Sunday, November 11, 2018

Relevance

I'm sometimes taken back to my own young womanhood and how I behaved around my elders. There were many elders. My mother had 3 sisters and two brothers, my father 5 sisters. I was lucky enough to have grandparents and for a while even a great-grandmother. Along with these there were great aunts and great uncles.

When I was a child the vast sea of such creatures seemed endless. Some were accorded more attention and respect from my parents than others. As a "sensitive" I was in tune with those signals. One great aunt was "tolerated" as she was "finicky" over food and a grand snob over manners and behaviours. She was my granny's youngest sibling and was "spoiled in her ways". My granny was salt of the earth and had no time for ideas above anyone's "station".

As a young woman, some had passed on but I spent a fair amount of time with all the sisters, there were 8 of them between my parents. I must dig out some photos soon and post some here. The few I could sit down with for any length of time had a joie de vivre, and had interests outside of hearth and home. I loved the history lessons and also loved how interested they were in me. What was I doing "outside" of myself. I would ask them questions about crafts and who they wrote to, and what they read, and who they played bridge or scrabble with. I felt hugely privileged if they asked me to come down and play cards or board games with their friends. It was a mighty "occasion" for me to sip the tea and sample the pastries and be included in the scrabble game and just listen to the rhythm of their chat as they covered so many topics: political, religious, business, arts and culture. People who were sometimes 50 years older than I was then. The big test of such occasions, my mother would say, is to see if you're asked back. The implication being if I wasn't it would be due to some unforgivable lapse of manners on my part. I'm glad to say I passed the test.

Which brings me to today. When I'm around the youngsters, and much as I want to, I avoid health broadcasts, my mobility limitations, the aches and pains of an elder, the medication competition. Is there anything more boring in life?


I was at a book launch yesterday by an older woman. She read excerpts from her work which were all fascinating, dealing with her life living amongst the Inuits and gaining the trust of the community.

I was totally thrilled to see a woman there I had lost touch with. She had assisted me in forming an elder racing moving group we had formed a few years back called The Honourable Stragglers. It turns out she was the sister of the author. I had to grin when she asked me if I was still racing and I said no, health challenges. And she grinned and said me too, don't we all, and we made a lunch date to get caught up on all our doings. She is certainly a mover and shaker so I am looking forward to it.

And it struck me that maybe my relevance is to my peer group. Maybe real freedom in old age is being myself with others of my generation as long as we are still doing "outside" of ourselves and to keep collecting them as the treasures they are, adding new as others move on.


15 comments:

  1. Interesting post, great minds and all that! I like your insight about relevance. I can picture you with your 8 aunties, their card games and scrabble and bridge, reminds me a bit of my mother and her sisters, although I never got asked to join the fun. I was only one of a mob of kids that they had to keep just enough eye on to allow them to enjoy their own games. We can count ourselves very lucky when we make connections across the generations, but our most relevance is with out peers. Deep congrats on your book, hope there will be more. You have a lot to be proud of, we need to recognize each other's accomplishments because apparently our families have a hard time doing so.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Annie. I enjoyed your post also on this topic. It can be difficult to connect with the young 'uns but I do find that keeping an open mind to their interests (genuinely) is the key. I have trouble understanding the allure of say, graphic novels, but pay attention to the appeal as explained to me and then understand. Also the brevity of acronyms (the many!) in texts, the Newspeak. Open mind is def the key.
      But oh the comfort of peers!
      XO
      WWW

      Delete
  2. You were blessed to have had those older people in your life when you were young. I really wish that I had had. I had only one, my father's younger brother who was more father to me than uncle due to my alienation from my father. He was however not as indulgent as your 'sisters' were and though very motivating and proud of achievements, quite the older mentor too.

    I now play the mentor role to a few younger people and it is very difficult not to become curmudgeonly when I come across unwillingness to change and / or values that contradict my own.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, change is important I had to totally revise my concrete opinions on certain issues when confronted with well thought out opposition from those more junior than I.

      Interestingly enough the two uncles I had appeared terribly flighty to my teenage self. One was a drop-dead film star type, hubba-hubba handsome who basked in his own good looks. The other was kind of oily, a mein host type, who played the accordion and I believe secretly drank or was gay or something. Ran off to Australia later in life with his wife and boyfriend (or could have been hers, never very clear).
      I was very privileged to be the eldest of all the nieces/nephews so a lot of adult attention and I was a very good listener and observer so knew to shut up and pay attention!

