"A Xmas Memory"
One of the unknowing effects of living as an elder partial Shut-in is that you don't speak,...much.
I really don't notice either.
I read write go online listen to music, and such, but don't have many actual conversations.
So I began to recite.
This evening I began to read passages from a book by Christopher Isherwood. "Christopher, and his Kind 1929~1939".
About the physical volume. I bought it on December, 10th in the year 1976. I was 26, and a gay activist.
It was inscribed to me by Mr. Isherwood who was by chance at the book store. The Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop.
He was a kindly fragile bright personality. At the time I thought him elderly. I think I may be older than him now.
So I read portions of three chapters aloud. This reminded me of my broadcast times when I would read stories to the listeners in the deep of night. This over many years.
Now I read again. Only now for an audience of one. Still it was as fulfilling tonight as it was for all those years.
Reading aloud is probably good for you. Social isolation puts people at greater risk for Alzheimer's, I've read. I fancy things that stimulate the brain are likely to help prevent that.
ReplyDeleteIsherwood was born in 1904, as I recall - the same year as Salvador Dali - so in December 1976 he would have been 72, probably. I saw him speak in person once, in the early 80s. Relatively few people can talk continuously for two hours and stay interesting and engaging; he was one of them.
P.S. - I've also seen my sister reading aloud to her stuffed elephant, so I'm sure it's perfectly respectable.
I guessed right...more or less.
ReplyDeleteI was 26 in 1976,...69 in 2019. I'm not exactly older than him now
We're basically the same age.
So my stories about Queer New York if I told them to a 26 year old today. These are now the same as Christopher giving that book of his stories of Queer Berlin in the 1930's.
The two were very much alike.
Now I am the old Queer telling the young one.