01/01/2009 12:00 am
POV
What I Know for Sure, by Henry Alford
On New Year's Day, the author of How to Live shares the irony of late-in-life enlightenment, and what he learned from Oscar Wilde uttering from his deathbed, 'Either that wallpaper goes or I do'
Henry Alford/Photo Courtesy of John Woo
Editor’s note: Henry Alford is the author of the just-published book How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth). He has written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and The New York Times for more than a decade.
The older we get, the more like ourselves we become.
The reasons vary — some older folks break free of societal constraints because they realize it’s now or never; some simply needed a lifetime of practice to finally make it perfect. But, whatever the reason, old age is for many people — outside of medical ailments and neurological dysfunction, of course — a time of self-mastery.
| "Either that wallpaper goes or I do" (Oscar Wilde's last words) |
Last year, armed with recent medical findings that support the idea that old people are wiser, I interviewed some 200 people over the age of 70. Early on in the process I interviewed my 79-year-old stepfather, whose interview was dark hued; indeed, he overdosed on Ambien the following day. He and my mother had aged differently — he’d become increasingly isolated and gloomy, and she’d waxed increasingly social and busy. But more importantly, this overdose was the second time my stepfather had lost his sobriety in six years, so this time, my mother — who, at 80, had been married to him for 23 years — kicked him out of the house. Then, over the course of the year, she proceeded to divorce him, sell him their house and move 580 miles away. My mother has always been good at making difficult decisions, but the alacrity and sensitivity with which she made these new ones was remarkable. Her grasp of her needs was as strong as metal.
In the case of artists and writers, the confidence or increased sense of self that comes in their later years is often evidenced in their work; it’s no surprise that Philip Roth, Joan Didion, Louise Bourgeois and Calvin Trillin are doing some of their best work ever. Studies of late-in-life works by people as diverse as Shakespeare, Beethoven and William Burroughs show some fascinating similarities: The works are often more personal than the creators’ previous works, and they often exhibit a quality of timelessness. (Think The Road by 73-year-old Cormac McCarthy.) The adjective that comes up over and over when critics describe these works is "transcendent."
The process continues even to the very end — by the time we get to our deathbeds, some of us utter last words that are so inimitable, so quintessentially self-descriptive, as to be almost parodic. "Either that wallpaper goes or I do" (Oscar Wilde). "How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?" (P.T. Barnum). "Get my swan costume ready" (Anna Pavlova). "Why not? Yeah" (Timothy Leary).
The irony of late-in-life fulfillment is that it happens at a time in our lives when we *look* our least sublime. People often use the metaphors of sand or leather or hills to describe aging, but fruit may be more apt. As Brigitte Bardot once said, "It’s sad to grow old, but nice to ripen."
We may look like prunes. But inside we’re peaches.
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