With age comes wisdom

…but sometimes age comes alone. Welcome to my world. Am in the fortunate position of being almost permanently on holiday which I still haven’t worked out. Being on holiday and being retired are the same thing, no? The gaps between working and not working are now, the reverse of when I was working full time. My brain struggles with that concept but the freedom to travel, stay in bed all day, read all day (kind of linked to staying in bed), practise qi gong, yoga, pilates, weights (but definitely not zumba) – the list is endless and am loving it.

I had said I had retired last July to much fanfare and epiphanies. Even a poem. But winters are long and my SA pen was itchy. So I do a little bit of work every now and then. Husbant wants to end up slumped over his laptop hitting “approve”when he is 90. We all have our wishes.

So the wisdom thing. Was thinking about a holiday I went on 40 odd years ago with a university friend – backpacking round Egypt. We were both pretty naive travellers but somehow managed to survive all the near-death experiences. The only argument we had was over a ceiling fan. We were staying in a hostel in Luxor – we had our own room – and it was very hot indeed. No air-conditioning except a very noisy ceiling fan. I had read that you shouldn’t sleep with the fan on all night as you can get dehydrated while my friend believed that without the ceiling fan she would not be able to breathe. We had a window but that just let in dust and noise. The ceiling fan merely moved the same hot air round and round. I have always had a fear that ceiling fans would fall from the ceiling and end up slicing me to pieces. Irrational but a strong belief. In the end, I would like to think we reached a compromise and the fan was given half the night to keep the air moving. Staying in a little slice of heaven in Vejer, we have a ceiling fan. I love it. Being older and therefore slightly less aware of noise, I don’t hear the whirr but just feel that great sensation of a light breeze on my skin. I don’t have the irrational fear of it falling down on me in the middle of the night. I have many other irrational fears which come with being old – I guess Oscar Wilde might have added with age comes wisdom and irrational fears.

Being old but not wise also works. I am aware of a decline in my ability to recall many every day words mid sentence and sometimes even what I did last weekend. It is frustrating trying to describe a lost word – recently it was ‘rush hour’ (so two words, maybe my counting has gone to pot too). I ended up saying “that time of day when all the cars are on the road and people are going home from work.” So almost 20 words when 2 would have been just fine.

Am much better remembering meals I have had, beaches I have lain on and seas I have swum in. I embrace the fact that one day, which might have already arrived, I can walk up a mountain and feel like it is the first time I have taken that particular route.

It’s been a while since I wrote. Being in Vejer triggers so many happy memories. It’s blowing a hooley at the moment but the sun is shining and I can see Africa. Life is good. Be seeing you!