Bumble bee on bramble flowers – Sherwood Forest
Toast and marmalade, tea, emails, WP comments, find my glasses. This latter task would be easier if I had a pair of glasses to help me see. As it is, I have to stagger through a nightmare world where I rely on memory to find the right keys, as the letters tend to simmer and shift when I am trying to type without glasses. Old age, whilst a matter of amusement to the young (I remember, with pain, the things I used to say to my parents, the amusement I gained from each senior moment.) Those turned into Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s and, eventually, not only claimed my parents but showed me a glance of the world that is going to be my future.
At times like this, I think it is an advantage to be shallow, as there would be little to gain from an in-depth analysis of my past conduct and future health. You are born, you fritter away your life, and you die. My main regret, in a life that featured too much frittering, is that I wasted so much time going through the motions and building a lacklustre facsimile of a career. I should have pursued my original writing ambitions and at least been a better poet, even if the rest evaded me. If you are going to fritter, you should, I think, fritter big time. There is no point in being half-hearted.
Flowers – detail
What is blogging, if it isn’t frittering? No man, said Doctor Johnson, but a blockhead ever wrote except for money, and blogging is a good example of writing without money. We sit, we write, some of us, I’m told, plan their blog posts in advance, and, after all this work, the money is made by WP, a soulless entity with an infinite capacity for capturing writers in its web and charging them for the provision of “new and improved” services. In the last seven or eight years I have seen many new services, but the “improvement” is, as far I can see, is on a level with a Unicorn or a water horse.
This is the first tick on my Friday list. Now I’m off to do the washing up. It’s going to be a long, slow day.
Wild flowers
A good friend and mentor once told me getting old is letting go of most of the dreams and plans we compile over out lives. And as I have seen, the Grim Reaper can come knocking before we would expect him. We all come stamped with an expiration date not readable by the normal human. Live each day, and be happy as you can with whatever time may be.
Here is a good cartoon from The New Yorker magazine
https://condenaststore.com/featured/dont-bother-harry-bliss.html?srsltid=AfmBOor0MZqLRvlnQJdFoFrXjb8tP_bjm5DYkyz0med8VOh38zz2Tij7
That’s a rare thing – a cartoon which made me laugh out loud. Thank you fro that. 🙂
That was a good one, wasn’t it? 🙂
Funnier now than it would have been when I was younger, and pre-lockdown. Times change, humour becomes more poignant . . . 🙂
One of the great benefits of living on my own is the opportunity to leave the washing up until tomorrow.
We still leave it, it’s just that it piles up much faster with two of us. 🙂
I have reached the stage when looking forward is quite problematic. I don’t want to tempt fate by acting as though I might live for ever.
When I had to start making pension and retirement decisions I also had to start thinking about my future. It seemed presumptuous to think too far ahead.
When I first saw the heading, I thought this was something about Ian Dury. Regrets – I’ve had a few – but then again far too many to mention, certainly in public. I wish I hadn’t stopped writing for joy when I started working and I wish I’d stopped doing a job which made me miserable.
Those sound familiar regrets. Sorry if I promised more than I could deliver. I did see in Ian Dury in 1978 in Sheffield. – I remember bright lights, energy, great music and, more than that, a Sheffield that still seemed stuck in the 1950s – loads of old-fashioned factories and stuff. Unfortunately it’s not enough to fill a full blog post. 🙂
Old gigs I have known…? I saw the ‘not the wedding’ concert at Crystal Palace when Charles ‘n’ Di married.
I had to look that up – seems like a good day, and your memories lasted longer than the marriage. 😉
I, too, look backward in dismay at all the things I said or didn’t say, and do or didn’t do. Then I make a bracing cup of tea–yes, this American is a tea drinker—and start looking forward. I might be old, but universe willing, I still have some creative years ahead of me.
There is little to be gained from looking back, apart from the wisdom to do better in the future. as you say – we still have some creative years left. 🙂
Yes, yes! I do think some folks have a tendency to look back in regret. I know I do. But I am getting better at letting that go, of looking forward while still learning from the past. It’s tricky being a human, isn’t it?
Very tricky indeed. The worst bit is feeling that I am wasting time on regrets when I should be looking ahead. I understand that I will have a chance to see it all again on my deathbed – now is the time to look forward.
Onward ho, Quercus! You still have lots of beautiful poetry to write.
Yes, and I’d better get on with it. Time’s winged chariot and all that . . .
But if frittering makes you content…and everything else in your life is in place…
Tricky. I’ve enjoyed my life. It’s just that phrase that keeps coming back from my school reports – “could do better”. 🙂
I had those same reports. Better doesn’t necessarily equate to better
You did do better than me though – you have a life like an American TV drama and you are a well known media personality with loads of followers.
🙂
😂😂