Eight Things That Still Make Me Feel Wonder at 72

My grandson at the lights at Kew 2024

‘By late Old English as ‘cause of perplexity, a conundrum.’ In Middle English it also came to mean the emotion of amazement or reverential awe excited by novelty or something extraordinary and not well understood (late 13c). By mid-14c. as ‘spectacle’.

Wonder is such dazzling word. The o is the most important sound in there for me. It opens up the meaning, it allows the awe in there. It introduces the idea of many worlds within. And then there’s the pleasing sound association with wander, at least, from a allowing-things-to-happen point of view. The wanderer has more time for wonder…

There is this idea – and it is very understandable – that we become jaded as we get older. That just as it’s harder (or should I say even harder) to have orgasm, it’s harder to experience the as- if-new. That’s why toddlers are the doyens of wonder. I have a grandson and he does wonder with the ease of a novice! In this case, the novices have all the advantages. The lack of barriers that age might bring.

Santi – who is 20 months old – can be seen with in an almost perpetual wonder state. His lips are rounded into an ooh. The o again. It’s funny and wonderful. Literally. The lights at Kew at Xmas. A new noise. The sight of a ‘wawa’ which can be a dog or a cat. Running at full tilt. A new Colombian tune. His mother coming into the room. The taste of mango.

And I am very grateful that I still feel wonder at the age of 72. Part of it – I think – comes from the fact that I am at heart – even though I’ve lived in the city for over 50 years – a Yorkshire village girl. I grew up in a village near Ilkley in West Yorkshire, the city was a subject of thrilldom. For so many reasons. Because of the many different kinds of people (not saying diversity), the forbidden bits, the complexity, the sinners, the saints, the non-stop noise.

I retain my Yorkshire village wonder at the city and I let it show in these cases.

1. There is a huge old cherry tree in my road in London that is magnificent. It’s not any old cherry tree. It has profuse powder pink puffs of flowers that hang over the road. Only yesterday, myself and another older woman stopped beneath it and expressed our awe at the long branches that reach out over the pavement. It’s a cherry blossom room. And now there’s a pink carpet too. Oh and I try to avoid my dread of the departure, the imminent departure via rain or wind.

2. Those white-painted houses down Elgin Avenue off Portobello Rd in London. Nineteenth century with nobs. The grandeur is evident. And I still gasp in wonder at these noble exteriors on a blue-skyed day. They represent everything that is not suburban to me. I lived around there for 10 years in the 80s and 90s so there is that special thing too.

3. The first Punchdrunk show I saw at Battersea Arts Centre - The Mask of Red Death - with all the mysterious rooms and those scents of Victoriana perfectly re-captured. It couldn’t be Proustian for me because I didn’t live in that era, funnily enough. But they did send me backwards in time. And the strangeness was captivating. I didn’t know what was going on and the opportunity to find a voyage alone within it all was wondrous. Like hitchhiking a story. And I still go to Punchdrunk shows for these feelings… to be able to marvel.

Womad 2024 - my son and me

4. The mother – only son bond. My son is 38 and there have been different processes of letting go over the years. Now I have let him go into partnership and parenthood. I am proud that he has stepped up to those roles. And my wonder arrives again when I suddenly feel the depth of the bond between us. At that moment – as happened at Easter – when I feel our mutual fascination with the history of the lifting stone that stands outside Criccieth Memorial Hall. I relish our mutual relish of all sorts of different topics. And it really does fill me with wonder.

5. The naked human body. Yes, I know we are supposed to dread our ageing bodies. But naked human bodies make me feel humble and in awe. I wish we had the privilege of seeing them more in all their different shapes and sizes. There’s so much softness and so much strength therein. Gratitude and wonder for the human body that I have at the age of 72. Undulations are beautiful. Muscles are beautiful. Breasts, bottoms, under our arms, our toes, our calves… not to mention vulvas and penises, yonis and lingams.

6. Compost – the other week, I was intending to mulch my seedlings so I broke into the compost bin. OMG, it was an out of body experience. Like a feast of darkness. The velvetiness. A corn on the cob taken over by worms. So many worms. The wetness. My heart leapt, my eyes opened extra wide - I was in the presence of my home-made compost. A year’s worth of peelings, mown grass, weeds, waste vegetables and they had all mushed together into this deliciousness. I was ecstatic.

Her exhibition at the Serpentine 1999

7. Artworks and the titles of Louise Bourgeois. Particularly her show at the Serpentine in 1999 where I became aware of her. She was already 88. She created rooms of clothes from her childhood. So evocative. And the titles are always so fascinating. Cells and Poles. Maman was the Spider. ‘The exhibition also included Cells and Poles in which the artist used as a material her own clothes dating back to her childhood. Delicate ivory underslips, a blush-pink frocks, a revealing black, sequined cocktail dress, are suspended on metal hooks or hung on bones like ghostly spirits. In its entirety, the exhibition picked up the thread of the artist’s memories and explored her engagement with eroticism now subtly combined with the subject of death.’

8. Patti Smith in concert. The last time I saw her was in 2017 and she was 70 and her voice was more powerful than it was in 1977 when I saw her at Hammersmith Odeon as it was then. But it’s not just her voice, it’s her way of attacking those songs from Gloria to Horses – they make my spine tingle. Go Patti go…And she is still going at 78. I am in awe.