Post by duke on Sept 5, 2010 9:47:37 GMT -5
The Joy of Senility
By gerryspence
I am dealing with old age because it is smacking me in the face like a wet dishrag. But I have choices: I can ignore it, pretend it has not arrived, or I can get better acquainted with it, like becoming intimate with some repulsive trespasser who has moved into the neighborhood and now is getting overly friendly.
Still, I find old age fascinating. Where I was totally surefooted at 79 plus 364 days, the next day, on my 80th birthday, people began helping me down the steps and warning me of obvious dangers. They started to regularly inspect my shirtfront to make sure I wasn’t drooling my food, and on occasion when they found the spots they seemed elated – as if they saved the old man from terminal embarrassment. The year before, the droppings were merely the tracks of a sloppy man whose habits they had silently endured all those years like bird spatters on the window.
And I provide people with advantages they never had before I became senile. My memory has never been good. Like a tiny closet in which to store all of one’s old clothes. Now those around me can, with solid assurance, insist they told me something that they, themselves forgot to tell me. “You know how your memory is,” they say with raised eyebrows and a sort of patient solicitness.
Another thing: they expect wisdom where none exists. They demand it. The only reason they can respect an old person is because he is supposed to be wise. He is no longer attractive physically. He can no longer perform all those physical things that were once his duties. He can now be tolerated only if he is wise. But Wisdom — why have you forsaken me? <snip>
gerryspence.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/the-joy-of-senility/
By gerryspence
I am dealing with old age because it is smacking me in the face like a wet dishrag. But I have choices: I can ignore it, pretend it has not arrived, or I can get better acquainted with it, like becoming intimate with some repulsive trespasser who has moved into the neighborhood and now is getting overly friendly.
Still, I find old age fascinating. Where I was totally surefooted at 79 plus 364 days, the next day, on my 80th birthday, people began helping me down the steps and warning me of obvious dangers. They started to regularly inspect my shirtfront to make sure I wasn’t drooling my food, and on occasion when they found the spots they seemed elated – as if they saved the old man from terminal embarrassment. The year before, the droppings were merely the tracks of a sloppy man whose habits they had silently endured all those years like bird spatters on the window.
And I provide people with advantages they never had before I became senile. My memory has never been good. Like a tiny closet in which to store all of one’s old clothes. Now those around me can, with solid assurance, insist they told me something that they, themselves forgot to tell me. “You know how your memory is,” they say with raised eyebrows and a sort of patient solicitness.
Another thing: they expect wisdom where none exists. They demand it. The only reason they can respect an old person is because he is supposed to be wise. He is no longer attractive physically. He can no longer perform all those physical things that were once his duties. He can now be tolerated only if he is wise. But Wisdom — why have you forsaken me? <snip>
gerryspence.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/the-joy-of-senility/