Yesterday's Conversation by Paul Pines |
by Paul Pines |
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…getting old and yet feeling young in one's heart, is a big concern for fellas like us. -Fred Waitzkin I weighed in today at 158lbs down from 180 I tell you this not only to share my progress but to indicate the way I am experiencing the inescapable physical fact of the years ( cheek-by-jowl literally) with the psychological fact of youthful emotions and longings (I've long been aware of Plato's discussion of being/becoming how timelessness and time co-exist in us but mostly as an interesting idea) I‘m amused and alarmed to recognize that I'll soon be logging my 70th year holding a dance card full of partners I intend to take on to the floor (a new novel two books of essays poems that leap out on toe-shoes) On the other hand time has slowed down in certain ways I can take my time / take time / have learned how to do it (see my youthful impatience as a waste of time rather than the best use of it) I think about the Vineyard sitting in your house on Music Street where minutes drop like honeyed dew in a Wallace Stevens poem (my joy in this opening like petals for a slow handshake with the sun) then look at my appointment calendar the list of clients and classes and say to myself, "You’re in denial. You can't continue to live this way." when the truth is that I can't live in any other. What anchors me these days is the pounds slipping off. This morning I found myself at 158 for the first time in fifteen years and suddenly the 140s seem possible I see myself shrinking not like an old man but slipping back into the young one who ran through Coles Woods the day after his wedding and think, "You may be in denial, but look at you go!" I will once again lift weights put on a glove to field grounders observe overweight guys on the basketball court at the Y and scream, "I can run rings around these suckers!" In the end I want to laugh all the way to where ever it is we're going convinced that lamentation is for the young to be amused by things I can’t control that hold me in their embrace even the terror that springs out of the shadows late at night watching re-runs on TV I’m figuring out how to respond to the menace that is growing old with me Maybe the way I always have. Run! After all I’m lighter now faster not as easily caught... We'll talk more about this tomorrow |
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