March 3, 2021
Today is one of the most delicious of days. A warm sun, a hesitant breeze…disappearing snow. Carl Sandburg wrote of the snow hiding in the bushes? I believe. Sadly, I don’t remember enough of the poem to find it anywhere for a re-read.
Yes, the snow has receded to that point of lurking at the edges. Season is leaning heavily toward spring though that is still a piece down the road. Without much regard to when or where spring is, I woke up during my little drive to get a tea and bagel. On my way, I crossed paths with a most desireable young man. Ah, spring! He was so fresh and new looking, I could not help but enjoy the view. It is not that I was imagining a more intimate setting, not at all. I am an old man, we haven’t met… the spider passes the fly on the way to somewhere else. More was not necessary or perhaps, even welcomed. I had pleasure enough from admiring the work of art. Just that. Something beautiful stepped into my field of vision and I enjoyed that immensely. Simple as any true pleasure.
There are so many pleasures drawn from living. Which to choose? I think that, while aging, the task is not to forget them, individually or allow them to diminish each other. It’s also probably not best to compare them in any way to any thing other than: what they are.
The simpler the pleasure, the better to understand and endure life. The simple pleasures are here every day. They vary from one point of view to another but they exist in every day. On that ‘worst day of your life’, there was still a pleasure from something. A pleasure existing at the edges, just under the bush. Perhaps, you really enjoy the colour blue and the day Grandma died, the sky was a most outrageous, rich blue? If you had allowed yourself to step into that moment’s relief, that pleasure…what then of the horrible day? I had a brief experience with my dear mother in law, near the end of her life, that showed me the value of simple pleasure. Her stroke had virtually incapacitated her and she could only communicate with a sparkle in her eye. I held a phone to her ear and played her a recording of Andre Rieu…I could see in the sparkle how delicious it was for her. Simple. Easy.
From one day to next or one pleasure to next, comparison, evaluations are such a waste of time. Sometimes, the pleasure has receded a bit under the bushes but it is still there. That pleasure may diminish, dissipate, the way fog does but another pleasure is somewhere in the day. Maybe not the sort of pleasure that was felt before…but pleasure the same.
I remember being young on a glorious about to be spring day. So nice. All muscles worked, no aches, no pains, vigor enough to last. I stepped out along my way with energy, sensuality. An old man may have passed by as I was walking and enjoyed the view. I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. Wow. Wasn’t it grand! Just that. Grand and for a moment.
Yes, it was grand but grand in it’s own way. It can be difficult to feel exhilarated by simple pleasures, now and I ignored them then. I had, as most young folk do, a wealth of pleasures, sorted through them as if picking one out to wear on a beautiful day. I am ashamed, sort of, to admit I never saw them…the pleasures…the simple ones, for what they were. Simple pleasures were obscured by anticipation, appetite, expectation of more or better ones. After a while, gradually, the simple pleasures came fewer between and became easier to see. Now, here I am. I am in this place where my hip hurts, my fingers and other joints are in surrender to arthritis, I am fat, disheveled, walking slow into old age. But…I have today, yet another day of living and being ambulatory. I also had, today, the most wonderful view of a smooth, tight behind in very tight jeans. Haha.
P.S., according to the World Health Organization, I am middle – aged at 70, not old until I am 80. Well, that’s good news, then!
Robert On The Air 