This entry is part of the On Display December Collaboration: Aging On Display.
Life is not a "brief candle." It is a splendid torch that I want to make burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
I have never had a problem with aging, and I doubt I ever will. Aging is a journey of self-knowledge. I think the things that bother most people about aging are death and disability. The first is (to quote from The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer) "the one thing in this world you can be sure of! No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter anything - sooner or later - it's going to happen. You're going to die. And that's a relief if you think about it. I should say if you think clearly about it."
Being in touch with my mortality is a focusing exercise. It's something I keep in mind every day. The way I figure it, I've had between twelve and fifteen billion years to rest up. I now have what I hope will be one hundred years to do everything I've ever wanted to do. Then an eternity to rest. One hundred years to burn brightly.
With this focus, all the big stuff in life is relatively simple to work out. I know what I want to do in my life and every day I'm working to get it all done. And that's what matters.
Death aside, there's still disability. If I do live to be one hundred, almost certainly I'll lose some functionality. I guess I see three kinds of disability: losing mobility, losing my mind and pain. All are bad, with pain the worst, but what can I do except adapt and survive? I admit to a certain amount of monitoring for disability. I wonder about the day I'll be sitting in the doctor's office, hearing about whatever challenge to life it will be. I guess I anticipate that day because that's the day when I'll need to muster myself for the battle of my life. Literally.
So with these two concerns considered, what's left? As I've mentioned before, the title of this journal comes from a song in the musical Sunday in the Park with George. Another song in that show posits that we leave two things behind us in this world: children and art. I'd like to leave a little of both. The Bump is due to arrive in February, so that's one half.
As for art, I have (like all aspiring artists) great hopes and even a few good ideas. The challenge for me is to persist. What I hope to achieve is now in progress but will take perhaps a decade to complete. Every day I am working in some way toward finishing this first work, and like life the journey is itself the reward.
A warmer, muggier day, but still in the fifties. By this evening it started to drizzle. Got to get the logs inside so we can have a fire tomorrow!
reading: 1 Maccabees
purchased: Wired Style: Principles of Usage in the Digital Age
© 1998 Kevin J.T. Creamer