The Beatles song "In My Life" from the Rubber Soul album was streaming on TV. I listened to the lyrics:
“There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends, I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all”
I loved the song in my late teens. Now, as I approach my 80s, the song has an even deeper meaning. I asked hubby “Do you think the Beatles foresaw how it would feel to someone in their 80s as opposed to their young audience? He said “I doubt it. They just wrote a song that had lyrics that they thought would sell.”*
In the past few years many of my friends have passed away, some are current friends from our community, and some are friends from the past.
I’ve heard friends in their 90s lament that all their friends have passed. Even though they are surrounded by new friends, they feel somewhat alone. While I consider myself to be a friend to those people, I understand what they are saying, “All of my friends from my era have passed. We don’t share the same memories of our younger years.”
We have special shared memories with friends and others in the same age group; memories from our younger years in the 1960s and 70s. We share the music of our teens, like the Beatles. We share memories of TV shows such as All in the Family, M.A.S.H., Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and the early days of SNL with John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, and Gilda Radner. We share memories of events like the first space landing, the Vietnam War, and the Kennedys. The list goes on and we reminisce about them with our friends.
SNL - John Belushi Samurai Sketch. He actually nicked Buck Henry with his sword.
In our autumn years, we suffer a loss not only of friends but of things that have comforted us throughout the years. Those losses cut deeper than they did when I was in my 20s, 30s, and 40s. Back then, there was so much to look forward to. Losing my favorite store or my favorite tea was just a blip on my radar.
Does that mean I’m set in my ways? Maybe. I tend to cling more strongly to the things that give me comfort and miss them more when they vanish.
Maybe it's that I’ve lost some of that forward-reaching sense of excitement about the future. Last week my blog mentioned technology changes throughout the years. While we lost the older versions of TVs, cars, phones, and photography, but the newer versions that replaced them brought improvements throughout our lives.
But now when I lose my favorite store or my favorite tea, I don’t see a newer, better version. I feel lost. When Pier 1 closed, I lost the excitement of browsing one-of-a-kind items I didn’t see in other stores. While Pier 1 has an online store, I miss the smell of pine and peppermint, the twinkling lights, and the festive atmosphere of the store. And I miss the unusual collection of Christmas ornaments which usually included several animals.**
Octopus, Penguin, and Pig Ornaments from Pier 1
When Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane tea disappeared, nothing seemed to replace it. I tried various versions of peppermint teas but nothing had that special blend of peppermint with muted orange, vanilla, and cinnamon flavors. Even the box with polar bears and candy canes made me smile. The good news is that on a lark I googled it and it has reappeared in online stores.
So why do we become more reflective in our senior years? Partly because we have more time to reflect. Partly because in our younger years we looked forward to a whole lifetime ahead of us. Now we realize how little time is left.
In my senior years, In My Life has a richer meaning. In my teens, it was a nice lyric. Then, I loved the places and friends I had. Over the years I’ve collected memories of more places and friends. Now, I’m experiencing the loss of those many of those places and friends. I remember them fondly. In my life, I loved them all.
Epilogue
John Lennon was shot 43 years ago this week - December 8, 1980, in front of his home The Dakota in New York.
*In My Life: In a 1980 interview, Lennon referred to this song as his "first real major piece of work" because it was the first time he had written about his own life. According to Lennon, the song's origins can be traced to English journalist Kenneth Allsop's remark that Lennon should write songs about his childhood. Afterward, Lennon wrote a long poem reminiscing on those years. The original lyrics were based on a bus route he used to take in Liverpool, naming various sites seen along the way, including Penny Lane and Strawberry Field.
Lennon later thought the original lyrics were "ridiculous", calling it "the most boring sort of 'What I Did on My Holidays Bus Trip' song". He reworked the words and replaced the specific memories with a generalized meditation on his past. Few lines of the original version remained in the finished song. According to Lennon's friend and biographer Peter Shotton, the lines "Some [friends] are dead and some are living/In my life I've loved them all" referred to himself and Stuart Sutcliffe (who died in 1962)." (1)
John Lennon notes from In My Life (from Wikipedia)
** Animal Ornaments. For decades, I’ve had a critter tree, with animal ornaments from A to Z. B is easy: bears, bees, bluebirds, and butterflies. An ornament with a Z animal wasn’t that hard to find: zebra. But even 10 years ago I had a gap in some letters: N, O, and X. Imagine my delight I made my Christmas visit to Pier 1 a few years ago and saw the glass octopus pictured above.
For N, I found a wood cutout of a Newfoundland Dog. Imagine my surprise when I just looked at a list of animals A-Z and saw Nautilus on the list. Duh, I’ve had a Nautilus shell ornament from Florida for years, but never thought of it as an animal ornament.
To complete the collection, I gave up finding a premade ornament with an “X” animal and had a Walgreens ornament made with a picture of an X-ray tetra on it.
References
In My Life, Wikipedia
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