental duties towards my own ageing parents. The W:s increase the A:s and P:s, and then in turn the A:s and P:s increase the W:s, and it quickly becomes a vicious circle... If I'm not able to spend as much time in the blog-world over the next few weeks as I have been doing lately, this is why.

Old Friends & Lyrics

Simon & Garfunkel - Old Friends concert, 2003

My favourite songwriter since nearly 40 years is Paul Simon. I "discovered" him (Simon & Garfunkel) when I was 15, and I still listen to his/their records. The old LP:s I had, I now have on CD. (I still have the LP:s as well, but no record player to play them on...)


My previous post - "The Age Thing" - made me think of the lyrics to

Old Friends, from the album Bookends (1968)

(Paul, born in October 1941, was then 26)

Old friends,
Old friends,
Sat on their parkbench
Like bookends.

A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
Of the high shoes
Of the old friends.

Old friends,
Winter companions,
The old men
Lost in their overcoats,
Waiting for the sun.

The sounds of the city,
Sifting through trees
Settle like dust
On the shoulders
Of the old friends.

Can you imagine us
Years from today,
Sharing a parkbench quietly?
How terribly strange
To be seventy.

Old friends,
Memory brushes the same years,
Silently sharing the same fears.

Time it was
and what a time it was.

A time of innocence,
A time of confidences.

Long ago... it must be...
I have a photograph,
Preserve your memories,
They're all that's left you...

I loved Paul's music when I was 15 and I still do - so that part of myself remains pretty well "preserved"! Some of the early songs also bring back lots of memories; for example of old friends with whom I used to listen to the records and interpret the lyrics back in the 70's.

But I also love that he has kept moving on as a musician. Come to think of it, isn't this really a great illustration of what I was discussing in the previous post: a musician still playing the old music, but also continuing to write new songs and trying out different kinds of music and rhythms...

On his 2006 album, Surprise, 65-year-old Paul also discusses the problems of growing old:

It's a blessing to wash your face in the summer solstice rain.

It's outrageous a man like me stand here and complain.

But I'm tired. Nine hundred sit-ups a day.

I'm painting my hair the colour of mud, mud okay?

I'm tired, tired. Anybody care what I say?

No! I'm painting my hair the colour of mud.

---

Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone? God will.

Like he waters the flowers on your windowsill.

(from the song "Outrageous")

The Age Thing

My "Quotation of the Week" for this week (16/09, see post below), from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, is from a chapter about a 72 year old woman, who is trying to convince some children, that she, too, was once a little girl their age. She shows them some things she has kept – a ring, a comb, a picture – but they refuse to believe her. There is no proof, in their eyes, that the picture is not of some other person. In the end, it is the old woman who has to give in, remembering a discussion she once had with her husband (it is his words in the quotation). The only way she can become friends with the children is to "let go of her past" and agree with them that she has always been seventy-two:

At last they were good friends.
"How old are you, Mrs. Bentley?"
"Seventy-two."
"How old were you fifty years ago?"
"Seventy-two."

This is of course a little extreme, but dealing with time is a major theme in this novel: both children and old people are looking for ways to preserve their memories as well as catching the moment. (Making dandelion wine is one symbol of it: "Every time you bottle it, you got a whole chunk of 1928 put away, safe." )

When I first entered those lines into my quotation notebook, about being forever "trapped in the present", I was in my mid-twenties. Now I'm approaching my mid-fifties, and I'm still trying to figure out whether I really agree with the quotation or not. I do agree with the first sentence: "No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now." And probably, when I was nine, I found it hard to quite imagine what it would be like to be old. I do remember my grandmother showing me pictures of herself as a little girl, and finding it hard to really make the connection. As one grows older, though, surely the present self must still include all of the past selves? But at the same time we cannot go back; we cannot skip over the experiences we have already gathered; all we can do is keep adding to them, in the present. "You're in the present, you're trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen."

Click on the label Dandelion Wine below for more quotes from this book.

Quotation of the Week (16/09)

"No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. Time hypnotizes. When you're nine, you think you've always been nine years old and will always be. When you're thirty, it seems you've always been balanced there on that bright rim of middle life. And then when you turn seventy, you are always and forever seveny. You're in the present, you're trapped in a young now or and old now, but there is no other now to be seen."
Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine