Dept. of Me, Me, Me!

[kaffy_r]

I've Been Thinking

I am old enough* that seeing an airplane go overhead was cause to run out of the house and look to the skies when I was growing up.
I am old enough that the first telephone number I remember was 884. 
I am old enough that I remember the excitement when they put a transmitter up that allowed us to get our second television station. In black and white.
I am old enough that I learned to type on a 1930s-era Remington.
I am old enough to remember bristol board, manila paper, paper with the wood chips still in it, and school tests printed in purple aniline dye by a spirit duplicator** 
I am old enough that my first comic book cost 8 cents. It went up to 12 cents when I was in fourth or fifth grade. 
I am old enough to remember Boer War veterans coming to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day.***
I am old enough to have listened to the funeral of John F. Kennedy piped through my school classroom****
I am old enough to have sent a telegram unselfconsciously. 


I am still young enough to relish all those things.


* .. and lived as a child in a rural enough area ... but it was not in a wilderness.
** or Ditto machine.
***  Hey, I was very young, and the two of them were very old. Very old. 
**** And I was in Canada. 

Comments

[kaffy_r]

Yeah, there's some part of me that's still a high-heeled chick singer in an unsuccessful rock and roll band. Heh ....

[shanghaied]

Hang about - I've seen recentish photos of you! You haven't turned fat, or ugly, or wrinkly. Therefore, not 'old'! (I OTOH, while still sporting the 32-inch arse and still well able for my almost-365-days-a-year morning four-mile racewalk/jog, have acquired that typical vile clock-stoppingly-repulsive-and-damn-near-sexless-looking postmenopausal Old Bag Skin^TM that makes looking in any mirror a nightmare to be barely endured without ever stronger thoughts of 'look, surely suicide would be the decent thing to do, rather than offend the eyes of the world with your ugliness', sigh)

[kaffy_r]

Oh, goodness; pish-tosh to that! I imagine that you, in motion, are probably impossible to keep one's eyes off of. And I have rarely if ever met anyone who truly looked repulsive, certainly not because of age.

[shanghaied]

Oh how I wish we could discuss this in the manner of an actual real-world conversation! Because while I imagine you still wouldn't agree with me, you might at least have a better understanding of my viewpoint :-)

But FWIW you've given me to think And one result of this round of thinkage is my realisation that at least some of my lifelong disgust at the ugliness of old age - and yes, this goes all the way back to when I was a tiny wee lass-let and would run off retching if any smelly wrinkled old auntie got close enough to touch me, or worse, mush its greasepainted lips against my face - has to do with empty vessels. Which most HomSaps are at any age, so when they grow used-up and start to melt, it turns my disgust circuits up to eleven twenty-two forty-four. And the same thinkage led me to realise that what I really mean is 'my rules of physical acceptableness are absolute except when they are successfully broken (stone me, it's the Blackthorne Defence again!). And you know what tipped me over to to these conclusions?

Thinking about Mary Beard.

Yes, that's right. Mary Beard. The melty-faced, wild-haired, unapologetically age-scarred Hag of History, professor, journalist, and telly presenter. That woman is so... fucking... GORGEOUS, due to her passion for her field of expertise suffusing her with a shining beauty, that I not only would love to spend a very, very long time talking with her, but yes, I actually fancy her. Beard is the utter opposite of an empty vessel, and thus in her case custom cannot stale even if age withers.

So there you are. Go figure.

[kaffy_r]

You're right about 3D conversations providing more potential for full understanding. Alas, unless I sprout the wings of an exceptionally hearty albatross, I will probably be unable to visit in RL.

I can say that much of my degree of comfort with the physical signs of aging undoubtedly comes from the fact that I was raised not only by my mother, but by my maternal grandmother and grandfather. Among the first faces I recall that were filled with love toward me and my brother were lined, and the arms and hands that held me had the fragile, translucent skin of age. I remember touching the blue tracery of veins in my grandmother's hands and marveling at how soft the skin was. With so much love and so much care bestowed upon me by people of such age, it's probably no surprise that the look of age pushes very positive buttons for me.

Plus the fact that my maternal grandmother was a pretty amazing woman all by herself. And my grandfather, despite some hefty failings, was also amazing. Oh, the stories they both told me, and the care they lavished upon everyone around them!

And I can certainly understand how the force of someone's mind and personality can illuminate the vessel in which those things are seated. An engaged mind, a searching spirit, beautify any vessel in which they sit.

[shanghaied]

Ahaha! I too had an amazing nan (step-nan actually, but closer than blood) who told me wonderful stories and pretty much brought me up in my early childhood. But the fact that she had been a breathtaking beauty in her youth (with photographic proof) and still had her looks and grace by the time I knew her was probably a lot of the reason why I abhor the ugliness of most old people.

And again, gotta love it that we are such well-delineated opposites, heh...