Happy Birthday, my darling Jeannie.

Philosophising about this ageing lark!

A few days ago Jean and I listened to an episode from the BBC Radio 4 series The Art of Living. Or as the home page of the programme’s website explains, The Art of Living is a …

Documentary series revealing how engagement with art has transformed people’s lives.

Anyway, the episode that we listened to was a delightful 30-minute discussion between Marie-Louise Muir and the Belfast-born poet Frank Ormsby. The reason we selected this episode to listen to in particular is revealed by republishing how the BBC introduced the programme. (For Jean was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in December, 2015.)

Frank Ormsby’s Parkinson’s

The Art of Living

When the poet Frank Ormsby was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, his response was unexpected. He embarked on a newly fertile creative period, documenting his experiences and finding a voice in his poetry that he was beginning to lose in his daily communications.
His first act was to search Google – for jokes. “Which would you rather have, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. Obviously Parkinson’s! I’d rather spill half my pint than forget where I left it.”

As he discusses with Marie-Louise Muir, the illness has changed him. It’s mellowed him. After a career as a school teacher, his daily life is now quieter and more solitary. There’s a poetry, almost, in his pauses and silences.
Frank belongs to the generation of Northern Irish writers that has followed in the footsteps of Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley. His medication, he believes, has aided his creativity. But it has also induced hallucinations. He finds himself sitting on his own in his study but surrounded by people, by the ghosts of his mother-in-law and unidentified visitors. And he’s also haunted by a fear that the earth will open up and swallow him.
But if you ask how he’s doing, he writes, “I’ll tell you the one about ‘parking zones disease’.
I’ll assure you that the pills seem to be working”.

Photo credit: Malachi O’Doherty, With readings by Frank himself and Ciaran McMenamin from The Darkness of Snow. Produced by Alan Hall. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

That wonderful joke offered by Frank, this one: “Which would you rather have, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s. Obviously Parkinson’s! I’d rather spill half my pint than forget where I left it.” comes a little after the 5-minute point in the interview. I strongly encourage you to listen to the full interview. Here’s the link to the radio programme.   

Jean and I were sitting up in bed a couple of mornings ago reflecting on how recent it has been since we ‘got it’ in terms of what becoming old really means. For me and Jean, for different reasons, it is only in the last twelve months that ageing, the process of becoming older, the decline in one’s faculties, and more and more, has been truly understood. Yes, before then of course one understood that we were getting old. But it was an intellectual understanding not the living it on a daily basis understanding we now experience.

Back to Frank Ormsby. Or rather to a feature in the Belfast Telegraph published in 2015.

Frank Ormsby: Life at Inst was very different from my upbringing

Leading Belfast poet and former Inst. Head of English Frank Ormsby on his tough Fermanagh upbringing, losing his father when he was 12 and how humour has helped him cope with a Parkinson’s diagnosis.

Write stuff: Frank Ormsby at his home in north Belfast

March 23, 2015

As Frank Ormsby sits in the study of his beautifully-appointed 1930s home in north Belfast there is no hint of his much more austere upbringing. As befits the workspace of a poet and long-time English teacher at one of Belfast’s leading schools, the bookcases that line the walls are crammed with a wide range of literature.
It could not be a more different environment from the rural home where he grew up just after the Second World War.

When Frank was born in 1947, his father Patrick was already in his 60s. “I remember him as an old, grey-haired man”.

It was Patrick’s second marriage. His first had produced 10-12 children. “I was never totally sure of the exact number”, Frank recalls.

“I never met them as they had dispersed to Scotland and other places by the time my father, by then a widower, had married my mother. As far as I know the last one of them died last year.”

Frank’s home was about a mile and half outside Irvinestown. His mother Anne had worked on a relative’s farm – “she could build hay or cut turf as well as any man” – and his father as a farm labourer who occasionally sought work in the factories in Scotland.

“The conditions in which we lived were lacking in luxury. We had no running water. We had to carry it in buckets from a well half a mile away. There was no electricity and it was a long time before we even had a radio, or wireless as it was called then,” Frank says.

