old-age

I'm growing fonder of my staff; I'm growing dimmer in my eyes; I'm growing fainter in my laugh; I'm growing deeper in my sighs; I'm growing careless of my dress; I'm growing frugal of my gold; I'm growing wise; I'm growing--yes,-- I'm growing old.

[O]ver the years I travelled to another universe. However alert we are, however much we think we know what will happen, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy. It is alien, and old people are a separate form of life. They have green skin, with two heads that sprout antennae. They can be pleasant, they can be annoying--in the supermarket, these old ladies won't get out of my way--but most important they are permanently other. When we turn eighty, we understand that we are extraterrestrial. If we forget for a moment that we are old, we are reminded when we try to stand up, or when we encounter someone young, who appears to observe green skin, extra heads, and protuberances.

The cancer set into her bones and whittled her down to nothing. The weariness of the world and the weight in her heart laid her to rest in January.

We envy people who are extremely old because we wish to live that long, not because we want to be that old.

Old age is catching up with me, or am I catching up with it?

With regard to things such as independence, mental capabilities, and sexuality, a very old man is nothing but a gigantic infant with white hair and wrinkles.

Everybody dies. There__ nothing you can do about it. Whether or not you eat six almonds a day. Whether or not you believe in God. (Although there__ no question a belief in God would come in handy. It would be great to think there__ a plan, and that everything happens for a reason. I don__ happen to believe that. And every time one of my friends says to me, __verything happens for a reason,_ I would like to smack her.)

We could endlessly reminisce, live in the past to an unhealthy degree, then politely kill each other some winter night before bedtime, stirring poison into our cups of whiskey-spiked chamomile tea, wearing party hats. Then, nervous about our double homicide, we could lie in bed together, holding hands again, frightened and waiting, still wondering, after all these years, if we even believed in our own souls.

Some social ills are preserved by the common misbelief that things such as ignorance, greed, and stupidity do not have the stamina required to reach old age.

Late-Flowering LustMy head is bald, my breath is bad,Unshaven is my chin,I have not now the joys I hadWhen I was young in sin.I run my fingers down your dressWith brandy-certain aimAnd you respond to my caressAnd maybe feel the same.But I've a picture of my ownOn this reunion night,Wherein two skeletons are shewnTo hold each other tight;Dark sockets look on emptinessWhich once was loving-eyed,The mouth that opens for a kissHas got no tongue inside.I cling to you inflamed with fearAs now you cling to me,I feel how frail you are my dearAnd wonder what will be--A week? or twenty years remain?And then--what kind of death?A losing fight with frightful painOr a gasping fight for breath?Too long we let our bodies cling,We cannot hide disgustAt all the thoughts that in us springFrom this late-flowering lust.

Life is a process during which one initially gets less and less dependent, independent, and then more and more dependent.

The greatest trick you can teach an old dog is how to learn new tricks.

After having imposed itself on us like the egomaniac it is, clamouring about its own needs, foisting upon us its own sordid and perilous desires, the body's final trick is simply to absent itself. Just when you need it, just when you could use an arm or a leg, suddenly the body has other things to do. It falters, it buckles under you; it melts away as if made of snow, leaving nothing much. Two lumps of coal, an old hat, a grin made of pebbles. The bones dry sticks, easily broken.

As an unavoidable result of the inevitable loss of some physical and/or some mental abilities, many a man who has been alive for many years has become a boy again.

Loneliness tortures many if not most of the elderly more intensely and more frequently than it torments many if not most of us who will never be or have not yet been pushed or pulled into old age.

Old people deserves a medal, a medal of existence which crowns their long-term victory against the cruelty of time and the dangers of this chaotic universe!

For the last four years of her life, Mother was in a nursing home called Chateins in St. Louis ... [S]ix months before she died I sent a Mother's Day card. There was a horrible, mushy poem in it. I remember feeling "vaguely guilty.

Granny Trill and Granny Wallon were traditional ancients of a kind we won__ see today, the last of that dignity of grandmothers to whom age was its own embellishment. The grandmothers of those days dressed for the part in that curious but endearing uniform which is now known to us only through music-hall. And our two old neighbours, when setting forth on errands, always prepared themselves scrupulously so. They wore high laced boots and long muslin dresses, beaded chokers and candlewick shawls, crowned by tall poke bonnets tied with trailing ribbons and smothered with inky sequins. They looked like starlings, flecked with jet, and they walked in a tinkle of darkness.Those severe and similar old bodies enthralled me when they dressed that way. When I finally became King (I used to think) I would command a parade of grandmas, and drill them, and march them up and down - rank upon rank of hobbling boots, nodding bonnets, flying shawls, and furious chewing faces. They would be gathered from all the towns and villages and brought to my palace in wagon-loads. No more than a monarch__ whim, of course, like eating cocoa or drinking jellies; but far more spectacular any day than those usual trudging guardsmen.