JULY 20 ... Yeah.
So, I’m coming out. About my age, that is. I’m 66 today, and why is it that we all want to remain younger than we actually are? I mean, after passing about 28 or 29.
For a long time, I was determined to be just 29. In spirit, at least.
These days, I find myself realizing my limits. And I’m only 66! But that means that in less than 5 years, I will be … 70. Better get my bucket list together, huh?
Actually, my list is very short. I’d like to go back to Britain and France. Some of my family once upon a time lived in Normandy, in the part where they make the Calvados. I loved the light in Provence, not to mention the lavender. I always thought I’d get to Greece. I once rode the Orient Express as far as Yugoslavia, back when there was one.
I’d like to travel this country again and see the parts I haven’t.
I wish I thought I’d teach again, but I think maybe I am getting too old to care how you choose to pluralize ox. Or sister-in-law. Or attorney general. Ya know?
With teaching, the real obstacle for me now is the Internet. Isn’t that ironic? The world’s biggest, most immediate source of information – which admittedly may need to be vetted, but then so did scholarly work back in the Dark Ages – the Web, I say, an obstacle?
It’s the chaos and the unrelenting time consumption … the fact that we need to sleep and it doesn’t … the fact that it will tell you everything-all-at-once … the fact that it’s infinite. And we are not.
So yeah, I can blog. I have a website. Several, in fact. I know how to Google. I can touch type. I love the immediacy. But it’s infinite, and I am not.
I’m mortal.
And I am wondering, so what? So maybe I have another 25 years on the planet? Or 30? And will the last 10 of those be any good? Or the last 20?
Better get my affairs in order. Try to figure out why we are here and what’s left to do. As the years pass – even dwindle – I know these things for sure: I will not be a geologist. Darn. I will not be a rock singer. Darn, but then I can skip a lot of tedious bus tours, not to mention skirting some of the potentially more hazardous drugs. I will never be worth a damn on a sewing machine, and I won’t be a distance swimmer either.
Hmm. I’ve forgotten most of the German I knew. And I probably won’t be mastering Arabic or Chinese. I won’t be a steeplechase rider.
But with luck, I may be a master naturalist. I may play the fiddle better. I may get to see all my friends at least one more time before we all shuffle off to Buffalo.
And that’s what 500 words will get you.
