Resolution - Keeping On
So, what are you going to do? You enter your sixties and your outlook is clearer than ever, your wants and needs more simple than ever, and then your hands and feet say, "fuck you!" Your neck feels sore. I count myself lucky in the health department...lazily scanning the room, I look over my left shoulder, partly to stretch it, and there is my mother's altar, her urn - made of barn wood from Missouri. She spent 16 years, there, in St. Louis. Had my brother there, with her second husband, Roger. She'd want me to be grateful for what I have, and I am. I gently knock on the wood. Thanks, mom. Luck in hand, I count my blessings.
Blessing one: Aside from hands and feet, and sometimes lungs, I am healthy. I don't even have to try too hard since my genetics have produced mainly strapping folk who stand upright until the bitter end. An errant pancreas here, a stretched-out heart there, lethal maladies, but so far I've evaded those. Also, the forebearers all smoked as far back as I can remember and I don't. I'm not bragging. I have asthma and hate cigarette smoke, but also think smoking is truly the most elegant thing to watch someone do, next to swan dives and pirouettes. It's not fair the degenerative arthritis of my non-abused thumbs, the neuromas in my sensible shoe-wearing feet. I did not force my body into pointe shoes, nor did I type my brains out for a living, but my hands and feet are totally pissed. I think they are telling me to just quit it, already. But I can still get around relatively easily, and for this I am grateful. This suspensionplasty has helped me appreciate the convenience of two handedness.
Blessing two: Relatively free of irkeddom. I find the humor in the pathos in addition to the lovable. I'm really bad at punishing. I almost always get why you were a dick, and kind of agree with you or at least get why you reacted that way. I confess, dear readers, (please don't be angry) to finding lovableness even in the likes of D. Trump, G. Bush Jr, B. Obama.... even while wanting to impeach, TOSS roughly! and remove from office. When Trump posted his photoshopped head atop the body of Rocky, I felt an actual spark of love for the dude. What the actual hell? Yes, it's crazy. I'd never ever vote for the man, even if I can love his big dumb baby self. Married a stripper, bankrupted many times, doesn't pay his contractors, cheats charities, and gets the evangelical vote. Dayum. Donald is a character in a play. My identity thief of a child, is, too. Censure, avoid, scold, dislike, loathe, envy, detest, all day long. But, is there some space around the feelings? I guess I notice that, and I recommend the freedom found in that space. Sure, I want to get a good person into the White House, and I'll do what I can to make it happen. But it's not my job to hate. And I'm done trying to convince others that he belongs back on reality television and out of the oval office. Unless they ask my opinion. I'm thankful I can get around hate, whenever possible and most of the time. Saying this, I also acknowledge your role may in fact be to hold grudges, to ensure the tribe prospers and survives. It's just not mine.
Blessing three: Appreciation of time and transformation. Death, the final frontier, the pause that refreshes! For me, as a human being, life is about staying in tune with myself. Listening to my body's response to whatever is brought to my attention, or into my presence. As an experiment, I'm going to avoid the urge to stray into others' thinking, others' feelings, as I used to. It was always easy for me to feel the feelings of others and I'd then waste time trying to figure out what others thought, too. Trying to figure out what they needed, what they wanted. Well, that's none of my business. There is no need for that churning mind. Know thyself. I've acknowledged my instrument, it is finally acceptable to me. Now, I wish to use it appropriately. Sighing when a sigh is called forth. Mourning when mourning is true. Pointedness when a point is forthcoming. Joyful when knocked silly by beauty, goodness. Cheered by absurdity. What else do we really want to feel as we spin and spin and spin through time? What are we, really? Parched throats in need of water. Sometimes we are the water. Bones in need of bed, sometimes we're the bed. Head in need of pillow. Heat in need of cooling, cold in need of warmth. Laughter and perceptive insight wrapped in an enigma. Look at your beautiful design. I'm thankful that I've seen as much beauty in this world and in others as I've been granted thus far. I'm not done, either. I'm thankful for all the transformations that have brought me to today. Now, bearing with a body as it ages, keeping on is what I'll do. ~Oldgirl
I’ll be turning 59 before very long into this year, so I’m on the cusp of my sixties. I have a growing intent to square away several things in the year and few months between now and my 60th birthday, but I can be both cowardly and lazy, and definitely, almost infinitely, stubborn. There are some things I’m tasked with where I simply haven’s 100% accepted that that’s my task, so I distract and avoid, in some vague hope that the time of the task will pass, it revealed as unimportant, or even that I simply won’t wake up tomorrow. I’ve at least come to believe (time will inform me if I’m anywhere near the mark of reality) that if one particular set of professional challenges can be met or otherwise simply vanquished, I will at last be in a position to start getting truly important matters in order.
