Distant Species

May 10 2020

The overheated air

smelled of old bodies

boiled peas

musty carpets and drapes.

The unmistakable scent

from somewhere down the hall

of someone needing to be changed.

Her small apartment

was cleverly compact,

like a cabin

on an ocean-going yacht.

Neat, and well-appointed,

but also cramped and claustrophobic.

She greeted me graciously

but I could see how frail she was,

from a white nimbus of frizzy hair

to the delicate bones

and parchment skin

of her bird-like hands.

Among all the tchotchkes crowding the shelves

and the photos lining the walls

a shot of her younger self

seemed to radiate light,

the glowing face

and long tanned legs

and strong athletic body,

the kind of tightly curled hair

you see on old movie starlets.

It's as if we were always this age.

Even to ourselves,

looking back

at who we were

as if looking at somebody else.

With whom we were acquainted, once

but don't remember all that well.

Odd, then

how when we were young

we also felt that way;

in our default state

where we'd naturally remain,

fixed

in the prime of life.

Like the girl in the picture;

who surely felt invincible,

and that the old

were of some other species

only distantly related to hers.

Change happens slowly

time seems hypothetical.

So if it wasn't for this photo

who would ever know

the old lady hadn't been born this way.

That she still contained

that young immortal.

Is as easy to anger

and just as quick to forgive.

Has the same girlish laugh

and lopsided smile

and mischievous glint in her eye.

A few things came together to inform this piece.

I was channel surfing the night before, and the iconic movie The Big Chill came on. (“Iconic” is an over-used word, and over-use has diluted its meaning. But I think, in this case, it actually applies.) It dates from 1983, so I was fascinated to see the younger versions of such actors as Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, and William Hurt. Who are all still present on our screens, making the comparison that much more dramatic.

Before sitting down to write, I was listening to a recent podcast of Fresh Air (the NPR program), in which Terri Gross interviews the comedian, musician, and author Steve Martin. In this vintage episode from 2008, he read from his book Born Standing Up, and in the selected passage he talks about reflecting back on his younger self – the version who was a massive break-out star in the late 70s – as if looking at a completely different person: as if instead of a memoir, he had written a biography.

And finally, earlier this evening, I was talking with a family member about my elderly mother being moved from independent living to the memory unit in her senior's residence. I thought of the unavoidable disorientation of change, exacerbated by her diminished capacity. And I pictured her small self-contained unit: the apartment itself, along with all the tchotchkes and personal effects that fill it and would also need to be moved in order to maintain a reassuring sense of familiarity.

So you can see how, in whatever alchemy my brain gets up to, the themes of age, our perception of time, and the idea of competing versions of ourselves somehow came together to create this poem.