Elders of the Tribe of Blog

In my meanderings of late I have met with a couple of these, of whom I'm sure there are many, and very pleased I have been to do so.

Granny J, a retired journalist living in Prescott, SW Mountains, US, was kind enough to drop by here and leave a comment, so I returned the call at hers, Walking Prescott. She doesn't specify her age ( though she mentions her 103 year old mother who is buying her a new camera ), but describes herself as 'well into her Social Security years'. She is sharp, cultured and formidable, and observant of the quaint and quirky detail of life around her, and she comments that photography has greatly sharpened up her perceptions of the world around her, which really struck a chord with me. She says -' it is plain fun to share what I see with others'. She is also not someone with whom one can get away with sloppy language; she rejects the use of the term 'meme' in its blogging usage, and gives chapter and verse as to why. ( I am ashamed to say I was totally ignorant of the origin of the word).

Judith hails from Hertfordshire, the county of my birth, and is in her 80th year. She is thoughtful, frank, and sometimes uproarious, with huge experience and lust for life. Her blog is called 'NOT DEAD YET! the diary of an oldie who refuses to go quietly', which title rather caught my eye, and she describes it as '... about finding out who I am now, even if it's a different person each day... A workshop, where I am creative linguistically, visually, conceptually - It is the breath of life to me now.' Heady stuff.

I don't want to patronise them ( I wouldn't dare!) with the 'aren't they marvellous for their age' line, but I do find it both affirming and inspiring that older people such as Judith and Granny J are doing this too, and with such evident commitment and enthusiasm. First because my perception of ageing, principally with my mother, has been too often of a sense of disengagement from life, a defeat at the hands of loss and grief and failing strength, and with that depression and a generalised reproach of the world around one (and one's offspring in particular in my mother's case...). But these blogging elders are not beaten; they have found new forms of expression and creativity that have opened up new avenues of possibility for them, and they're getting on and doing it.

Secondly, I am accustomed to a pretty blank and puzzled response from many of my immediate friends and acquaintances - not all of whom are any older than I - if it is mentioned that I have a blog; 'what for? how do you find the time? that can't be worth getting up early for! what have you got to write about?' etc etc, words to that effect. OK, fair enough, each to their own, I didn't get it till I got it, and in any case I'm perhaps a little more comfortable if this is kept at one remove. But there is sometimes an implication in this reaction that time spent on the computer is somehow degenerate, a symptom of a world going to hell and leaving ordinary, old-fashioned human beings behind, obsolete,while the obese, bog-eyed, dehumanised denizens of the new order are lost to the real world in a virtual limbo. There may, of course be some grounds for this fear...

Somehow though, I find it reassures me as to the validity of what I'm doing here to know that I'm in the company of people that much older than me who, rather than being left feeling obsolete, are fearlessly - nay joyfully - taking what's on offer, and doing pretty well on it.