I AM OF THE NATURE TO GROW OLD: ANTON FERREIRA
Try this simple experiment: look in a mirror. If, like me, you turn 65 on November 1, which is, like, this Friday, you will see thinning grey hair, a receding hairline, crow's feet, sagging flesh and inexplicable random blemishes that weren't there last year.
When I do this mirror exercise, I take in the signs of physical age, and I also think "how weird" - I look like Methuselah, yet I also haven't aged a bit since I first took an obsessive interest in my own reflection in the Clearasil era.
My body has aged, no getting away from it, as have the brain functions, emotions and feelings to which it gives a home, but something in me is the same age it always was. Something in me, and in all of us. It's difficult to define what that something is - some people might call it the soul; Buddhist teachers often call it awareness. They say one can take refuge in it, and it's always nice to have somewhere to do that.
It's the thing that makes mindfulness possible.
My body has aged, no getting away from it ... but something in me is the same age it always was
In the platteland area where I live, younger people - and most people are younger than me, nowadays - often call me oom or oubaas. I instinctively glance over my shoulder to see who it is they are talking to, but then I realise they are addressing me. They see the Anton who has grey hair and wrinkles, who apparently deserves respect merely for having survived so long; they don't see the timeless Anton who feels no older than he did at 10 or at 32.
One of the wonderful things about Buddhism is that, among the five reflections it suggests we consider every day, one is: "I am of the nature to grow old." Another is: "I am of the nature to die."
This may seem morbid, but it's not. It encourages acceptance of the very obvious truth, and avoidance of denial. It also makes me realise how precious life is, and what a pity it would be to waste it.
What's the best thing to do with life, at any age? Frank Ostaseski, who founded the Zen hospice in San Francisco for the homeless and indigent and wrote the book The Five Invitations, has helped to comfort many, many people in their final days and hours. The question most of them ask at death's door, he says, is: "Have I been loved? And have I loved enough?"
GETTING ON, PARKING OFF: CEDRIC DE BEER
I had rushed out to our little local mall one Sunday morning needing croissants for the family breakfast - in a hurry to get home before the scrambled eggs hardened or the crispy bacon went soggy. I hauled into the underground parking, jumped out of the car and ran for Woolworths.
I was the first customer, I paid cash for one item and was back at my car within three minutes - four, max. There, on my windscreen was this pink sticky note covered with angry capital letters: "YOU PARK LIKE POEPHOL"
It was a masterful four-word provocation: bilingual alliteration, venomous and completely pointless. It's true. I confess. In my hurry I had parked across two generous-sized parking bays. I scanned the garage wondering if the lunatic still lurked ... but it was quite empty. Quick work all in all.
There are probably 150 bays in the garage, and maybe 20 of them were occupied. What kind of an angry, self-appointed traffic warden, at 8am on a Sunday morning, is moved (if you will pardon the term) to notice this parking "offence", find a pink sticky note, haul out a pen, capitalise his poetry (must be a man), slam the note onto the middle of my windscreen and disappear, all in a matter of about 200 seconds. You have to admire that level of commitment.
It's not something that would have happened 20 years ago. I always prided myself on my parking ability (I know. It's pathetic, but it's true.)
Parallel parking - no problem. I could sweep up next to a car and reverse into the smallest possible space in one movement, ending up with wheels straight and 15cm from the pavement. It's all about angles and timing.
These days, parking is more of a white-knuckle experience - especially if you are my wife in the passenger seat
Alley docking: swinging the car backwards into a narrow space between two other cars, one hand on the steering wheel, the other nonchalantly slung over the back of the passenger car seat head and shoulders turned 180°. Careful - but quick and confident, maybe one minor change of direction while moving smoothly into place. A piece of cake.
These days, parking is more of a white-knuckle experience - especially if you are my wife in the passenger seat. Stiffness of body, and fading peripheral vision make it a much more tentative affair. I can't swing around to see behind me as I used to and doing it by rear-view mirror is a much more inch by inch process. I frequently leave too much distance between myself and the car in front or end up at a funny angle requiring quite some back and forth to get it good enough. I don't know how many times I have been saved by the loud beeping of my car when I get too close to whatever is behind me.
So yes, I concede the point so elegantly made by the phantom of the garage: I park like a poephol.
