Down to the ground, down to the ground: more maturational angst

      In all human development different stages of life introduce characteristics that come to represent them. The infant’s desire for the breast, the child’s desire to be thought of as good by his or her parents, the teenager's search for identity and what seems to adults (with all too short memories) the adolescent’s over concern with personal appearance, and indeed, the demands of parenthood are just a few of the elements which influence life's vicissitudes. I might, and will now go on about another element: approaching elderliness. This is the staging post where I am currently positioned on my journey to.........well, wherever.

      Many will be aware of common signs of ageing such as going to a room to do something particular but on entering the room finding that the purpose for being there has been forgotten. My mind has developed this trait to a more advanced level and now I find when I do eventually remember the reason I entered the room I discover that I am in the wrong room to do it.

      This is but a trifling matter when I compare it to one of the issues I really want to discuss here and that is the case of my trembling hands.  They begin to shake when I hold on to objects like cups or cameras and because of this shakiness my handwriting has become illegible. In the age of the personal computer that should not pose a problem but I find that my shakiness influences my typing accuracy on the keyboard. I am continually correcting typing errors when my shaky finger only partly hits the intended letter key and also touches the neighbouring key. This means I am ever making spelling corrections. Of course I can always use the App which types to the sound of my dictation but I find that with my Scottish accent the spoken word does not always equate with what eventually appears in the text. 

     Associated with this phenomenon is the propensity with which all the things I need and use, preternaturally fall to the floor of their own volition. This is not only when I am holding them, picking them up, or putting them down but they are also under instruction from Isaac Newton when I walk past them.  It may be a poltergeist - I don't know - but I can tell you the ensuing bending down to pick them up is a struggle. It's alright if I have my long handled metal gripper nearby but it's seldom to be found in a handy position because it too deliberately and frequently falls to the floor and hides itself in places it can't be found.

Hand level object evolving into a low level one seeks a hiding place

When I am out and about and pull my wallet from my pocket, all the contents of the wallet: my debit, library, senior rail and others cards, inevitably fall to the pavement, or descend to the floor of the shop or café I happen to be in at the time. Occasionally they have fallen down street drains which has complicated matters to a point of impossibility. All this is an embarrassment to me and though I am grateful that younger, and sometimes not so very much younger people come to my rescue and bend over to pick up and return to me whichever of my belongings have obeyed the law of gravity, what is most shameful for me is the idea these thoughtful people have assessed me as one who looks as if he will struggle to bend down to pick up what I have dropped.  I can feel diminished by this. It's not good for the ego, yet I eventually come around to thinking "Damn my ego! I needed someone to help me.”

These often deliberatedly dive from my wallet

  For some reason the proclivity for things to fall down brought to mind the repeated phrase, “down to the ground, down to the ground.” It has become a line I can’t get out of my head and it is from a great Joan Armatrading song  Down to Zero .

.     I first saw and heard Joan Armatrading perform in February,1985 at the City Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne. She entertained us magnificently on that night. Her wide ranging, lyrical voice electrifies her songs. She's a great musician and peerless poet/songwriter. Down to Zero is not about the ageing process but more about sustaining self-belief in the face of adversity and certainly that has a great deal to do with growing older.

 I hope the song will inspire me to gee myself up and to act on an  aphorism of another great woman, Mary Ann Evans, (also known as George Eliot), who proposed, “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”  Well, maybe.