Old Fart in Springtime

I could claim it’s doctor’s orders, or that I made a pact with myself to lay off literary endeavors for a month, or that I’ve been too busy with domestic duties to write, or any other number of lies, but in fact what has happened is that a month has gone by and I have not written much at all. But I have been thinking, in my own shallow way, and I hereby resume with my observations, this one about how old age creeps up on you unawares.

I’ve come to the inescapable conclusion that when I’m old I will probably end up as one of those cowboyish old guys, all gangly and gravelly voiced, wandering around saying “howdy” and nodding his index finger to you as you pass. I’ll wear a preponderance of plaid and shoe myself in regulation white mall walkers.

Spring arrived, and then it didn’t quite pan out, as so often happens in this neck of the woods. So I’ve been doing odd jobs and wearing that old plaid shirt-jacket around, the kind you wear between winter and spring, because the seasons mix for so long. It’s lined with something like kapok, and lumpy as an old life jacket. I’ve been engaged in such archetypal equinoctial old guy activities as fixing the bird feeder, which had fallen victim to the depredation of hordes of marauding squirrels. On my head I wore my old kelly green mesh baseball cap, broad as the brow of Moby Dick himself, and tacky to boot. The sunglasses I wore seemed chic when I bought them, reminiscent, I suppose, of that Peter Fonda Easy Rider era but in fact strangely like one of those geezers from Vernon, Florida, which is to say shopworn and overdone, reminding me now of an old guy who has just been let out of the hospital on a sunny day and must wear the wraparounds to cope with his eye condition.

And so, arriving this way at the top of the stairs, having come in for a moment from outside, (to pee, probably - I can’t remember) I am surprised with my reflection in the mirror. “Who is this old fart?” I ask myself, and see that it is me, is always me, with the silly hat, the big sunglasses, the lumpy plaid jacket and the enormous expanse of upper lip and jowl extending downward like Boris Badenov himself. Or is it Fred Ziffel that I resemble, and visions of domestic vicissitudes - men holding toilet plungers, that sort of thing? How did I end up looking this way, and how do I get out of it before the routine persists and hardens into habit, driving out the dashing dude who lives inside?

The miracle of melancholia - L.A. Times

Here’s a passage which pretty much speaks for itself, and which I’ve quoted at length below, from the L A Times:

“Melancholia, far from error or defect, is an almost miraculous invitation to rise above the contented status quo and imagine untapped possibilities. We need sorrow, constant and robust, to make us human, alive, sensitive to the sweet rhythms of growth and decay, death and life.

This of course does not mean that we should simply wallow in gloom, that we should wantonly cultivate depression. I’m not out to romanticize mental illnesses that can end in madness or suicide.

On the contrary, following Keats and those like him, I’m valorizing a fundamental emotion too frequently avoided in the American scene. I’m offering hope to those millions who feel guilty for being downhearted. I’m saying that it’s more than all right to descend into introspective gloom. In fact, it is crucial, a call to what might be the best portion of ourselves, those depths where the most lasting truths lie.”

Read more here. It’s well worth the time.

Who’s writing this stuff?!

I was in the sauna yesterday and came across a crinkled piece of newspaper which was destined for the fire.  I had a look and discovered that it was open to the obituary page, so I read it.  I happen to be interested in obituaries.  I like to see how people get presented after the bottom line is drawn under their efforts.  After it’s over it’s now a story, because it’s finished, and now it can be told. It has a shape now.  Now the “official version” gets propagated.  Sometimes the deceased has written up his own obit in advance.  Other times it’s a close relative.  This one, I think, was written by the “dear friend” with whom the deceased lived.  I won’t divulge the name on this one, out of some sense of decency, but here is a snippet:

“John would never have been accused of being an easy person.  His personality was complex and often unpredictable; his children now find in themselves some of the qualities they once viewed as difficult and, at times, exasperating.  Fierce loyalty to family, a sense of privacy, pride, a love of the finer things and eccentricity were among these traits.  A tendency to say or do too much was to be expected.”

Poor guy!  He’s not even cold in his grave and already he’s being damned with faint praise and left-handed compliments.  “He was a bastard, but he was our bastard!”

So I’m thinking, maybe I’d better plan on writing my own obit right now, because there is no way I want anybody putting out that “honesty” stuff  when I’m gone.  I want nice things, said in bland ways.  I think I’ll get busy on this right away.

Midwinter Haiku

You pull the snow from

the Solar panels but the

Sun doesn’t come out.

Squirrels!

Thought seriously about trying to write a poem today - heavy on metaphors of life’s distractions, using squirrels as my vehicle of choice, much as Stevie Smith used the Person from Porlock, but discovered yet again that poetry just doesn’t seem to be my metier, and moreover, the metaphor is hopelessly silly.

It’s a beautiful morning, fresh with sun and breeze melting snow after three days of gloom and cold - a taste of what’s to come. I am sitting in bed reading Michalel Horwitz’ “Blue Latitudes” and thinking life is good. Spent literally all day yesterday marking papers and such, getting ready for Monday, so felt I had created a bit of space in my day to indulge a long lie in, reading for pleasure (what a concept!), then looked out to see those marauding squirrels down below, in the lower branches of the trees, cleverly removing the top of the bird feeder in order to pig out, not happy to eat the gleanings off the ground, oh no. I went barefoot out onto the balcony scooping up handfulls of wet snow, and proceeded to scare them off. Settled back in with cold feet and read some more, only to discover the squirrels creeping back into the periphery of my vision, twitching nervously in the branches and biding their time. It was at this point I thought of the splendid metaphor. The poem would have gone something like this:

“At the edges of perception
Hovering impatiently for a time
They wait to be ignored ….”
&etc.

So, I scrapped it, naturally. It occurred to me that squirrels are not a metaphor for life’s obligations. As a matter of fact, squirrels are not metaphors for anything. They are squirrels, and the more I start to invest meaning in them beyond their squirrelly suchness, the more untenable and strained the conceit becomes. Why not mosquitoes, or cats, or anything else which disrupts thought? Or marking papers, for that matter? Marking papers is not a metaphor, man. It’s the real deal.

Cheapskate

I haven’t bought a new tennis racquet in about 20 years, so I figure I’m due a new one. I checked online and found some sweet deals, but was confused by all the technical specs they have nowadays (already I hear the incipient “old fart” voice creeping in), so I asked a colleague to help explain what all the numbers mean. It’s apparently all about stiffness and balance… but he had some better advice. He had just been to MC sports and discovered a “bargain bin” of old racquets, off to the side, all covered in dust and going for a mere $20.00, strings included. These were, according to him, perfectly good racquets, but so last year’s model. Hey, like I care?

Off I went last night to M.C. sports. I looked all over the place for the markdown bin. Couldn’t find it anywhere, so, reluctantly I walked up to a sales assistant, a swarthy young lady who seemed to be assembling a basketball hoop/pole thing, the terminology escapes me.

“Excuse me… uhh… a buddy of mine was in here recently and picked up a good deal on a tennis racquet. He mentioned something about a bargin bin? somewhere off to the side? but uhhh.. I can’t see where it is.” Already I wish I hadn’t spoken to her.

“A bargain bin?” She says the words “bargain bin” as if i have just farted, turning up her nose and sneering at me openly.

“Yeah… he mentioned it.”

“No. I don’t think so. There are some clearance items, but they are all right there with the other ones, up on the wall.”

“Yeah… ok, well thanks,” I mumble, and slink off. Cheapskate.