Purple Can Wait :)

I am sure we are familiar with this charming poem by Jenny Joseph. According to the Scottish Poetry Library:

Voted Britain’s favourite poem, ‘Warning’, written in 1961, is known and loved the world over for its message of old age as a time for indulgence and fun. In the poem’s respectable middle-aged woman, as she imagines herself in old age as a cheeky rebel with outrageous clothes and dotty behaviour, poet Jenny Joseph has created a character whose thoughts have been quoted at conferences and funerals, used to cheer up sick friends and remembered with pleasure by children and adults alike around the world (https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/warning/)

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

For years I've kept a tea towel with the poem in my closet as fair warning to my girls: my day is coming, so be warned!. 

The delicious irony? The age of purple-wearing rebellion keeps receding like a elusive horizon.

In my twenties, I imagined the poem was about fifty-somethings. By my forties, clearly it described women in their sixties. Now, solidly in my sixties myself, I'm absolutely certain it's meant for the eighty-plus.

Because old age? I'm nowhere near it yet, I insist!

I don't feel old. I don't feel elderly. I still wake up wanting to dance and —(well, let's leave some mystery...). When I spot those "elderly" signs in airports, on toilets, in queues and train seats, I glance around wondering who they're for. Certainly not me.  

You see I still power through airports keeping pace with the young ones, always aiming to be first to the immigration queue. I still travel solo because—honestly—isn't that the superior way? No accountability, no delays, no debates about which museum to visit.

I'm still curiouser and curiouser about the world, still actively wanting to learn everything I can get my hands on.

I still love to dance.  I still get entirely too invested in K-drama storylines...

Yes, I've conceded to salt and pepper hair—but that's called style, not surrender. 

Yet society persists in calling me elderly. Senior citizen.  When a younger friend politely refers to me as "Aunty" - or worse yet, Poh-Poh - I cringe and die a little inside...

Perhaps I need to start practicing now—just a little—so when I finally do reach old age somewhere in my nineties, the transition to purple won't be quite so shocking.

Season's greetings all, and Happy New Year.  Wishing all a year of purpose, progress and prosperity...