Golden thoughts of graceful aging
ECCENTRIC MUSINGS on Italian greyhounds, philosophical discussions and a torrid romance
As I was doing my taxes, the accountant asked if I was giving any thought to retirement and old age. I’ve never thought of retiring. Writers put out their best works in their golden years. I do enjoy thinking about growing old, though. I’ve always been determined to be an eccentric elderly lady one day, with more character than I know what to do with.
I want to be one of those fantastically dressed older women. I’ll befriend young half-mad local designers who’ll dress me in an overpriced sweater with three sleeves. I’ll occasionally dress in a man’s suit and purple boots with navy blue stars on them. I’ll dye my hair an odd shade of pink.
I’ll have three Italian greyhounds that all the neighbours in my building will petition against. I’ll see animals as my equals. My greyhounds will eat cupcakes with me at the breakfast table. My grandchildren will scream bloody murder, not because of the dogs, but because I’m eating cupcakes.
I’ll go on PBS talk shows discussing philosophical matters I can’t possibly understand now. I’ll have all sorts of impenetrable aphorisms ready at my fingertips: “The question of happiness is not about whether one has the will or responsibility to achieve it, but rather the intelligence to recognize it.” I’ll rattle off esoteric facts about historical figures at universities: “Rousseau wrote all his greatest discourses while wearing striped socks.”
I’ll be established, which means that people will celebrate things I don’t deserve to be celebrated for. They’ll hang my paint-bynumber watercolours in the Museum of Fine Arts. I’ll publish a children’s book called The Use of Vowels by Owls. Parents will like it, but their children won’t be able to stand it.
I’ll have a title from my third husband, a moronic aristocrat whose philandering was legendary. He’ll push me over the edge, and I’ll be committed for a time to the Hôpital des Jolis Invalides in Paris. During my stay, I’ll write my first philosophical treatise, A Meditation on the Impermanence of Human Affections, which will be dedicated to a handsome orderly referred to only as François X.
By 75, I’ll be living with an aspiring writer named Philippe, who’ll be 40 years my junior. Our brawls will spill into the street in front of a five-star hotel. I’ll need him because I won’t have a driver’s licence anymore. He’ll need me because my literary connections will be the only way his poetry cycle based on Calvin and Hobbes will ever be published.
The walls of my house will be covered with framed butterflies Philippe and I caught in Ecuador. We’ll have moved there for a spell in an attempt to pay less tax on my Olive Voltaire detective series about an etymologist who solves murders through clues insects leave behind.
Because of a life of the mind, my house will be a mess. The bathroom tiles will be in a terrible state. The sink will be filled with dirty teacups. Books will be absolutely everywhere. My grandchildren will say that Philippe is a mooch. But nothing will make me happier than the tunes he’ll compose on the piano after our days together.
Some of my favourites will be Staying in on a Rainy Day in B Minor, Mouse in the Bathtub Staccato, Credit Card Declined Denouement, Frittering Away Inheritance for Strings, and Adagio for Bicycle Bell in Traffic. What a collection of tunes I’ll collect in my head!
All my collections will become enormous. There will be boxes of feathers that birds left in the backyard, drawers filled with ticket stubs from zoos around the world, jars of buttons that fell off my children’s clothes, and piles and piles of stones on all the windowsills from our happy days at the beach.
We build our character moment by moment. Each day is a beautiful trinket to put on the shelf of our minds, until the soul is a cabinet of marvellous curiosities. I like myself a little bit more every day. But as for retiring, I’ll probably keep writing until they lock the lid of my coffin and lower me into the ground, and Philippe throws a rose onto my grave. As the mourners walk away, someone will whisper, she did her best work toward the very end.