Panel on Aging, 2^nd February 2018

Dagmar Wilhelm @UWE invited me to run a panel on Aging at her conference Vulnerability, Exclusion and Domination at The Watershed. Hazel Winter performed some of her poems, “Menopause”, “My hair is thinning at the front”, and “Facing up to 50” from her book, ‘I’m Scared of the Pig on the City Farm’, and in doing so adding some rock and roll to the panel. Dr Joanna Cross delivered a fascinating talk, looking at the theme from her perspective as Gerontologist. I loved Jo’s observations about ‘extra-normative’ women Christine Keeler and fictional character Edna in Sandford’s play “Edna the Inebriate Woman” (Sandford is known well for authoring ‘Cathy Come Home’ directed by Ken Loach).

In my own investigation (so far) of getting older, of aging, of grappling hormonal changes, navigating a divorce and having a 50th birthday, I’ve found a seam of creativity – I’ve been writing and creating a lot of work, which has been helpful to me. This includes the first draft of a graphic novel, and before that the play Silva Lining’s Care Plan, which is based on real carer diaries and addresses what care, especially of the elderly, really is.

Elderly. Elder… ok so what’s this idea of being an elder… when does that happen? Does initiation into it have to be rocky and tricky?

Should we just ‘think young and keep smiling’ as a woman in a café recommended me last week?

In the words of Sharon Blackie who writes in her book ‘If Women Rose Rooted”

“Becoming elder begins at menopause, an entire journey all of its own: a biological, spiritual and emotional rite of passage whose impact is often underrated. Menopause is not a medical condition, it is an earthquake, shaking us to our deepest foundations, wiping out the edifices we’ve so carefully constructed on what we once imagined to be the solid ground of our life. Menopause hacks us open….

The relinquishing of identification with fertility, youth, and motherhood… entails a time of deep grieving.  Sometimes we clutch to all that is vanishing, unable or unwilling to learn to love our beautiful silver or white hair, to live comfortably with our new wrinkles…. Sometimes we refuse it, postponing the inevitable with hormone therapy and hair dye; It seems like the harshest and loneliest of all lessons, in this society where elderhood is so little valued.”

So I ask the question:

• Is there a safe place to remove masks and be vulnerable enough to talk about these changes? Quick answer: I am in a private Facebook group with old university friends, which does provide this in part.
• My second question – is there a way to reclaim the place of elder in our society?

One idea…

Three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, @peacedirect and Oxford Research Group founder, Scilla Elworthy says – “Post-menopausal energy emerges when we suddenly become invisible… it was incredibly liberating. Your energy becomes your own instead of thinking all the time about who is looking at you, who might desire you.’

She also talks about Wrath. “Wrath is different from rage… it carries an urgent instruction about what needs to happen.”. There can be much power in the wrath of an elder. She talks of how ‘Elderhood is a huge under tapped resource’.

One of the things I did in the panel was invite people to write a letter to their ‘getting older selves’. Quite a few people read their letters out and some were feeling more private, which was fine too. I always love hearing what people have created and what they might have realised about themselves in sessions like this. One UWE lecturer said she would like to use a similar exercise with her students. She called the exercise disruptive – in a positive way. I take that as a big complement.

Thanks to Dagmar, Hazel, Jo, and thanks to our audience, for listening and contributing to the session.

 

Hazel Winter Hazel has spent 30 years playing in guitar bands including Bristol’s Blue Aeroplanes and has released four critically acclaimed solo albums on her own Death Row Bride label. She has been produced by John Parish and Adrian Utley (Portishead), and has played in Utley’s guitar orchestra with conductor Charles Hazelwood. Hazel is going to perform from her first book of poetry, ‘I’m Scared of the Pig on the City Farm’ .

Dr Joanna Cross moved to Somerset in 2000 to look after her mother who had vascular dementia, and studied at the same time after working as a drama teacher in East London. She has a doctorate in Gerontology  (“Truth to the Materiality of Later Life:  the Significance of the Aesthetic for the Support of Older People” 2015). Her current aspiration is to develop new ways of understanding and communicating respect for cultural diversity in later life via the performing arts. She is an equity member and did work for Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. 

Elspeth Penny is a theatre/arts and health practitioner with www2buproductions.org. Recently funded by Arts Council England, she wrote and directed Silva Lining’s Care Plan, a play about carers and dementia, a collaboration with University of Nottingham. She runs many arts and health projects with organisations such as Somerset County Council, Nailsea Town Council (Letter to My Grandchild), schools, WECIL and Life of Breath project www.lifeofbreath.org. She is currently creating an online course exploring identity and change, particularly in that ‘getting older’ space.

Vulnerability, Exclusion and Domination. A conference in conjunction with a performance of “Woman One” a monologue bsed on Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Monologue”With the kind support of Hypatia (the Hypatia Diversity Project Grant) and Social Science in the City, UWE.

Photo by Miguel from Social Science in the City.