Old men speak too often of what they once could do. How does one describe right now without evasions?
At 68 I sometimes have to bend and grab my knees, bracing myself to withstand my lightheadedness after I have run back and forth in the yard with the dogs. My heart thumps, a bass beat, something mad and techno. After a full day of work, my legs ache.
My sense of shame for my sins is right there in a box I carry with me, and once in a while its lock trips open, an ugly man springing forth to plague my nights. I regret the times I’ve turned away from the right and best light and wrecked the better man I wanted to be. It happened way too much.
I’ve been going down a list of those I owe and writing letters of thank you and I’m sorry to them, these men and women who I hurt, or who showed kindness to me or demonstrated how my character might bend to do something worthwhile. They gave me maps to follow as to how I might hold on to fortitude, keep my equilibrium, think clearly, write, recover, love, listen, stay the course.
Now I live in a small house, own 2 dogs, work in a bookstore, feel lucky to be happily married, and have avoided so far the breakdowns of this body — a temporary stay, one that could be remanded at any moment. I’m trying to prepare myself for that. Now I live in a big country whose history is coming due and tearing it to pieces. I’ve been trying to prepare myself for that.
I know enough to understand that neither preparation can be real. To believe in any deliverance from the past is foolish.
I know a couple of things to be true. I got lucky with my parents. I admire Dr. King and Camus, Lincoln, Ida B Wells. I love the mysterious goodness of dogs. I love birds without exception. I love Paris and the light of the mountain and desert West and 30 mile views coming down into a valley, and the Maine coast in all weathers and wilderness and wolves and foxes.
I can bear very little nostalgia. I seek out new things to learn — how to replace a ceiling light without electrocuting myself, how to measure the worth of old books, how to calm an excited dog. There’s more, but all of it can be described as attempting to make each day purposeful or at least not to squander its luminosity.
I despise willful ignorance and fanaticism and cruelty in any form.
I’d like enough time to take care of my wife and the dogs and to read more and become a better writer. We’d like to travel to Greece and back to the West. I’d like to keep scrambling toward more light for as many years as are left and maybe do some good for others on that climb.
That’s about it. All the rest I still keep trying to figure out, often bobbing and weaving a beat off from where I should be and getting popped in the face as a result. But I keep shaking away the daze and advancing. I am not very good at this. I should have learned to duck. I never did.
