I recently mentioned
95 year-old Roger Angell’s compilation entitled “This Old Man” and the warming pleasure
I derived from reading it. I mean, just
knowing that a guy is successfully plying his trade at ninety-five is
exhilarating. Should I reach that
exalted plateau, I’d be happy to be able to find my mouth with a soupspoon. With the glimmering realization that I’m eating.
The highlight of the
book is an essay to which I would accord immediate “classic” status, it’s “title
offering” – arriving at the 91 percent juncture in my reading which is now
almost exclusively on “Kindle” and that’s how they tell you where you are. I have no idea what page it begins on. That’s for actual book readers.
I shall provide today
a sampling slice of Mr. Angell’s insightful and articulate chronicling of his
current circumstances – which he composed at age ninety-three – as it rings an
identifiable bell with what I am experiencing myself.
Here’s what he says about
the conversational component of reaching your tenth decade, a situation in
which you are there, but at the same time…
You’re not.
You can read this now
or when you are ninety-three, when it’s applicable.
My advice:
Read it at
ninety. Just in case.
Okay, here it is.
“We elders - what kind of a handle is this, anyway, halfway between a tree and an eel - we elders have learned a thing or two, including
invisibility. Here I am in a
conversation with some trusty friends – old friends but actually not all that
old: they’re in their sixties – and
we’re finishing the wine and in serious converse about global warming in Nyack
or Virginia Woolf the cross-dresser.
There’s a pause, and I chime in with a couple of sentences. The others look at me politely, then resume
the talk exactly at the point where they’ve just left it. What?
Hello? Didn’t I just say
something? Have I left the room? Have I experienced what neurologists call a
T.I.A. – a transient ischemic attack? I
didn’t expect to take over the chat but did await a word or two in
response. Not tonight, though. (Women I know say that this began to happen
to them when they passed fifty.) When I
mention the phenomenon to anyone around my age, I get back nods and
smiles. Yes, we’re invisible. Honored, respected, even loved, but not quite
worth listening to anymore. You’ve had
your turn, Pops; now it’s ours.”
Edging rapidly towards
seventy-one, I am as yet not entirely ignored.
However, when I carry on too long, I detect surreptitious glances towards
I-Phones.
Word from an advance
scout reveals that the situation gets worse.
1 comment:
Well, you're not invisible to *us*. :)
I note that I am over 50, female, and yet to become invisible to anyone, AFAICT.
wg
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