      XO
      WWW

      Delete
  3. I'll look forward to those photos!
    Also I'm interested in every detail you share about your personal life (health issues, etc,) even though I'm SO VERY MUCH YOUNGER THAN YOU. oh did my shift key stick? ha ha hee hee But seriously, why does it take many of us so many years to realize that even at age 59, where I am now, we still look out at the world through 21-year-old eyes?
    I wish I'd had the sense to appreciate my much-older elders when I was a younger woman. I'd so love a do-over. I cringe now to think of times when I was so adamant about my own convictions that I behaved like an ass. Now those convictions don't seem so important at all. Instead they caused me to miss out on a lot and I'm only realizing it now. Of course now I'm sticking to my current convictions but, with more maturity, wondering if one day I'll look back and see what an ass I'm being. -Kate

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suppose flexibility is the key, Kate, in all things. And not choosing every opinion held as a hill to die on. My father was like that so in his declining years - 70 on - I found myself just nodding or uh-uhing and never debating anything with him. That took some doing as he spent a gargantuan amount of time with me in the summers.

      I learned a lot from him. As to how NOT to be an elder.
      I could tell his frustration when I wouldn't engage with him on anything controversial. I could give you a list of topics he would discourse on without having a clue. But he had a closed mind and bad temper if confronted. So I avoided that like the plague.

      And I see it in how adult children of elders treat their parents: like willful children. "Now we all know how you feel about-------so relax now Dad, you don't have to wear yourself out talking about him again."

      As we age as I've said before, we need to listen more and say less and try to understand and maybe the opposite will happen.

      And yes, I'm old enough to be your mama. Not a bad thought that tho I would have borne the stripe of teenage mama. Not a good thing in my time.

      XO
      WWW

      Delete
  4. I had a finicky great aunt too, WWW - perhaps we all have one of those - comes as standard with the package, as it were. :)

    I was very close indeed to my maternal grandmother, and on good terms with the rest. You know, I don't remember really thinking much about ages and age differences back then - not until it was time for some of them to leave us. In adulthood, though, I've often found myself the elder of most groups I've been part of - work-wise, friend-wise, internet-wise. I didn't feel irrelevant, but sometimes a little sheepish. ;)

    I suppose there was less of a gap to bridge in past decades than now - technology has moved on so fast. I've kept up as best I can as far as computer use is concerned, I'm a straggler regarding some of the later stuff - can't/won't relate to Facebook, not keen on smartphones and touch-screen stuff, have never, ever, played a video game, and am never likely to.

    I mentioned your book in my reply to you at mine, WWW, so will not repeat myself here - but, short version: it's a great read. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well your blog is brilliant, T, and so carefully thought out and linked and if you had FB there might be far less of blog and I'd vote for your blog any day over other technology. I've had to force myself to learn new stuff, partly my former profession and then partly again keeping in touch with young 'uns who favour such things :)
      Oh thank you for reading the book, T, I will rush over to yours now!

      XO
      WWW

      Delete
  5. It's nice to be in touch with your peers and to have pleasant memories of your past relationships with your family.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I never had that sort of oldies network. I had three grandparents (the other died before I was born) and that was it. My maternal granny knew dozens of card games and tried to teach me some but I wasn't very interested. Patience (solitaire) was about my limit!

    Talking of unexpected reunions, on Facebook I recently came across a woman I lost touch with about 50 years ago, and we're now good (online) friends again. It's exciting when that happens.

    ReplyDelete
  7. It's really nice that you had so many older relatives around. I didn't, but I was very, very close to my maternal grandparents. I miss them both.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Some of us were really lucky in having a large number of elders in our families. In my case, I had two grandmothers (and, for six years, one grandfather), two great-grandmothers, one great-grandfather (married to one of the great-grandmothers), and one great-grandmother. That was in addition to two aunts, two uncles, and several great-aunts. Through age 14, I was allowed to spend weeks at a time with a grandmother or the pair of great-grandparents. After that, I don't recall whether I opted out or whether they did; but, I wouldn't have blamed them for opting out since one grandmother was 54 years older and the pair of great-grandparents were 61 and 66 years older than was I.
    Cop Car

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oops! My second mention of have "and one great-grandmother" should have read "and one great-great-grandmother".
    Cop Car

    ReplyDelete
  10. I, too, enjoyed the company of older people — learning a lot from listening, observing and appreciating any attention they focused on me. I only had one living grandparent, though — my maternal grandmother. I always envied those with grandfathers, especially since my father had deserted our family when I was preschool age.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are welcome. Anonymous comments will be deleted unread.

Email me at wisewebwomanatgmaildotcom if you're having trouble.