But let me just say this. Of all the offences one might commit behind the wheel of a car in the streets of Johannesburg, parking a little bit off-centre rates as a victimless crime. And in any empty parking garage it's no crime at all.
I don't know why there is all this fuss about tech companies developing driverless cars. They are decades late. The deadly streets of Msanzi are full of them. There may be something akin to a warm, breathing body sitting somewhere on the front seat - but "driver"? That's putting too fine a point on it.
If you are stubbing out a cigarette, speaking on the phone, examining your hair in the mirror, screaming at the kids in the back who are not buckled in, and cursing at the car that cut off the learner driver just before you could, then you are many things, but none of them might be defined as "driver". The streets are full of lunatics on wheels, some of them armed and dangerous.
So here's a challenge to the brave poet of the parking garage. Why not venture a little further afield where the infractions are that much more serious and your prose for the ages much more needed. Take up a position next to the window washers on the corner of Queen Street and Albertina Sisulu (say) with your pen and a pile of sticky notes. When the light turns red you can dash among the cars in a whirling frenzy, palming accusations onto the windscreens: "You brake like a bastard"; "You drive like a dick"; "You tailgate like a tosser". It doesn't matter which cars you choose - the accusations will be almost inevitably accurate.
Bet you won't. Because you're a poephol.
WATCHING THE CLOCK WATCHING ME: ANDILE NDLOVU
A 32-year-old man walks into a bar and walks out after a two-hour encounter with an unfulfilled bartender, leaving a hefty tip. The man is me. The bartender hates his job. He wants to be a conscious rapper, but not every breakout star is discovered on YouTube or Instagram and offered a record deal - many talented upstarts fizzle out because they can't afford a career in music.
Serving drinks and making conversation with me in a bar occupied only by myself and an obnoxious lecturer (who made a point of telling me I was at his regular table) is this bartender's cross to bear - he's trying to make enough money to afford studio time. On a decent night he makes R500. He's unlikely to make that tonight, even with my tip.
I know this because we found ourselves lamenting the subjects of time and age. He is, like me, 32 years old - a man worried about being left behind.
He is, like me, 32 years old - a man worried about being left behind
He asks me what I do for a living and whether I am fulfilled. I give him the stock response I've become comfortable rolling out when the question about life purpose and career fulfilment gets asked; I'm doing what I have to do in order to get to where I want to be. I'm reminded of Denzel Washington's character in The Great Debaters. He tells his mentees: "We do what we have to do, so that we can do what we want to do."
It's simple: pay your dues and the universe rewards you smartly. Except we live in a time when gratification is hard to come by and even when we reach that Utopian moment, time to enjoy it is fleeting. We're on to the next thing.
I tell the bartender that I work in a demanding environment, mostly administrative, and that I haven't had the space to be able to do what I dream of doing: writing a novel, maybe more than one.
I don't bore him talking about the mornings and nights I've racked my brain thinking about how to turn around the manuscript I've been sitting on for years, or how I've consumed litres of coffee in front of my laptop, not producing anything that can be called a draft. I've watched interviews of my favourite writers talking about their processes and the sources of their inspiration. Hanya Yanagihara, who wrote her magnum opus A Little Life in a matter of weeks talks about coming home daily from work and writing her novel.
I'm reminded of Nnedi Okorafor's tweets dismissing writer's block. "Fatigue exists. Procrastination exists. Laziness exists, distraction exists. Restlessness exists. Not really being a writer exists. Life events exist. Boredom exists. Excuses exist. Writer's block does not exist," she tweeted. All I read was: "Not really being a writer exists."
Cue another meltdown.
The truth is, I don't believe we all carry extraordinary gifts in us, but I've always believed that if we do, my gift is writing. I'm not sure I'm capable of reaching the heights of Toni Morrison or Ta-Nehisi Coates, but I have something to work towards. A purpose.
I told the barman to have patience. He told me he'd heard that a million times. He'd worked on his dream for a decade and felt no closer to realising it. I was stumped. I know that the anxiety around fulfilling one's purpose is affected by time and age. But our journeys are also affected by many other variables. I lead an anxiety-riddled life because of the importance we've placed on time and age. It's an unshakeable barometer of success.
