I know that the tattoo on my arm says “YES YES YES YES YES,” but right now I’m feeling “NO NO NO NO NO.” In fact, I’ve spent the last several days trying to construct a clever—not too indulgent or discouraging– essay about this current mood. I even tried to conjure an uplifting thesis and haunted the thesaurus for organizing descriptions: passage, renewal, transformation. When the right theme all along was—-malaise.
The condition that led me to leave an assortment of groceries delivered Sunday afternoon still out on my counter top and patronize three fast food businesses in two days. The condition that accounts for why I do the laundry and then proceed to dress myself from the dryer until I can’t. The condition in which I devoted two hours yesterday to watching and listening to my old 70s hip-swiveling idol Tom Jones on YouTube. (PS: His voice is really good and his face is now cherubic–angelic even though—according to Wikipedia—yes another diversion—he screwed more than 250 groupies in a year).
You see what kind of state I’m in. And it’s not helped by the 35 mile-per-hour winds we’re experiencing to be followed by a night and day of rain and snow. (YEEESSS, I KNOW WE NEED THE MOISTURE!!!) Nor by the “check engine” light (always a fickle indicator of the Matrix’s health) that’s been on for a week now. Nor by a letter from the Montana Department of Revenue that swears I didn’t file my 2022 taxes even though they cashed my check last March 8, 2023.
What’s more, there is no logical reason for this bout of disquiet. For god’s sake, I have two shiny new functioning knees that were installed with minimum pain. I was spoiled rotten during my surgical recuperation. Rotten—it’s not an exaggeration. My physical therapist has become a skilled, wise friend. And when I got a bad case of bronchitis in the aftermath, I was again worried over and lavished with attention. And then, and then, the two kidney stones that made an appearance disappeared nicely when blasted by sound waves in a pretty sweet procedure.
I can breathe easily, bend my knees to pick up cat toys, slide in and out of the shower without risking a fall. And despite today’s menacing gloom, I know that we’re only six weeks away from the height of summer.
The boys –Tiger Tiger and Tuxedo—grew closer to me and vice versa. We all but talk with each other. More times than not they find a way to be adjacent. Tuxedo drools when I pet him. Tiger Tiger spends more time than ever snuzzling—cuddled up on my chest burrowing into my neck—nose and claws.
So what’s up?
I wish that I didn’t have to name it, but the answer likely revolves around age. The constellation of too much time to think this winter; too many obits for contemporaries; too many hours waiting in the ophthalmologist’s office on macular degeneration injection day; too many younger friends dealing with life-threatening illnesses. Perhaps my denial of a couple other small physical annoyances—a twinge of carpal tunnel, for instance. Maybe even too many obstacles quietly cleared from my path—no snow shoveling, coffee made for mornings, the trash spirited away.
Likely yet another instance in which my protestations about growing older and dying being an ordinary part of life are more bravado than candor. There have been moments this winter when, perhaps courtesy of good drugs, I felt easy about drifting off. Where sweet quiet, sweet sleep felt so good. Where—for a time—the need for adventure or some gadget from Amazon fell away. Where—so long as more fine books waited for me on Kindle, so long as my supply of Lemon Oreos and Pepperidge Farm Milanos held, so long as I could snuggle under this new generation of impossibly fleecy blankets—I wanted nothing else. Just comfort.
But this malaise tells me something else, too. It isn’t really that I want to let go into eternity. I do love so much of the life I’m living. In fact, these cobalt-chromium knees offer new destinations. Just not an eternal one. That—I think—is the malaise-inducing conundrum. I can do more than I did a year ago, but not roll back the years I’ve lived. Which means, in all honesty, I need to be real-pragmatic-practical. And more than ever live what’s livable.
I know only to start by tackling the obvious chores that are literally strewn around me. Getting to YES by saying yes to some activity and accomplishment. Then maybe stepping away from philosophizing about death. Instead to take it in—really really. To move to a slightly different place—a different plateau. To quit flinching when I say 77. To quit flinching as I look at my comrades waiting for macular degeneration shots. To find a way to savor without squeezing experiences to death—literally. To get my years-old gratitude journal out and put it front and center on my desk.
And then, I think, I better find the existential rubber band that’s held me together for these 77 years. The playing-safe-one. The doing-the-right thing one. The living-on-everything-but-the edge one. And give it up. Give it the hell up.
*****
Shirley Robinett’s the master of delicate, magical collage. Artistry borne of her tender, observant heart and eyes and the earth’s simplest ingredients: recycled paper, feathers, salt, grass, leaves, flowers, seeds, paint. I stumbled into Shirley’s greeting cards—amazingly clear photographs of her original collages. And had purchased enough to receive her emails. So I had the opportunity to catch the sale of a simple, powerful original in which Shirley layered the trunks of aspen with a few branches and in them settled two chickadees.
She titled it “Season of Grace.”
Which seemed destined for my walls. And names what I want this time in my life to be. Both slow-to-emerge spring. And these years. Maybe to give up that existential noose not with violence but to absorb, to lean into, to concentrate on once again this dazzling land that surrounds me, the friends and cats and family who hold me close, the words and stories on which I feed. Song and shelter and loveliness. Grace. ©
