AustLit

'Years ago, I read a book by Douwe Draaisma, a professor of history and psychology at the University of Groningen, called Why Life Speeds Up as You Get Older (CUP, 2004). Draaisma recounts early explorations of this phenomena, including the French philosopher Paul Janet's 1877 proposal of a mathematical relationship between the proportion of life lived and the speed at which it seems to move. By this equation, a ten-year-old child perceives a year's passage as relatively slow because it represents a greater proportion of the total time they've lived (one tenth) compared with the same duration experienced by a fifty-year-old (2 per cent of their life). The philosopher and pioneering American psychologist William James (brother of Henry) echoes this in distinguishing between the novel and exciting experiences of youth —'intricate, multitudinous and long-drawn out' — and those of later life, where `the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units, and the years grow hollow and collapse'. No matter the theory, Draaisma concludes, our experience of time is explained by the operations of consciousness.' (Introduction)
 

'Why did they ask me for an essay about stopping writing? And seventy-seven and I m pretty tired. And lately I think I've copped what the French call 'un coup de vieux : a blow of old. I've got arthritis in my left wrist, my right knee gives twinges, and my left foot sometimes aches and stabs all day. Other days, nothing hurts at all. i don' know what this means. I've read that when people are grieving over the dead, of someone they love they can suffer from 'shooting pains'. My dear friend in France died a few weeks ago. I knew he was going to, he was awfully sick, but when the email came and I saw the words 'died last night  it was like a punch in the chest. I didn't cry, I was numb and I still am, but for whole days I had to keep sighing and sighing as 1 went about my business, I couldn't seem to fill my lungs; and sheets of silvery pain went fleeting through me, moving in flashes up and down my limbs and in and out of my joints and across my lower back. I could only move slowly and I heard myself grunt like an old woman whenever I sat down or stood up. am an old woman. I've never written at home, because when I'm hanging round here I keep thinking up tasks, inventing housework, bargaining with my laziness: if I put on a load of washing, for example, forty minutes later I'll be allowed to get up from the desk and hang it on the line. So I've always rented an office in another suburb, a drab room without Wi-Fi where there's nothing to do.' (Introduction)
 

'How did Australian aged care reach its current nadir? Countless inquiries and reviews have probed this question; postmortem after postmortem has dissected the policy and regulatory failures that have wrought the present abysmal state of affairs; a surfeit of recommendations have been handed down; revised guidelines and principles adopted; advisory committees formed; stakeholders consulted - yet here we are, a prosperous nation with one of the worst aged-care systems in the developed world. And in spite of the scorching spotlight of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety -the final findings of which are due in November 2020 - there is seemingly little political will or vision for change, and no clear road map ahead.' (Introduction) 
 

'Following the death of her elderly father, a close friend of mine recently asked if I would read a poem by Goethe at his funeral. I didn't know the man well. In fact, I had met him only once, seated in my friend's car on a Fitzroy street on a sunny day several years ago. What struck me about him at the time was the mischievous smile he wore and the youthful sparkle in his eyes. I felt honoured to be invited to share in the celebration of his life. Although my friend is near a generation younger than me, we are very close. I have known her since she was a shy but determined young person. She has since become an advocate for the rights of Indigenous people in Australia and the South Pacific. She is thoughtful and kind and fierce whenever the situation requires a `warrior woman'. ' (Introduction)

'My Nan was an active, outgoing, engaged senior citizen. She gardened, kneeling of a foam pad to protect the skin of her knees and her fragile bones, honeycombed with osteoporosis. She read books, the newspaper, did the crosswords. She looked after her neighbours' children for an afternoon here and there, keeping those exuberant little minds occupied while their mothers and fathers worked or shopped or did the frantic tasks that parents squeeze into their tiny slices of child-free time.' (Introduction)

'NY-NY-NY-NY-SH-SH-SH-SH-SH-NY-NY-NY-NY-NY. 
'Hi Mum,' I say. I lean over, kiss her forehead and pull up a chair. She's in a dark-blue nightie and is lying on her side, legs drawn up beneath her like a dying bird, arms held out in front of her, bent at the elbows across her scrawny chest. ' (Introduction)
 

These are angry times. The Earth itself is angry. Flames roar through the land, human tempers flare and the political world is angrier than it has been since the 1960s. A furious sixteen-year -old rails at the United Nations in an incandescent speech built around the refrain, 'How dare you!'' (Introduction)

'With Acknowledgements Of Country and Welcomes to Country becoming a more frequent element of institutional practice in Australia, where next with respect to honouring and integrating the broad spectrum of knowledges that First Nations Elders and Indigenous peoples more generally bring to the work of institutions and organisations? While a Welcome to Country must always be delivered by Elders or traditional owners of the country upon to which the welcome is being extended, an Acknowledgement of Country can be offered by anyone. Western institutions and the individuals working within them must look beyond the most easily received cultural knowledge that is re-created through romanticised or deficit discourses that ignore more that 230 years of colonialism and its ongoing impact on all peoples in Australia.' (Introduction)

'Like falling over, choking in public is always a little embarrassing. When it happens, people feel the need to apologise once the episode is over, as if it were a sign of weakness or social gaucheness instead of an involuntary malfunction.' (Introduction)

'One of the most popular Irish broadcasters and writers of modern times was Nuala O'Faolain. Abruptly, in the middle of an engaged and full life, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Later, when dying, Nuala was interviewed on Raidio Teilifis Eireann, the equivalent of our ABC. Perhaps because of her fame and the popularity of this particular show, the broadcast became a national sensation. It was as if the whole of Ireland listened to this most intense end-of-life conversation, delivered not privately, at a bedside, but into the national ear. There was lightness and laughter, but there was also despair, openness and tearful honesty.' (Introduction)

'I am a child of the Anthropocene, born in 1953. I have lived in a period of history also known as the 'Great Acceleration'. The speed and scale of material change since 1953 is breathtaking, so much so that I sometimes feel I am a passive observer of this change, not a participant. I struggle to contemplate it all, bogged down within a form of magical realism where the uncanny, fantastic, disruptive and improbable weave in and out of what once was predictable phenology, the patterns and rhythms of life.' (Introduction)