The Fountain (1760-65) by Hubert Robert (1733-1808) — long one of my favorite 18th century pictures
Shepherdess
‘When all this is over: said the shepherdess,
‘I mean to retire, where
Nobody will have heard about my special skills
And conversation is mainly about the weather.
I intend to learn how to make coffee, at least as well
As the Portuguese lay-sister in the kitchen
And polish the brass fenders every day.
I want to lie awake at night
Listening to cream crawling to the top of the jug
And the water lying soft in the cistern.
I want to see an orchard where the trees grow in straight lines
And the yellow fox finds shelter between the navy-blue trunks,
Where it gets dark early in summer
And the apple-blossom is allowed to wither on the bough.’
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I found the poem in Fleur Adcock’s The Faber Book of 20th Century Women’s Poetry. Eilean Ni Chuillean Ain is said to be an Irish poet, born 1942, with 3 [chap?]books of poetry published by Gallery Books in Dublin. I did change a word. The original poem is supposed about a shepherd. You might say I added three letters: “ess.”
*******
A new loss. Slightly terrifying. I’m having trouble walking and my knee really hurts on and off. It began while in NYC and I put it down to doing too much and too many stairs in the subway but it didn’t go away after a few days. I went to the doctor to be told, no not arthritis, but bursitis, but a friend tells me that’s what she was told at first and now it’s clear she has arthritis in her legs.
One of the great pleasures of my existence since my early teens has been walking. How I love to wander about. The Admiral and I would walk for hours in NYC when he had vacations in the early years and we had no money. Country walks in England. I loved the movie, Last Orders because Helen Mirren played a character who loved to do nothing so much as wander, ride on tops of buses, and trains too.
Walking wandering anywhere everywhere is a kind of release. There’s another place where I identify with Austen. You don’t need anyone. You just look about you. I see the same impulse.
When we got out of the HD-opera today my legs were weak from so much sitting. The trouble going downstairs resumed. So when I got home I took a brief walk to stir myself up again.
Slightly because what I fear is years from now (I hope) and terrifying because it’s a matter of independence. I fear not being independent.
Losses used to be slightly comic. Several years ago doing my students’ grades I realized I had forgotten my multiplication tables. They had gone from me altogether. I used to be able to recite all the tables from 2 to 12. Maybe around that time I realized people were speaking lower and I couldn’t catch everything they said unless they enunciated more distinctly or I was paying closer attention.
About 4 years ago I lost the power in my arms to swim rapidly or get across the pool in few strokes. It became an arduous thing but I still could do it.
About 2 years ago I stopped being able to take down sten at a rapid rate. I could take down just about anything people were saying and transcribe — maybe not at the rate one needs commercially but more than 80 words per minute. One day I discovered my hand would not hold the pencil tightly and realized the skill was dependent on a hand-eye coordination with a hard precise control over the fingers I had lost. Went from me. Around that time my handwriting went to pot, and I mean it’s bad. Illegible. And on top of that when I would write on the board I’d go say to write a 9 and I’d write something else. Anything, another number of letter. Or the 9 would not come out right. This got in the way of teaching. What I needed to do was concentrate and also write bigger. When I wrote bigger the letters came out better formed, and when I concentrated I was less likely to write down anything at all.
I didn’t retire just because they were giving me a hard time. I had a hard time crossing campus. I was switching from street shoes to slippers when I got into a classroom. Students who liked me said it was just like Mr Rogers (endearing), but not all students saw this that way.
One can do without multiplying, without stenography, without handwriting, none of them basic to life, one can manage with few teeth (as long as you have dentures), but walking? I once took cortisone shots — when I was in my 20s and had torn a ligament in one of my knees — and they made me much much worse. The Admirla won’t go to the gym any more: he says it really hurts his knees and legs to do those machines. For a few years he was going 2-4 times a week. I probably ought to go alone, but the one that is inexpensive and near has no pool so I’m not inclined to go there by myself. I still like to swim even if I am no good at it any more and if there was a pool I might go, though a few years ago I lost all power in my arms. Probably I should begin some exercise program quietly at home here. The doctor gave me one of stretching.
I could have cited Johnson’s “Year chases Year, Decay pursues Decay,/Still drops some Joy from with’ring Life away …” .Or I could go for Perri Klass’s bleak joke:
Joke: ‘How many surgeons does it take to remove a light bulb?’ Answer: ‘Why don’t you just have us remove the socket? You aren’t using it anyway and it’ll only give you trouble in the future.’
but I’m actually more hopeful than I used to be. I would not want to be another person — shades of Austen’s Anne Elliot — but who I am no matter how to others it may be the last kind of person or situation they’d like. I do like this retirement life, but it only comes with age and age has its drawbacks.
From Susan Herbert’s Movie Cats: after Gene Kelly, [Still] Singing in the Rain — cat with its heart on its sleeve, reaching out
Sylvia
Under the Sign of Sylvia II 