elephants

AR health warning: don’t read this if you don’t do the “d” word.

Elephants  are mysterious in their size, intelligence and consoling eye lashes ie not many but long.  The elephants I refer to however are the ones we can’t see, the elephants in the room.  Generally we refer to “the elephant (singular)” but I think they are now reaching herd proportions.

The Australian Rachel Ward was the star of a long ago wildly successful TV romance between a priest and a beautiful young woman who “did it”.  She didn’t like bad press and removed herself from acting to a long marriage, children and a cattle ranch up country, all of which makes you want to cheer but for which she gets no credit at all.. 

Recently she posted a happy snap of herself,

greying hair and specs, on one or other internet platform and was immediately attacked for having let herself go.  If  men were disappointed in the dream made(ageing) flesh, women were even more outspoken.  Their criticism could be summed up as “how dare you be happy and look like hell ?” – the latter untrue.  She looked like a woman who got up and did, in the heat, and liked her life.

A woman came almost at me in the middle of London, 10 years ago, who exclaimed my name.  “You look wonderful” she said “- But I suppose you’ve had everything done ?”    To which I replied “Yes – by heaven, 72 years ago .”    You can make of the best of your older self without all that stuff in your face and off your bottom, with a degree of honesty and imagination which will leave you of course looking older (you are !) but still good.  Hooray for Rachel Ward.

The American saying is “three sure things in life – birth, death and taxes.”   And if the actress Claire Foy -much praised for The Crown (Netflix)

– can talk about childhood  and later illness and say that she never expected to live long, hooray for her.  The idea of eternal life is a spiritual promise, not a physical reality.   Age withers us in different ways  but we do die.

Death has its own meaning  – different for different people.  It differs culturally as  well as personally – but however , it comes.  We end.   

Other elephants include Health Minister Wes Streeting.   We hear a lot about Wes Streeting’s ambition  but I wish his stylist would point out to him that a man who wears his collars as tight as that is about to explode – which is NOT a recommendation for power.

I am not going to give  the latest conceited refugee from the Conservative Party to Reform the name check he seeks.  But I heard Kemi Badenoch earlier in the week as well as in summing up her action as leader in this matter and both times remarked how restful and cheering it was to hear a politician answer a  question.  

It is worth remembering that she trained as and worked as an engineer

which makes her rare among politicians in that many of us only grow up to the taking of responsibility  through work.

I could give you a list of other elephant words which we cease to read or hear much because they are currently considered  judgmental.  I thought (among other things) that growing up  (which I longed for) was  about forming opinion,  making choices, and thus the assumption of responsibility.   Does the herd in the room consider growing up? Or has this been supplanted by the denial of death and/or the quest   for eternal youth?

I have seen one or two who have managed to  continue to look remarkably  youthful I but I have seen  many others who range from  frankly silly to  much repaired and run down garden sheds

Life isn’t only about how you look – it’s how you are.   And life was never about  only what you say – it was the way you say it.   I have no idea what  the present government is or isn’t doing for me or us.  They don’t communicate . I don’t want  prolonged flannel. I would prefer a few sentence designed to  communicate rather than obfuscate (Elizabeth I loved that word when it was new)

Not pain. Not avoidance and nothing to do with death.  Yet.