Remember that song…Wild Thing! You make my heart sing? As we get older that pulse gets tempered. When you’ve ‘been there’ and ‘done that’ for over a long period of time. There aren’t too many ‘wild things’ left to explore or enjoy. Not quite like the initial, youthful discoveries of another. As Italians would say, ‘come prima’…at first.
But what about now, as we age? It just means going quieter, less full blast. Subtle, with more space for silence and absorption of the moment, in the moment. Doesn’t mean any of the past pheromone charged enthusiasm is discounted or disparaged. It’s about accepting that we’re mostly past it. ‘Speak for yourself,’ you might be saying. Okay. I guess that’s all we can ever speak for…our own experience and insight. but hear me out on these couple of thoughts.
Of course, it’s imperative to keep up enthusiasm, pursue new possibilities, keep active and engaged. Still, there is an awful lot of comedy in plays and movies, if not teasing among peers, based on old-guys trying to stretch their salad days past the sell-by date. We must know when to turn down the volume, to go for subtle, slower, more appreciative, with gentle and realistic allowances for the ravages of age and gravity. For example, we must move past the Sports Illustrated cover as the ultimate in female charm and look to personality and caring; mutual comfort and companionship (despite SI throwing a bone to us old dogs by including a spread on Martha Steward…as if! Allow us all to give it a rest!)
Have you ever remarked how toddlers can engage in parallel play and even branch out to playing together? From a distance it’s not always easy to distinguish boys from girls with the gender-neutral clothes and haircuts…they’re just little people doing things together, oblivious to role expectations, not yet partners in the mating dance going on all around them. And sometimes they can play ‘house’ trying on roles, playing ‘grownups.’
Perhaps at the other end of the age spectrum we ‘oldsters’ can give ourselves permission to play ‘youngsters’ and let ourselves simply enjoy one another without all the internal combustion noise and exhaust of the child-bearing years. Like in the story of the elderly couple sharing a gentle kiss. After a pause, the wife asks, “What was that other thing we used to do?”
Ha!…just sayin’.
Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. In, Pinata Belly, and other tales of later love, Novara reminds of the limits and ultimate hope for online dating sites.
