Am I back to the beginning?
"Ageing tends to refine who the person is. So an intellectual becomes more so, a sensualist becomes more so, an adventurer becomes more so."
Nan Narboe
This is me at almost the beginning of my life - one year old in fact. I think it is the earliest photograph I have of me. There is one of my mother with a baby but without further information it is impossible to know which baby. Besides a baby is pretty much a baby isn't it? Unformed. Who is this person in the photograph though? By one year old there is a personality. And what do I see as I contemplate this photo? Wispy hair, a cheerful face, some intelligence I think, a happy child - which continued all the way until teenage. But then I guess there are very few happy teenagers.
And to prove the point this blurry photograph is me as a teenager - a down period of my life. Am I looking glum or just contemplative?
A few years later and in the photo below I look somewhat more confident, but then I was in love and this photograph was taken by my future husband. I am Identifiably the same person and also a bit contemplative but not quite so anxious.
So is that my essential self - contemplative? Don't think one year old me looked very contemplative, but then one-year olds are too busy aren't they? I do think a lot though - which is not to say the thoughts are worth having. But then probably everyone does.
But just to give the lie to this perhaps simplistic view - these are only photographs. Three moments in time. To demonstrate how photographs lie - here are two very recent photos of me - lots of lines and wrinkles - taken at almost the same time - within seconds of each other in fact. In one I look almost sad, in the other not at all.
Same time, same place, same overall mood (anticipating a wonderful French dinner) but quite a different expression in each. Which is true, which is false?
We do believe in photographs don't we? The camera doesn't lie they say. Maybe these two recent ones just demonstrate the ups and downs that we all encounter not just over a whole life but moment to moment.
"Most lives are a matter of ups and downs rather than of a conclusive plunge into an extreme whether fortunate or unfortunate, and quite a lot of them seem to come to rest not far from where they started, as though the starting point provided a norm, always there to be returned to." Diana Anthill (aged 100) in Ageing: an apprenticeship, edited by Nan Narboe
Both of the quotes which inspired this post, came from a review in the AFR Weekend of a book of essays from notable women from the age of 50 to 100. Both of the quotes sort of say the same thing - that we don't change much really over our lives. This was confirmed by that wonderful TV series on the Dunedin study - whereby all the babies born in one year in Dunedin, New Zealand were studied and followed as they grew - they are now in their forties I think. And one of the most startling conclusions was that those first years make you who you are, with a bit of help from genes and circumstance of course, but basically you are who you were then.
I'm not sure whether that is true though. I remember being quite an adventurous young child - I climbed trees and play gyms, jumped creeks, rode my bike around my suburb on my own, walked to school on my own - but in the teenage years I lost all that and became anxious and somewhat cowardly, and although I have regained the confidence to a certain extent I don't think I am anywhere near as adventurous as I used to be.
Which brings me to food - you were wondering how I would get to it were you not? I find I am returning to my roots - I cook mostly food that is very reminiscent of my childhood and my youth, and the same things over and over again. I do not try out new things much these days. When I first got married I made something different and new every night - a bit pathetic but it was probably the period during which I learnt most about cooking, and indeed really came to love it. I would dip into my few cookbooks and make something new. Now not so much. Maybe I have too many books. I also don't know whether it's because the people I cook for are becoming fussier. I went through that before when my children were young and all through their teenage years. Now it's ageing people getting fussier and more susceptible to food intolerances - or maybe they finally have the courage to say 'I don't like potatoes' - or whatever it is. Is it them or me?
So am I back to the start - to mum's food? Well not really because we have so much more choice - and more money - now. There is no wartime rationing and the world has opened up enormously. So no it's not the same at all. But I do find myself making stews similar to hers, things like shepherd's pie and fish cakes, roast chicken and apple crumble. Not toast and dripping or egg and chips though - we've learnt a lot about healthy eating since then. But I don't make something new every night. Maybe when I've reached my target weight (almost there), I'll try again. Do a lucky dip kind of thing.
And yes my life has been full of ups and downs and will probably continue to be so - indeed every day has its ups and downs doesn't it? To a one year old it was all up - at least that's what it looks like in that picture. And that was in 1944 in the docklands of London and Portsmouth. Dangerous times. One year-old me was oblivious to all of that. That's what a happy home does for you.
