Time in a body

It’s been a while.  I’ve been sick and when I get sick I get depressed.   When I get depressed I lie around railing against myself, questioning any decisions I’ve made for the last thirty to forty years, and generally making a bad thing worse.

I can tell when I’m getting better because those voices diminish (they are always in the wings though).

I am thinking this morning about aging.  A chorus of voices says—“oh you’re not old, don’t call yourself old, you’re only as old as you feel”.  Blah, blah, blah.

So when do you get to say “I’m old”?  68, 70, 80, 85?  You can’t outrace time or your genes or what happens to you ( those slings and arrows.)

I was reading an article in The Times this week about navy serviceman who were called in to help clean up a mess when planes carrying hydrogen bombs crashed in Spain.  They pulled everyone in to help saying there was no danger, not supplying special masks or clothes, just sending them in.  The thinking was that as long as the radioactivity could not be absorbed through the skin, they would be alright.

Wishful thinking.  Radioactivity was absorbed through the air, through breathing in the dust in this dry and hot climate.

Some died quickly, some are just dying now after years of health problems, cancers and the like.

So what does this have to do with aging?  I think we think about aging as a linear process. One to one hundred and one.  But aging is a much meatier process.  It has both linearity and heft.  It is not just a succession of years, but an accretion of experiences, illnesses triumphs and failures. Aging is the embodiment of time.

What the hell am I talking about?

One of the navy guys in the story above said that his life had been ruined by what happened to him in Spain.  He was old before he had a chance to be young.

I guess what I am trying to say is  that “happy” aging presupposes health.  Aging with grace presupposes health and luck and good genes.  And aging, with or without luck, that horrible word, leads to death.

We are not made of teflon.  Some will have things happen to them, some will inherit bad genes, some will ruin themselves with drink and smoking and dissolute living.

Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.  Cliche , yes.  True, yes.

Death is not the opposite of life. It does not exist outside of me.   It is already here, within my being. We are cohabiting. When we are young or younger and healthy we can forget this, push it to the side.

Illness, weakness, depression, all bring the idea of death, of aging and dying rushing back. Pat’s death was a slap across our collective consciousnesses.

Oh yeah!  Oh that.  Life is finite.  What the fuck.

 

 

 

Weapons of mass destruction

After the mourning and the vigils and the tears, after the glass has been swept up and the blood washed from the ground, after all of that, can we stand up to the NRA and just get rid of the assault weapons?

We don’t need assault weapons.  We really don’t need any guns, but assault weapons are weapons of war and the last time I looked we aren’t at war in this country.  AR15’s  have become our weapons of mass destruction.

Get rid of assault weapons.  Ban them.  Mash them up and use them to build new roads.

Our politicians aren’t going to ban them because they’ve become a bartering tool for reelection.  We, the people, need to ban them.  We need to push and shove and shame and blame until we get rid of assault weapons.

Keep your hunting rifles, license everything else and for fucksakes get rid of your AR15’s. At the very least, that.

 

Burger Queen

Spiderman

 

There is a daddy long-legs in my bathroom.  He has lived with me for two years I think although I can’t be sure it’s the same one.

I feel connected to him.  When I painted the bathroom he was on my ceiling and I got up real close.  He didn’t move, didn’t even flinch.  He trusts me.  And I trust him.

This morning, he was down by my toilet.  I don’t think he uses the toilet but maybe since it’s been so hot he was seeking some cool porcelain.

I don’t know much about daddy long-legs.  I don’t know if he is a she or a he.  I don’t know if he/she is into autogenesis or if another he/she of the opposite sex has to be around.

For a friend of quite a long duration,  I am woefully ignorant of his habits.

Habits aside, here are some things I think I know about our eight-legged friend—

1.  his venom is very poisonous but his fangs are too short to bite a human. Talk about a mixed blessing.
2. He is an arachnid(spidey-man).  He doesn’t weigh much.
3. He doesn’t weave a web, but he does get around.
4. He does make eye contact but whether that’s many eyes, two eyes or one eye, I don’t know.

Wrong, wrong and wrong.  I’ve done the research.  These guys are old.  A spider fossil was found in Scotland, sans kilt that was 400 million years old.

Here’s what I found out:

1. They are not poisonous.  Most of them don’t even have fangs.  They eat detritus.  Daddy Longlegs are not picky eaters and after eating they run their long beautiful legs through their tiny pincers to clean off.  They are tidy creatures. They are not predators.They are opportunists.  They are the Big Lebowski of the spider world.

2. They are arachnids but are more closely related to the scorpion.

3. They do not spin silk.  How the hell they get around I don’t know.  Telekinesis?

4.  He has only one set of eyes, like us, so eye contact is possible.

The male makes his sperm into a spherical package and presents it to the female and she gets to choose whether or not to use it. Whatever…he is not greatly invested.  They can live for 7 years but most of the ones that hang out here only last a season.

Apparently I have been having a relationship with a stranger in my bathroom.  He could be 6th generation. We just don’t know.  What we do know is he is an admirable long-lived as well as long-legged chap and I’m keeping him around.

Anyway, here is an example of clumping, kind of like a daddy longlegs reunion.