I’ve got a piece I want to share and have been thinking about it for at least a week. Actually, it has been on my mind for over two years, and probably longer. It has to do with awkwardly adjusting to my age, which instantly reminds me of the early side of adolescence, the only other time in my life that comes close to touching this one.
I have to briefly tell you about my motorcycle ride today before I crawl back into my head. I pretty much rode by myself, unusual for the Sunday ride. I went up to the end of the road in Kokee, gloriously weaving my way to the top. The air was diamond clear, scrubbed so clean I was inseparable from it. During the entire ride, I knew I’d be coming back home to write. At the same time, I had no idea what I was going to say, but felt it was such a rich emotional vein that once I started, it would happen.
I have been feeling very different the past few years. It’s like a curtain dropped behind me and I am now center stage in a completely unfamiliar role, with a standing room only audience. I seem to think differently about everything. It feels like I have a wider view, as if the years are spread out sideways, encompassing so much more of the emotional landscape of my life. This is not to be confused with wisdom, which I think is bull shit. What I have is experience, deepening my understanding of many things, but wisdom it ain’t.
I sometimes think I am too aware of my age and ought to relax a bit. At the same time, I’d be a putz not to be conscious of my remaining time here and how I ought to be spending it. When I use the mortality filter to see what gets through, it really isn’t all that much. I am more moved by broad brush strokes and bright colors, subtleties are for others with more time.
Mind and Body are under a gradual, self-inflicted, chiropractic adjustment over time. I have been trying to find a place for magnetized Mind, continually drawn to my chronology. I deal with my Body in ways I never imagined, the other side of adolescence. As a kid, your body is kind of ahead of you, very often waiting for awareness to catch up with capability. The idea of limits is light years from consciousness, as it should be.
When you step through the mirror of adolescence to the other side, my side, you understand the Mind has caught up with the Body and passed it years ago. Today, I have to understand that my body has limitations that are steel connected to my age and that is the undeniable truth. Unlike the kid who is absolutely clueless about the real meaning of hair on his balls, the uninvited hair in my ears is not cool today.
When you ask a kid about tomorrow, he’ll probably tell you what he is doing. When you ask someone like me about tomorrow, you could get a dissertation.The air is a little weird up here and I have had no preparation for it. The first adolescence is a climb, when the body is growing in strength and we are often too dumb to be afraid. Its return engagement catches up with us on the descent, a little less certain with our footing, but the view is great.
I hate bringing the Buddha into this, but I’m a real fan. Somewhere in the infinite number of things he said about everything, is the idea that anchoring yourself in the reality of your finite existence is the only way to alleviate the inevitable suffering visited upon all of us. You don’t get a free ride as a result, you just have a context for feeling like shit, knowing you’re not crazy for feeling that way. How you deal with that awful news is how you choose to live your life.
May is my birthday month, mentioned in a couple of other pieces and it has always been a time for me to do the Gemini thing. I look over where I’ve been and wonder what things I can do to keep the show on the road going forward. I also understand there is a toll booth somewhere along the way and I am gradually drawing closer to it. I purposely have never kept any change because I don’t want the exact change lane. I want the opportunity to talk to toll booth operator, just in case there is a way around all this.