When old, one has only one’s soul as company….Silence receives too little appreciation.
Sometimes you stumble on just the right book at just the right moment. For me, Florida Scott-Maxwell’s reflections on aging explain much of what I’m witnessing with my father as he celebrates his 90th birthday. Stubborn and perversely independent one month ago, he is now tired and submissive in a nursing home. I’m tempted to check his basement the body-snatcher pod that so intrigued and terrified me as a child watching Creature Feature. Something, indeed many things about his personality have shifted, and I’m finding answers to this puzzle within the pages of this slender [15O page] volume.
The author—an actress, fiction writer, playwright, suffragette, and psychologist—brings a kaleidoscope of life-experience to her musings, and the fact that she wrote it in 1968 in no way diminishes its relevance today. For human nature has not changed drastically in fifty-five years, The elderly, as she says, are mysteries like everything else.
There is no plot, simply the random musings of a sharply reflective intellect. Here is a gem to savor and reread for a lifetime. I have noted some highlights to pique your interest.
On reaching one’s potential: No one lives all the life of which he was capable.
On parenting: If a grandmother wants to put her foot down, the only safe place… is in a notebook.
On wisdom: I wish a notebook could laugh.
On diversion: I used to draw…make rugs…and now only music prevents my facing my thoughts.
On honesty: Impossible to speak the truth until you have contradicted yourself.
On originality: What but being different brings the conviction of having found the best way?
On secularism: To destroy god used to require a hero, one who was fit to be a god.
On purpose: We may have to learn that we failed to live our lives.
On emotions: Anger must be the energy that has not yet found its right channel.
On aging: We wonder how much older we have to become, what degree of decay we have to endure.
I highly recommend this read for introspective, mature souls of all ages. At the very least, the reader will take away a greater appreciation for the present moment.