Times A Changing

 Dear reader,

 I thought of today's poem, when I was talking to my very old and dear school friend Polly, on the telephone last week.  Years ago we used to have such amusing calls often two or three times a week.  We talked of everything.  And we laughed a lot.  As teenagers we discussed boys and their merits or otherwise and of course fashion.  What were we wearing and was it 'cool'.  My mother was not helpful in this regard as her own clothes were very conventional and dull. She would only buy me what she thought was proper for my age.   As a result I borrowed things from Polly, her mother was a little more amenable than mine.

We talked of falling in love and its pitfalls and we talked about sex and what was it going to be like?  In those days we really didn't know much about it, magazines and books weren't to be had then or if there were we didn't see them.   Then we got engaged and married and we talked on.   We still laughed and exchanged gossip as one does.  

We talked of holidays and divorce.  We told of romance on beaches and delicious foreign food in faraway. places.  We spoke of our children and how they were faring.  Boasting a little of course about good things and commiserating about the not so good. We talked of politicians not making a fist of things and of those we admired.  (not many of those).  We talked and it was fun.

But last week I realized in our eighties talking to Polly that our conversation was almost entirely about various maladies.  The arthritis, the sciatica, the constipation, all the current things that occupied our minds.  Less laughter and no gossip or romantic tales to be told.   Frivolity filtered away.  

How dull have I become?

                                                                                *

From Samuel Pepys  13th July  1667 in London

'Mighty hot weather, I lying this night, which I have not done, I believe, since a boy, with only a rug and sheet upon me.'

 

From Dorothy Wordsworth  July 15th 1802 in North Riding

'Arrived very hungry at Rievaulx....at an exquisitely neat farmhouse we got some boiled milk and bread; this strengthened us, and I went down to look at the ruins.   Thrushes were singing, cattle feeding among green-grown hillocks about the ruins.  These hillocks were scattered over the grovelets of wild roses and other shrubs, and covered with wild flowers.   I could have stayed in this solemn quiet spot till evening, without a thought of moving, but William was waiting for me, so in a quarter of an hour I went away.'

 Changing talks and times                                                                              *

The two women were best friends

from the beginning,

from school days

they talked and talked.

At first it was about other girls,

then BOYS

lots of conversations about Boys,

 

they talked of

being in love, having sex,

engagements, the wedding,

then marriage, its ups and downs,

having children.

Lots of laughter.

 

In middle years they talked

about lovers,

fashion and friends and fun,

the odd ache and pain just mentioned.

 

They talked of

holidays and sunny places,

adventures under blue skies,

politics were discussed and the

state of the nation.

Lots of laughter.

 

In old age they talked

of doctors, dentists, opticians,

arthritis, sciatica or constipation

now filling the days.     

Gossip, frivolity and romance

filtered away.

And less laughter.

 

                                                                                             *

 

With very best wishes, Patricia