I want to do more than remember. I wish to be of use.
One must act upon life, not always be acted upon, enter it, not be apart from it. The struggle comes between available energy and intent, between striving after purpose and the delivery of results. We are all in a race with entropy.
Older waitresses have begun to call me “Honey” and give me the side-eye check to measure whether I’m all there. Occasionally, a young man will hold a door for me and call me sir. Guess what passes through my mind.
As one grows older, time seems to accelerate. I have not acquired a fantastic ability to disregard the laws of physics, but the days go lightspeeding by as the end approaches. Memories sometimes avalanche. At 72, I’ve lived through a wealth of experiences that I can associate with an array of images, scents, words, sounds, textures. The past rushes in. The torrent can stagger me.
But I am also a creature with a body, and bodies are happiest in motion, not stasis. So, I’ve taken up gardening. On my knees in the dirt I find I am happy. I lift weights, work at a bookstore. clean, write, read difficult books, take literature courses, walk, lose myself in our dog. I volunteer with the Democratic Party. None of it is enough.
I recognize the absurdity of the personal when everything is burning, but Auden said, “the desires of our hearts [are] as crooked as corkscrews,” so I make no apologies. Yearning is the constant, but the “I” of it all is tiresome just as the “I” of it all is essential. No “I”, no me, just crickets clacketing on a mound of dirt in a graveyard.
I have my Medicare yearly exam coming up. The nurse will take my EKG and measure my blood pressure and heart rate and ask me some questions. She’ll tell me I’m doing well. The unsaid end of the sentence “is for my age.” Then I’ll go to Quest and get half a dozen vials of blood taken and piss in a jar. I have no complaints about any of this. I’m lucky to have this service. But the subversive part of me will be inwardly smiling because I know what’s coming one of these fine mornings (and they are all fine mornings). The newly arrived pain, the lump, the blackout … or the mishandled air conditioner plummeting 20 floors directly onto me as if I had suddenly become Wile E Coyote. I get it. I do, and I haven’t been afraid of this since my heart almost exploded. I just want more time first, more dogs, more Italy, more books, more wife, more work, more light. Now, isn’t that reasonable?
