WordSmith: Age has its own artistry
The man emerges from shadow into light. His eye is drawn to something beyond the frame, and within it lingers a quiet melancholy – the kind that comes with the realisation that life’s brightest chapters have already been read. A cigarette hangs from his wizened mouth, a habitual solace. The shirt he wears is not his Sunday best, it is worn every day in every season; for he is a practical man, one who believes that, “What keeps out the cold, keeps out the heat.”
He doesn’t mourn a wife, he never had one. He never heard the patter of tiny feet, no children to keep his name alive. He doesn’t know how old he is; the people who sent him cards to mark his birthday are all gone. Anyway, he doesn’t need to know his age, he can feel it in his bones.
He knew the love of his: mother, sister, a brother, but never the love of another. There was someone once, when his face was smooth and unlined. But he didn’t know the rules of relationships and, when she arranged a date to the dance, he stayed home to nurse a sick calf, instead. She was fierce vexed altogether, “You left me standing like a spurned bride at the altar, you’ll not get another chance, I’m telling ya,” she scolded. When he told his mother, she replied, “Don’t mind her, she’s no addition.” Thereafter, he only ever minded cattle.
Cattle were the centre of his universe. He seldom strayed far from home; indeed, the furthest he ever travelled was the 28 miles to Virginia. The town’s annual agricultural show was the highlight of his year. He’d spend hours studying the prize cattle and following the judging with keen interest. To most people, it was a modest outing; to him, it was an adventure beyond words.
He wasn’t a sickly man, he’d keep going through colds and fevers; cuts and bruises were left to heal without a doctor’s intervention. But one day a spooked cow kicked out and fractured his calf bone. In hospital he saw a black man for the first time in his life. The sight of the medic mesmerised him, and what’s more, he mended him – he never forgot the doctor for that.
But soon after he began to forget things, not because his head was faltering, but because his heart was fracturing. Every memory lead back to someone he’d lost. His memory lanes were all gone, replaced with what the planners called progress. He chose to forget, but sometimes memories crept back. He didn’t know the word ‘grief’ but he knew its stomp; it struck harder than any kick from a cow – and its sting lingered longer.
Now his gaze is distant as he looks upon a land transformed: the meadow that became a motorway, the lanes replaced by housing estates, the fields now carrying flats. His thoughts often turn to heaven, a place where he imagines all things are returned to their former glory; where youth endures, loved ones remain, and souls exist in peace and harmony. But he still loves life, he treats every new day like the gift it is.
“Who is this man?” I hear you ask. Maybe it’s him from over yonder who passed without fanfare. Or him whose death occurred one day, in the market-square. Or the quiet man who passes you by, he may well be. But dear reader let me tell you something – that man is me.
Aged sixteen I drew him without a source picture. He came from my mind, through my pencil to the page with a forceful scribe. He was a composite of all the older single men I observed in my teenage world. Back then I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe the quiet melancholy I saw in them, so one day I sat down and drew them all, encapsulating them in one man.
Now, with the clarity that hindsight brings, I realise I was drawing more than a portrait; I was sketching some aspects of my future self. There is no maudlin self-pity in that observation, only pride in my teenage self – a lad who saw the value in those whom time had pushed to the margins of society, who revered his elders, and who recognised that age has its own artistry.
At such a tender age, I was drawing from an experience I had yet to live. Yet somewhere in the depths of my subconscious, I was sketching my road ahead. I understood, instinctively, that growing older is one of life’s greatest privileges. Looking back, I’m proud the lad I was already knew that truth.
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