INVISIBLE AS AIR AND NOBODY CARES: LIN SAMPSON
Getting old is scary, and as crumbly as shortcrust pastry. You can count your age any way you like. Tennessee Williams always said he was 10 years younger because "The years working in a shoe shop didn't count". But against the vicious nature of fate, the old are spit. And as Bruce Chatwin said in his book Utz, "Things never get better".
It is like trying to pick up a turd at the clean end and finding there is no clean end.
Joan Didion famously said, "I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be ..."
Once you were brave, breakneck and funny, now you have broken your neck. Emergency wards are full of oldies who have fallen in the shower.
Seventy is death by remote control. The button has been pressed and is just taking time to get the message to you. The doctor says, "Oh it's all downhill from here."
You think, well I have always wanted to learn Mandarin. But then you think, what's the point of learning Mandarin if death is only a bee's wing away and I don't think there are many Chinese slouching around Pick n Pay, lusting to be chatted up.
There are always those Greater Red Lipped monsters who are still dancing at 90 to the refrain "You are as old as you feel". I feel 19, would someone let my liver know? The guy behind the counter says, "Young lady, what can I do for you?" If he knew how crazed I was he wouldn't risk questions like this.
Old people need to be weaponised. An explosive private income is my gun of choice. An inheritance of money and a Monet. Getting old is expensive and no-one is picking up the bill. People say, "Oh what a pity you don't have children." My friend rings and says, "Toby is on 'it' again." "It" is not a walk in the park. I wouldn't mind a bit of "it" myself. Drugs for the over-60s should be mandatory.
Old people never sleep, so if at 2am you want to know anything about sharks or Hitler, call me.
Old people never sleep, so if at 2am you want to know anything about sharks or Hitler, call me
The Guardian described Queen Elizabeth, 93, giving that speech in parliament as "frail and furious". I think this is the way to go. Thrash through age, brave and breakneck, knocking things over, falling over yourself, being deliciously rude (there's nothing worse than polite old women). My ancient friend regularly sets her house on fire to get some attention.
Research shows that people in old-age homes watch porn most of the day. Some think it is the latest form of exercise. A friend of 80 says she gets aroused when her neighbour puts his car in reverse.
The old have learnt to be content with very little. They are invisible.
There are compensations. Every ancient human carries an emergency supply of instinct imbedded in their cellular biology, which they can suck on when all about are flummoxed. Secondly, you are too old to die young, and finally, you will at last have a deeper, existential understanding of those ignoble, bland and ignorable words people have been whispering in your ear since you were 10, "retirement savings".
I'VE ALWAYS BEEN BAD WITH NUMBERS: PAIGE NICK
I was boarding a plane when a very lovely young flight attendant offered to help me with my luggage because he could see I was pregnant. I was momentarily conflicted. Yes, I definitely wanted him to help me with my luggage, I'd been humping those verkakte bags around Europe for weeks. But I also wanted to order a couple of whiskies from him after we took off. So, I responded with my standard I'm not pregnant, I'm just fat line.
I was on my way home from Italy. It's not my fault I accidentally ate every strand of pasta in the country.
I moaned about it to a friend, saying I was never eating again. Or getting on an airplane again. Or being nice to a flight attendant again. She pointed out that at least he thought I looked young enough to fall pregnant.
Bring on the silver lining.
How do I feel about ageing? Not that brave. Slightly more hopeful since I started following Advanced Style gurus on Instagram. And better than I would have felt if I was a 45-year-old woman in any other decade. But still, I can't say I'm being very grown-up about it.
Hence the dilemma: would you rather appear fatter and younger, or thinner and older? I did spot research among some friends, but they were no help. Their answers were all over the board.
Would you rather appear fatter and younger, or thinner and older?
I also happened to eat Istanbul out of house and home on this trip, and the city's stance on ageing seems clearer. After coming across Strangely Bandaged Head Guy No 15, I Googled "men with massive bandages on their heads in Istanbul" to see if it's a thing. And it is. Every year, many thousands of Turkish men sell their hair, from root to tip, to men who flock to the capital for a cure for baldness.
We do safaris and facelifts and they do Turkish Delight and hair transplants.
After spending 160 hours mulling it over on the treadmill since my return, I think I'm leaning towards fatter and younger.
Thanks for the epiphany, flight attendant. It seems easier to lose weight than it is to reverse ageing. Cheaper too. And I'd rather do a billion sit-ups than to try to figure out how to alter the world's attitude towards ageing women.
