REMEMBRANCES
Saturday Nov. 9, 2013
Maybe there is a stage, between middle-age and old-age.
Lets call it WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?
My perspective broadens instead of my belly, when appreciation of people and events becomes clearer, my judgment less rigid, my heart more flexible, my knees bend instead of jerk, my mind – not minding so much, about some things, my belly on fire again.
When we are young so many choices – careers, businesses, fields of education and work, battles we want to win, scraps we were eager to scrap in – seemed like good ideas at the time but later on we wonder, what were we thinking?
We were young, invincible – nothing would get in our way, nothing would stop us and we were so very good at things we were so very good at. I worked and played like there was no tomorrow without regard to those for whom there was no tomorrow, or no way to see tomorrow.
But now many of us are in WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? mode, can see all of our history and mystery so differently. Not regret, but wishing at moments that someone would actually invent a time machine so we could go back, edit our story, change outcome of events, re-route some decisions and un-make so many mistakes.
Recollection time.
Remember.
Think back.
Way back.
Look up. Look way up.
Warm up.
Stretch first.
Stretch some more (groan).
Other than those early milestones – when we could not wait to be 6 or 13 or 18 or 21 because it seemed some measurement of arrival – looking back, melancholy recollection of a time when I lacked wisdom to say ‘what’s the hurry?’
Making a mix, or a mess, piece of trash or work of art – requires more caring than daring, more passion than training, more inspiration than perspiration – we do it because we can, whether we are an old craftsman/artisan chiseling stone, a brash new voice or empowered wizard using latest gee-gaw ‘ting to produce in an instant what people used to train, work and explain their whole lives to do can now be done with point-click precision, seismic shift in facts/pace and latest gee-wow amazement . . . and the world will be better for this . . . but when we get weary, like Quixote, we can return from our journeys and uphill battles in life to rest our battered carcasses. Or, we can think of it as the first intermission in a 3-period game . . . with possibility of overtime. Overtime, wow, who knew?
Take it slow.
Take it easy.
Stretch.
Not like you have all the time in the world, because you don’t.
But because savouring moments when things that didn’t work finally do, when skills we thought we’d lost suddenly re-appear, then decisions we worried about prove themselves to have been more-right than we feared they might have been. Maybe we actually stretched in our understanding, maybe we’ve developed something called wisdom, maybe we’ve seen enough of life to actually get its meaning – then slap our palm against our forehead and exclaim, when did that happen?
Sitting at my keyboard this morning I must take a moment to think, thank and revere those who played a role in getting me from way back there . . . to right here. People who influence us have such a great role in who we become. We often credit parents, grandparents, mentors, spouses, teachers, bosses – and they all deserve their share of credit (sometimes blame) for what they helped to create. But most of them had no idea, no inkling, not one sweet clue that they were influencing what you would think, or what you would do, to the degree that they do.
But what about those other influences – brief vignettes squirreled away in our mind crevices – only to surface when triggered by an old joke we hear, a news flash about ‘happened on this date in history’, and we actually remember. We remember where we were, how we felt and who we were with. It might have been with kids on the corner, walking home from school with friends or from the dance alone. It might have been staring out a window from a classroom, an airplane or a resort condo. It might be of an image formed be a moment, by something someone said or the bizarre thing they did in front of us all. We lived this life, we saw these moments – and we wondered how we could have lived our life, to become our unique-snowflake of a person without them. When did it happen?
Life is neither bleak or unforgiving – creaky joints can’t stop joy, groaning bodies processing fibre and cholesterol in wrong proportions can be right-sized, temperament becomes holding back losing temper and explaining what I meant. Remembering Friday night promises and Saturday afternoon vows, remembering holding fresh-born babes and watching them launch on journeys across their own equators and such boundaries they set. Remembering, in whose footsteps we walk, whose maps we follow, whose principles and clichés we use every day. When did it happen?
Which is not to say I’ve developed a happier disposition to greet telemarketers or survey-takers when they call. I don’t know how you measure fine old cheeses – that moment when they move from immature, to ripened and mature, but the cheese probably wonders, when did that happen?
Everything in life is out of reach until we stretch for it. Every joy is what it is, but pleasure seems to be doubled when we did some extraordinary effort to achieve it. And we can look back at all the opportunities seized, all the adventures abandoned wondering how we possibly got to here – right here, right now – when we’ve worked so hard at heading off in so many other directions . . . I have to ask, when did it happen?
Long sought opportunities start to look like long-shot opportunities and rather than leaping at them like a coiled rattler ready to strike, a creaky shoulder and a wonky ankle are just waking up and I think, ‘now, not so fast’. When did it happen?
We notice when we cross 13, 16, 18, 21, 25, 30, 40, 50 … etc. – at first these are rights of passage, then milestones, fading memories – but we don’t remember when we crossed from being young to being old. When did it happen?
I’m sure when people cross the equator or international date line they are mindful of the crossing – record it or at least are conscious of it. Or maybe they were asleep on the flight and woke or landed, only to wonder, when did it happen?
It might have been this week, it might have been years ago – I’m not sure really, but I crossed from being one kind of person to being another. There was a boundary, perhaps only on a mind-map, but I know I crossed over it. Maybe it was the overdue realization that I am a grownup, maybe the realization I can retain childlike zeal, middle aged wholeness and still not stave off the physical deterioration of aging . . . but still, I ask, when did it happen?
Time to go out and get some rejuvenation, some exercise, behave like a teenager, frolic like a child . . .
But stretch first.
Whether we feel that new lease on life, or that we are living on borrowed time – lets not worry about paying back. Arthritis and bulges where thin used to live are not for paying back or ridding ourselves of the evidence how many boundaries we’ve crossed, or ventures we’ve failed at – but reminders, proof, evidence and certification that it did happen!
I’m reminded, and inspired by, Isla. She crawled, then walked, then race-walked – she doesn’t like to sit still, she’s always in a hurry to learn, to try the next new thing. I don’t expect anyone of a certain age to not agree we can learn so much and be inspired so greatly by our children and our grandchildren. Except them I suppose, but they are so busy being in a hurry to live.
May we never forget to live fully the life we get to have.
Because so many never got that chance.
Lest we forget . . .
Mark Kolke
291,388
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -8C / 17F, empty sky, clear in pre-sunrise mode, calm, stray joggers in the distance, traffic silent, Gusta firing off in all directions with so much confusion it was like she was sniffing after a dog convention had just left town. Invigorating walk, brain busy, days-ahead rolling in my head, writing … working … dreaming ahead of myself, without regard for every consequence with daring-do, who knew this was such an exciting time!
Comments Received:
Good luck! You'll do great! , AG, Playa del Carmen, Mex.
Cheers Mark… have a good weekend, RL, Calgary, AB
