Birth Anniversary Number 70
My fingers are rapidly twisting, now. The arthritis seems to be taking a faster pace, moving the smaller bones around. A combination of twisty fingers and crepe paper skin make me nearly unrecognizable to myself. Sigh. The joint problems have been with me a while and aren’t that big a deal, really. I am used to the stiffness, pain. The other signs of passing time are with me, too. For example, my hair has been grey so long that I don’t remember it brown anymore. Old photos are always a bit of shock to me. “Who is that guy?” The changes don’t deeply concern me. I am not saddened or chagrined or regretful or bitter at advancing age. I am not vain. I am not focused on believing in my own beauty. I am not demanding the mirror respond to my liking. I am just not ready to fully embrace today.
I was having fun, after all. I did not know that, then. I know that now. Being young was very nice, regardless the times and circumstances, regardless the anxieties, the poor choices, the obstinacy. It was good. Looking back, I see that. Yes, I am as any other human – I don’t fully realize and value the present. And, like every other lucky human, I have experienced time enough to look back and say, “Hey, you should have kept on and followed the dream. It was just around the corner and you were feeling fine!” There are many things I might have done, but I don’t regret that. I am become aware, at this late date, how none of that matters a whit. First, it is far too late to turn back, second, we can’t turn back. We are locked in this thing, what ever it may be or become. “We are Stardust …billion year old carbon….” and just like Joni Mitchell, we will end in a cycle of decay, to spin down slowly and fade away or explode one day. All of our work and building comes to nothing. We are (most of us) pre-grandmas and pre-grandpas with the rocking chair still in it’s shipping container.
Personally, I have begun tearing at the rocking chair packaging, cursing the little plastic pellets that stick to every bloody thing. I am not ready to set the thing up just yet, but I have an idea how it goes together. I can feel it in my joints.
Robert On The Air 