I am feeling rather sensitive on the aging front since a friend confided that her daughter is about to study the 1980s as part of her Modern History course. Initial reaction was that friend’s non-existent hearing aid must be playing up again – age does that to one presumably, but when I quizzed the Drama Queens it turned out that by some malignant slight of hand, before I even reach the age of 50, I and my generation have metamorphosed into historical icons. The worst is that any claims not to remember the 80s would have to be on grounds of over indulgence in a variety of substances because as yet another shocked survivor of the decade pointed out, we were all old enough to vote during at least part of the 80s.
Close questioning of the Drama Queens reveals it’s not just the history curriculum that is putting the 80s under the spotlight. Apparently DQ2 has done a textiles project entitled “Fashion in the 80s” – an oxymoron if I ever heard one. I reacted rather badly to this announcement – mainly because I thought she said it was about “Fat people in the 80s” which seemed a rather crushing inditement of the effects of bad perms and pixie boots.
Whilst I have been stuck in this aging vortex – the geriatric groundhog day as it were, I have decided chrysanthemums are a very under rated flower, and yes I did have to consult a dictionary on the spelling, chrysanthemum not being a word one comes across very often.
I bought this fabulous bunch 10 days ago – and here they are still blooming beautifully, giving me complete pleasure and looking not a whit a day older than when I first put them in the vase – perhaps I should be adding a “Please God let me age like a white chrysanthemum” to my daily prayers, but then again a more worthy aspiration might be "Please God let me write with a tenth of Nora Ephron's fizz and humour" because if you think about it 'When Harry met Sally' came out in 1989 and people are still laughing about it today, and that rather than an unlined neck is true immortality.
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