You may read the rest of that article here.

Here’s one of Frank’s poems that was published by The New Yorker in March, 2013.

BOG COTTON

By Frank Ormsby

They have the look
of being born old.
Thinning elders among the heather,
trembling in every wind.
My father turns eighty
the spring before my thirteenth birthday.
When I feed him porridge he takes his cap off. His hair,
as it has been all my life, is white, pure white.

Maybe that’s how it is. Having the look of being born old!

But there’s one thing that I treasure beyond gold itself. Having the fortune to be living out my final days, however many there are, in the company of my beautiful Jeannie and all the loving dogs around me.

Puppy Cleo coming home – April 6th, 2012

 

Happy Birthday, sweetheart!

28 thoughts on “Happy Birthday, my darling Jeannie.”

  1. Give my best to Jean, Paul! You know even at 51, I am keenly aware that I am on the back 9 in my life.
    That is why there is an urgency for me to get things done. You just never know.

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    1. Susan, your birthday greetings have just been read to Jean and she thanks you for your kindness. Good luck with the urgency! But spare a moment each day to reflect and cuddle your loved ones, both two-legged and four-legged ones!

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  3. Sending Birthday wishes to Jean as well. Birthdays are important. Everyone a gift. Parkinson’s is a stinker but I loved the joke about it vs Alzheimer’s. it’s all about perspective. Celebrate fully.

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    1. Marlene, as you say over at your place, you are only as old as you feel! Yes, it truly is about perspective! Jean asks that you have a good day. I would like to add that you and your son have a great day! Thank you for your wishes.

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  4. I hope you had a lovely relaxing birthday Jeannie!
    Thanks for your excellent post Paul. I’m in my mid 60’s, my husband too. In the last year we have both had health problems though not too serious. Mine has been a marked decline in cardio fitness and osteoarthritis of both knees, which restricts my mobility. No more can I think of travelling overseas and walking for hours each day. Now both of us are very conscious of growing old – I guess we thought it would take longer….
    There are two quotations that I came across which I will try to keep firmly in mind as the years go by –
    “ Do not regret growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.” – Author Unknown
    “ Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” – Omar Khayyam

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    1. Well the time difference means that the bulk of today, Jean’s birthday day, is still before us. (It’s coming up to 8am.) But that doesn’t dilute in the slightest the beauty of your kindness, the wisdom you offer via those quotations, to Jeannie. Thank you! 😍

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  5. Happy Birthday Jean. I hope your day was as Golden as your spirit.
    Aging is a drag physically, but the wisdom it brings is such a blessing. It is a strange paradox. As the body withers, the soul grows brighter, more in tune and an ancient calmness takes over. We must embrace the humour, joy and love of every moment as now, it is all that matters.
    Kind wishes to you both. 💕

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    1. Colette, oh that is so true, so insightful, in you speaking of that paradox. I was struggling, and failing, to recall that saying about wisdom. Thank goodness for the Internet and wireless connections! I looked it up!

      “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
      ― Socrates

      Big hugs from Oregon!

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  9. I wish Jeanie a very happy birthday and all the best that is yet to come. This post gives one much food for thought. Yes it is profound. I try not to focus on my age but I am very conscious of how old I am. The key, for me, to stay very busy and involved with the animals that I love.

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  11. Late reading blog posts, Paul. Belated birthday wishes for Jeannie. Can relate to your aging thoughts. Everyday is nothing more than maintaining & managing whatever comes our way. I’m reaching 80 in two years, and count my blessing every day. I’m still here! Positive attitude helps! 🌷 Christine

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    1. Christine, will pass on your birthday wishes to Jeannie in a few minutes time. Just wanted to let you know how lovely your response was. How inspiring I found that. Staying positive every hour of the day is impossible. But the saying that comes to mind is the one about not letting one’s tears block out the light of the sun. Big hugs from Oregon!

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  12. A belated Birthday wish to Jean Paul, we were in Scotland on holiday when this post came out.. And yes I can relate to many things in this post.. Many thanks for sharing..
    I hope you both had a wonderful day.. 🙂

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