ReplyDeleteWithin the past year my aim has turned toward my next stage of life, and I’m hungry for it, especially as it feels as if I might finally build a life I’ll enjoy. Aside from scattered moments I’m hard pressed to remember when I genuinely enjoyed life. When I sincerely looked forward to the coming day. I’m hungry for that.
Looking over your three blessings:
On the first I count myself fortunate compared to many others I know, who are dealing with dire and implacable conditions. Medical conditions with no realistic hope. I have been trying, at long last, to give myself the necessary care and attention to make the best of what I have. Medical attention as is needed, and simply, finally, giving myself care and maintenance; the bulk of my life I didn’t do any of that. There were always Other Things (and people) demanding the time, attention and energy.
(I have to cut this into at least two pieces, as these comments have an upper bounds of 4,096 characters, I've just learned.)
On the second, it’s such a tangle. I’ve long understood that often what makes for an interesting character in a story, and an interesting story itself, are not things one would sanely wish for in their lives. While I can occasionally flip the narrative and view the likes of Trump, Dubya, Dick Cheney, etc. as characters, their real-world impact has been and continues to be too strong and poisonous. My distancing myself from them as much as possible has been my sanest response, as giving them the energy of my hatred only does me harm, and at best wastes my life.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have some vague sense of the universe having a sort of gestalt intelligence, I see it as a consequence of existence, not a Creator/cause for it. So, I’ve no faith in a Grand (and certainly not benevolent) Design. (Consequently, you can understand that the language you’re using in simply referencing things as “blessings”, is at best slippery for me.) So, no I’m not comfortable with the idea that these horrible people serve some higher purpose. Oh, certainly, I can envision the excesses of their regimes, in cultural hindsight (following the path of destruction backwards), leading to a corrected, saner future, but even the brightest eventual outcome isn’t going to bring me peace concerning these people in their own time. I don’t even want them punished, I’ve never cared for punishment, perhaps more harshly I want them erased, but in such a fashion that the lessons of their horrible lives will keep others from making similar choices. This is all so sour, though, and wastefully vengeful. I try to remember, and keep failing to do so, that the best road to the future is one which allows as many as possible a way back. It’s the same approach I know will be needed across the social and political divide.
The third blessing, well, this is where I’m trying to be. I’m trying to clear away the clutter and genuinely experience life for the first time in… I don’t know how long. To try to remember and reflect on the things that made me feel worst and those that made me feel best, trace each back as best I can to my actions that led to them, and have that be a huge factor in dictating my future actions. Kindnesses towards others have yielded so much more happiness for me than selfish actions have. I’m hoping to be in a place – mentally, spiritually and physically – two years from now where helping make things better is the guiding aspect of my daily life.
It's still ultimately selfish, but it's the brand of selfishness I can happily live with.
Wow, Mike. Thank you for your comments. I will respond to them very soon, and I see that you are doing your best in your life as it is right now and I 100% respect and admire that. There is so much bullshit in life. I agree! And bad people. And terrible occurrences because of them. It's a crazy world. Whatever we find to ameliorate it, outside of self destruction, I would support. A great deal of my outlook is based on Buddhist thought, an I'm a crappy Buddhist. I'll have more to say on these things, after I get my next blog post up. I so appreciate your thoughtful response. I have no idea how I sound until someone replies. It's what helps us most in life, hearing from others. Their thoughts and stories.
ReplyDelete