The only good thing about being forced to lie around in bed is the amount of books I read. The pain made it hard to sleep so I would read until I nodded off for a few hours, waking up with my face marking my page. I basically read old favourites and found quite a few that I no longer thought were as good as I remembered. One of them was “To the Hilt” by Dick Francis and in one chapter I underlined a few sentences that struck me as relevant to my life at this time.
I didn’t think of blogging about them, I just copied them into my written journal but a comment made on a post last week changed my mind.
The commenter was astounded that I was a grandmother, thinking that I was late thirtyish or so.
Mind you, a young grandmother, I married early, son also married early so no shawls and lavender yet.
The narrator in this book was an artist and the woman he was speaking about was a feisty Scottish lady of uncertain age.
“………..I thought how much the outward appearance of age could colour one’s expectation of a person’s character.”
“………..I strongly sensed a singular individual powerful entity that might have intensified with time, not faded. We were dealing with that inner woman, and should not forget it.”
“……….Persistance of the spirit inside the transient flesh”
“……….While the outer shell aged, the inner spirit might not.”
Before I started my blog, I commented at a few places and was always careful to not reveal gender or age because of that first line, especially as those first comments were made at the blogs of much younger writers.
I was careful because I have been on the receiving end of another prejudice, the “she’s fat, she must be stupid” so I wasn’t keen to have “she’s old, what’s she doing here commenting”. Old, fat and stupid was a bit too much for this sensitive soul.
To take the narrator’s words though, I am aware that inside I am a powerful entity and my spirit has persisted through many traumas, both physically and mentally. I have earned my age. I should value the experience that has been crammed into my age. I am also aware that society values the appearance of youth a lot more than the experience of age.
The outer shell does age, although I must thank Barista for saying that I had worn well, but my inner spirit is far from old. The inner spirit keeps the outer shell going, the inner spirit that is fuelled by humour and a few drams of vitriol. My inner woman really has intensified with time. I have left behind the friends whose inner spirits have worn as much as their outer shells and I have no regrets. I have become the wise woman of a tribe of one and I intend to keep going with this “singular individual powerful entity”.
The inner spirit still likes pretty men and chocolate, I’m not giving them up either.
16 comments:
Tried that Lindt "Intense Lemon" yet? Have a pretty man feed you some.
I like the agelessness of lots of blog interaction, too - and I'm 34 and feel quite ancient compared to some of the sparky clever young things about, like Jellyfish or Le Driver.
If only I could find a pretty man, Zoe, he could feed me anything and I would be in heaven!
The cruellest part of aging is the mind insists we are still teenagers while the body falls apart bit by bit.
Zoe, I love Lindt chocolates especially the orange and lemon blocks. Champagne tastes with beer money I'm afraid.
Ron, what's wrong with the pretty men I find for you? I have something delicious waiting for you. You're right about the aging bit though.
Mmmmmmm!
Lindt!
Link, how can you have a sore bum, you're a horse rider? I thought you'd have immunity.
Shut up. Okay? You want to get controversial? Go on. And shut up.
Okay? Because I've got a bible. And I'll hit you with it.
I'm Chocolate Jesus:
SWEET JIMMY SWAGGART! Australia's own.
Read my blog.
rh, what are you giving up for Lent, apart from your mental state, that is?
Listen, don't get religious. Okay? Because if you want to get religious there's religious blogs where you can do it.
Christian, they ain't, nutty they are, but revealing nonetheless.
Here's an example:
"I am a mealy mouthed masturbating mother kissing mongooose who wants to kill gay men!"
-C.L. Swaggart!
True.
It looks like RH had decided not to take his medication during Lent!
If I was on medication I'd be as dull and boring as every other
gasbag big shot blusterer on this I-want-to-be-famous internet.
If I pick up a cause I carry the fucken thing till I drop down dead from exhaustion. I'm not some prissy little boy bullshitter being oh so daring and cheeky to the unequal society that gave him every fucken privileged thing he owns plus a guaranteed fine soft place in life with ridiculous high wages for producing fuck all while low paid slaves in factories are swindled by this dirty stinking boring class of pseudo radical bullshitters playing at being socialists and dicatators, just continuing on with little games played in debating societies at university with bad breath professors.
And would-be writers!- they couldn't write to save their own fucken lives! Their lives aren't even worth saving. They're just a bourgeois lot of nothings. In ten, twenty, fifty years they'll be no different. They're born to be fuck all and they'll stay that way.
I could put stuff on this internet in language that would terrify you. All of you. But I get banned and threatened and deleted for comments that don't mean a shit to people like me. While these daring little princes and princesses say fuck with fine public school enunciation and imagine they're startling someone. They're startling each other, impressing each other, and that's all. Meanwhile I get told I said C--nt on some hypocrite's blog when I didn't even do it.
I wouldn't bother. Yet I get banned because the PIGFUCKING flea-ridden mongrel dog pimp can't stand up to reality; the reality of what he is. Vomit is what he is. Dried scum on a footpath. He's not a man, he's not a woman, he's not even dunny paper you'd wipe your arse on, he's just every bit of slime that ever oozed from a pimp's cancerous arse. He's what I said; a masturbating mother kissing mongoose moll who hates HOMOSEXUALS.
I'll tell you this. I've never cared one way or the other. But this crank has decided me. I now support homos in every thing and every way. So does Christ.
If you ever really want to say something you think might be useful this internet is not a place to do it. Because unless you have the time or interest to run your own blog you are at the mercy of smug little Hitlers who can mangle alter or delete your comments at their whim. They are just so stupid. So shifty and so cracked.
They make me sick.
rh, I can't believe you would be banned from anyone's blog but you can come here and rant to your heart's content.
I think you're sweet and you'll make some princess a lovely toad one day.
MD, you can't afford Lindt with your heating bills. 22% is shocking.
Isn't it mad JT! I feel like they've added another quarter to the year!
"I'm not some prissy little boy bullshitter being oh so daring and cheeky to the unequal society that gave him every fucken privileged thing he owns plus a guaranteed fine soft place in life with ridiculous high wages for producing fuck all while low paid slaves in factories are swindled by this dirty stinking boring class of pseudo radical bullshitters playing at being socialists and dicatators, just continuing on with little games played in debating societies at university with bad breath professors."
Oops. Looks like I picked the wrong career path - it sounds bad when you describe it like that.
Interesting blog, JT. Good to see you emerge from the primordial blogooze.
Boys will be boys, Fyodor.
My inner spirit is aging too fast, being worn down by hubby #2. I really will have to fight back more, even if only in my mind.
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