Lewis Thomas on Aging

From The Fragile Species: “Florida Scott Maxwell, a successful British actress, a scholar, and always a writer, wrote: ‘Age puzzles me.  I thought it was a quite time. My seventies were interesting and serene, but my eighties were passionate. I grow more intense with age. To my own surprise, I burst out in hot conviction. I have to calm down. I am too frail to indulge in moral fervor.’ Living alone in a London flat after the departure of her grandchildren for Australia and nearing her nineties, she wrote: ‘We who are old know that age is more than a disability. It is an intense and varied experience almost beyond our capacity at times but something to be carried high. If it is a long defeat, it is also a victory, meaningful for the initiates of time, if not for those who have come less far.’ She also wrote: ‘When a new disability arrives, I look about me to see if death has come, and I call quietly, ‘Death, is that you? Are you there?’ and so far the disability has answered, ‘Don’t be silly. It’s me.'”