Getting old, a matter of attitude

To my pleasant surprise, a young woman offered me the isle seat in the plane as I began my grueling 20-hour journey from Colombo to Los Angeles recently. Instantly, a shock wave went through me.

“So, this is it. I am obviously a tottering figure way past my prime. They now know I am old. People have to come to my rescue. My thoughts were petrifying.

I continued the journey telling myself, aging is inevitable. Just get off this thought. But I could not. Novelist John Updiike’s book The Widows of Eastwick came to haunt me where three witches aged between 68 and 74, living apart from and out of touch with one another for years, meet.

I survived all those thoughts and reached home and the very next day described my predicament to a friend who put me where I belong in a minute with this story.

Two radicals and a Marine boarded a plane and in the middle seat sat the Marine. They took off their shoes and relaxed for a long journey. Soon one of the radicals said he wanted to get a coke.

The Marine immediately got up and said I will get you one and left to get the coke. The radical to his right spat in his shoes. The coke came and soon the other one also wanted a coke and again the Marine went to get it. The radical to the left spat in the other shoe.

As the plane was landing the Marine put his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what happened. He leaned over and asked his two radical neighbours “Why does it have to be this way? How long must this gone on? This fighting, this hatred and this animosity. How long must this continue? This spitting in shoes and this pissing on cokes”.

The travails of aging sometimes irritate. It is near savagery. But instinctively and almost miraculously we reach sanity as we are liberated. Updike captures all this in the novel and as the three witches lose their husbands. They travel with Alexandra joining Jane, the sharp-tongued cellist, for a jaunt in Egypt; Sukie, the writer, completes the reunion as the three visit China.

We face the torments of aging taking hold of us but get acquainted with them as we share the travails of aging and catch up with each other. Updiike described these feelings as “prickings, foreshadowings, and a girlish relish in malice.”

Sharing these thoughts is the sure anti-dote to the threatened loss of assured certainty about life and onset of frailty. As we begin to look back and reminisce, life rolls out glimpses of fun we had, meeting friends and chatting sessions done with a vengeance all our lives.

Travel is one sure remedy. Sri Lanka is the best tonic for anyone to get rejuvenated. A visit to Sri Lanka provides a travelogue type material on beautiful destinations and most hospitable people in the world.

As I settle down back at home in Los Angeles, like the three witches in Updiike’s novel, somewhat wearied by the town’s changes, haunted by those thoughts of aging when that kind person offered me the isle seat, the whole spell is broken and life begins to get back to normal. Aging is a matter of attitude. Time to go for my long walk in the park.