“People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when…
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But old men know when an old man dies.”
Ogden Nash – Old Men
Donald Hall has an essay in the January 23, 2012 issue of the New Yorker about the strange country of old age. At 83, he is no longer able to do much of what he loves, including write poetry. He spends his days looking out the window at birds and trees and weather, on the New Hampshire farm that has been in his family for generations, and writing about what he sees. It is a beautiful piece, tinged with humor, love, anger, and acceptance.
.“…[O]ld age is a ceremony of losses, which is on the whole preferable to dying at forty-seven [as his wife did] or fifty-two [his father]. When I lament and darken over my diminishments, I accomplish nothing. It’s better to sit at the window all day, pleased to watch birds, barns, and flowers. It is a pleasure to write about what I do.”
He says he has lost the gift of poetry, but his prose is enviable. His view out the window is illuminated by memories. He hasn’t lost the eye for detail, the wit of metaphor, the ear for assonance and alliteration. Hummingbirds “enter the horns of hollyhocks, gobble some sweet, and zig off to zag back again for another lick.” Through the seasons “…the flowers erupt and subside.”
HUMMINGBIRDS AND HOLLYHOCKS by STEPHEN A. ASCOUGH click
My mother died when I was twenty-three, and I’ve always treasured friendships with older women. I have several friends in their eighties. None of them are sitting by the window yet. But one swears she will not. She hopes to find a way out before she loses her ability to get around. Another has given up doctors as an aggravation. She refuses to spend her remaining time sitting in waiting rooms and being treated like a worthless piece of meat.
Old age is not so bad when you consider the alternative, said Maurice Chevalier. Some old people I know do consider the alternative, and think it preferable to the inexorable progress of loss, diminishment, dependency.
I think what I fear most about old age is loneliness. I am not yet at an age where the obituaries usually bring news of my friends. My father was 98 when he died. He was the last of his generation, and all the friends of his childhood and youth were gone.
The Muu Muu Mamas focus on fun and frivolity, fortified by wine, but we also count on each other in times of need and trouble. click Though we are all under seventy, I can’t help myself; I wonder how we will age. Hall says, “…However much we think we know what will happen, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy. It is alien, and old people are a separate form of life….”
It would be easy to let go of old friends as their quick wit slows, or they become garrulous bores. Hall believes that kindness to the old is always condescending. He is already in that alien land, and there’s no telling how I’ll feel if I get there, but I think he’s wrong. We began our lives dependent, and if we hang around long enough, we’ll need help again. I hope my friends and I will shore each other up when we are failing, and feel no pride nor shame in it.
IMAGE BY AMY_LEDERER AT PHOTOBUCKET.COM
I think of old age as a hard part of life that I wouldn’t want to miss. As I become more needy, maybe some of my arrogance will fall away, and I will learn humility. Maybe I will gain deeper understanding as I move from loss to loss. Acceptance is not a sprint, but a lifelong marathon.
My view may be too rosy. At 64 I’ve had my troubles. Sometimes I’ve responded with anger, whining, and paralysis, sometimes soldiered on. I’m not confident that I have found the appropriate mix of howling, whimpering, and stiff upper lip. Donald Hall, sitting at the window looking out, loving the world as he prepares to leave it, encourages me.
IMAGE BY RENTON PIRATE AT PHOTOBUCKET.COM
“An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress…”
William Butler Yeats – Sailing to Byzantium
Donald Hall is still singing.
NOTE: I had thought I could link to this article, but it is only available to subscribers. If you’re not a New Yorker subscriber, it’s worth a trip to the library to read it, or you can go to this link to access the whole issue for $5.99. click
Hey Liz, Here’s a link to an NPR interview with Donald Hall. http://www.npr.org/2012/02/08/146348759/donald-hall-a-poets-view-out-the-window
Thanks, Sandra.
Liz, I have come to your blog this morning from your post on my Facebook page — at which I rarely look. I have been reading randomly and love it — it is like having good visit with you. Please send me your email so I can send you an update for us. All love, Sara
Sara, what a treat! I’m so glad you like it. I’ll email you.
Thanks, Liz, I read this with interest and pleasure. I have a favorite book on old age to recommend: THE FORCE OF CHARACTER AND THE LASTING LIFE by James Hillman. Although I am “only” 64, like you, I have read it twice and will read it again, like poetry.
I’ll look for it, Marjorie. The one thing I’m sure about – life doesn’t get less interesting as we get older.
Liz, I don’t know that I am old until I get up out of my recliner chair….then my body reminds me.So I sit in my chair a lot and let that little place in my brain fool me into being young still.
love you,
naomi
Naomi – I THINK I like the idea of being old. The twinges – not so much. Joe is coming soon to visit – isn’t he gorgeous with gray hair?
Wonderful essay Liz! Thank you. Here’s a Robert Frost poem to go along with it:
All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him — at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; — and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man — one man — can’t keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.
I am seldonm on facebook, Liz.. but u know from our recent discussion that I adore you and DAMN you still are a master at prose. Are any of us going to be like that that when we’re 80.. I do not know, but know this please, I will always be a friend who will care for you if u ever need.
On the questions of women’s health it’s almost incredible that the panels are totally dominated by men. But I don’t totally agree that women’s health and reproductive choices should be totally left to women… I’d like to think we are all in this together. They just have to get some of those crazy men off the panels and have some smart women instead… DAMN..at least 50%. I’ve seen how far we have come with civil rights, women’s rights and now gay rights. We’ve still got a LONG way to go.. but let’s stick together
Arupa – I found your comment! I’m so glad to share the poem with everyone. I love people sending poetry – anyone reading this, take note. And also go to Arupa’s blog, Vermont and Other States of Mind (link is at right) for the visions of a unique and brilliant mind.
David – thank you for the praise. You saw me “liking” the Emily’s List post on FB re men presuming to decide re women’s health. I believe that women’s health and reproductive choices should be left to the woman concerned. And as for public policy re those, sorry – men have such a terrible track record that I’d leave it to the women, even though there are lots of female dodos.