Dear Susan,
I suppose it all came to a peak or mound just before I turned seventy. There I was. Sunday. Cleaning lint out of the drier. I wondered. Why if I put clothes that are every colour of the spectrum into the drier does the lint always come out grey?
Questions like that fill the windmills of my mind ad nauseam.
As I turned on my electronic device Spotify began to play me 'their' selection of 'my' weekly favourites. How the f#*k did Spotify know that I wanted to hear Latin American Swing Hits of the Forties, and Tear-Jerking laments on a Sunday morning?
The song playing at that very moment was Janis Ian's 'At Seventeen'. Once upon a time when I'd been seventeen, it was my go to song during my"I'm going to run away and join a circus freakshow' moments or the ever-present 'Guess I'll have to join a nunnery' times Had there been internet dating at that time my profile would have read:
" Plain, introverted, intelligent, street non-savvy, naive but at least lacking in personality, Call me"
Anyway whilst listening to Janis singing about "inventing lovers on the phone, Who called to say come dance with me" I thought that the whole song could become revived for the baby boomers.
Sing along with me. Everyone knows the tune.
"I learned the truth at seventy
That aches were meant for those like me,
And senior folk with sunken smiles
Who'd married young and lived through trials.
The children that we all outgrew
Who took our youth and then shot through
Who came to see us now and then
They're women now and grownup men
And those of us with dribbling faces,
Bingo calls in old age spaces
Desperately contained in rooms
And thinking of what future looms
With bones that creak and parts that leak.....
It isn't all it seems at seventy"
I guess as we all related to Janis Ian at seventeen we may still be relating to her now. But She isn't like my picture of the seventy-year-olds who I watch in nursing homes. She is an activist with opinions that are relevant and she speaks them.
Everyone has their own version of what every age looks like I guess.
Like, at fifty I was married, in love, had three beautiful daughters, a job and a future.
At sixty I was divorced, still in love, had three beautiful daughters, a successful business and a future.
At seventy I was still divorced, still in love, had three beautiful daughters, two fantastic sons in law, nine delightful grandchildren, no business no job. And as I perceived it no future or purpose
I was in a shit space. In a decade I had lost my dad, my sister/best friend/soulmate, (yes YOU) and my mum.
My sister- in law had developed terminal frontal lobe semantic dementia, my brother-in-law was in a nursing home with Lewy Body Disease, the planet was completing its free fall into extinction and the world was living with fear instead of love.
Sometimes I got into a shit space and found it difficult to move. But I can always move now.
Sometimes I feel like a bright spark at the bottom of a dark hole.
Wow. As Tess would say
"Gee Nan, That escalated very quickly"
And it certainly did. I needed that though. I'm writing again and all because I visited Aunty Barb in the Aged care unit yesterday. She sends her regards I think she said 'Hello From The Other Side.'
Promise I will be more upbeat next time
I miss you and love you always
Janet
PS Do you think the At Seventy song could be a hit if I could got Janis Ian to sing it?
