No. 3 The Reality of Aging

 

Physical Therapy has replaced exercise. Meditation has replaced thinking. Staying in daily contact with friends has replaced making art. Doctor’s visits have replaced movie going.

The problem with the once seduction of a book as excitement of living and learning with thoughtless embrace of words, ideas, manifestos is besieged by the unanswerable and absurd, “why?” Yet, when I hear the word clanging around in my brain, I want to rip it out and stomp it into this new ground upon which I walk now, aging. It’s time to forget the whole matter of age otherwise it will pull life straight from under oneself. “Is this important?” “Is this a priority?” “Does this contribute to legacy?” Pondering against the backdrop of dying has become the daily tedium.

Most of life’s banality once a din of necessity is now an endless repetition without end or reason. Washing the dishes, cleaning the oven, taking out the trash, the cat box, sweeping and moping the kitchen, vacuuming, scrubbing the tub, toilet, sink, floor, laundry, making the bed, paying bills, opening the mail, returning phone calls, oil changes, car washes, reading the paper, buying groceries, making meals . . . the incessant chopping, chewing and the brushing of teeth and the flossing or loose them. Then there is sleeping followed by awakening, beginning the repeating of it over and over again. The volume has been turned up on these everyday chores that besiege all humans on the planet and I didn’t mention childcare or sex or dressing or pressing and the terror of hairstyle and let us not forget manicures and pedicures.

Thinking. The problem of the omnipresent mundane taking over like some crazed kudzu is a side effect of spending too much time at home alone. Aha! This aloneness is the problem, not aging. Well, I’m glad I got that figured out and so now to change it, otherwise I am going to go crazy or give up.

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