Ageing Fast and Slow

I don't like the word retirement. It has connotations of quietness and  conclusion - things slowly coming to an end, a vague peacefulness descending, like soft snow settling onto a quiet landscape. It's a word that goes with slippers and firesides, with teapots and scones, a woman sitting beside a hearth, a book in her lap, thinking over her life - all the things she did, all she might have done.

It's an image of post-work and ageing that many of my generation understandably, often vehemently, reject. Many of the people I know, in their 50s and 60s, including Him Outdoors, are still running over mountains, cycling up Everest, trekking to the South Pole in bare feet as well as growing businesses, travelling the world, solar system, universe, while juggling grandchildren and finding the Higgs-Boson particle. ( I  exaggerate - but only a little.)



Of course it is good to refuse to lie down, to try out new things, to keep the body fit and set new challenges, but there's also be a hint of denial in all this speed and busyness. If yer keep dodging, the bullet won't git yer. And although I can't compete with that exhausting lot, I'm also trying to dodge my own bullet - blogging, studying on an Open University course, writing, moving from one of the flattest cities in the country to a hilly house in a hilly village in Derbyshire just at the age when some people think you should be pricing stair lifts.  Do not go gentle into the slipper-y slope of retirement, I tell myself . . . rage rage against the dying of the knee joints.


My main physical activity is walking - I go out lots of days either on my own or with him outdoors. It's supposed to be fast, aerobic- type walking, but recently it's slowed down a lot. This is mainly because of  the Open University course I'm doing - Neighbourhood Nature - which helps you to learn about aspects of the natural world in your neighbourhood - the clue's in the title. I also take photographs. So now the walks involve a lot of stopping, looking around, click clicking, starting again and then stopping again. Which is fine when I'm alone but when my nearest and dearest speed freak is with me, it causes some agitation. Last time we went out he was heard muttering to himself:  Is this a walk or a picnic? And if it's a picnic where's the bloody food?  

But this slowness has yielded up treasures - abundance, diversity, colour. I've added a small gallery here.

 
Who would have thought that these cold months could produce so many colours, and that stone walls, half dead trees, fields and skies could produce such rich abundance in winter light?

Yet nature isn't only slow. Earth, sun and moon, stars, comets, race around each other, the whole universe explodes, expands in all directions. These words and pictures have been almost instantly transformed into electronic signals. Light moves at 186,282 miles per second.

Still the body ages - fast and slow! So keep on running, trucking and trekking. But keep looking as well. 

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See more about the OU Neighbourhood Nature

See  Carl Honore speaking In praise of Slow 

And if you fancy a fast way to slow down try the One Minute Meditation   (Oh the irony!)