An acidic refluxation in the waning Trump Times
It turns out that getting older (and older) involves filling in many of the missing pieces that were once there and considered bedrock, but now …
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An acidic refluxation in the waning Trump Times
It turns out that getting older (and older) involves filling in many of the missing pieces that were once there and considered bedrock, but now have simply vanished. Somehow, it becomes nearly routine that in a moment, what was just there is just not there anymore. Seemingly captured by the very triteness of change (yeah, I know, blah, blah, ever-changing landscape), but so personal and in so many ways? Meet me in Lake Ariel, at the Liberty Diner. Oh yeah, what diner?
When you must fill in so many pieces to understand the world, are you reinterpreting this “new” world, or is the world so redefined that it is crafting and re-imagining you? Clearly, I am not the “me” of yesteryear, and if you are older, neither are you. I wonder, why should I bother engaging? After all, as things are, I am mostly “good to go.” Oh yeah, we do it (always) for our children and their children: FaceTime, texting, etc., and everyone knows how immensely fulfilling that can be.
I may lean toward acerbic, but eight telephones at the table of family gatherings and multiple requests for group photos are not my idea of warm and cuddly. At most, I will glance at one or two of the photos (making sure that I am still old) and likely will never, ever look at any of these photos again. I would enjoy a conversation with some of my younger, lesser-known relatives, but there is hardly ever time for that. So, we just admire the family members from afar and then, stemming from our ignorance of their relatively unknown inner lives, are often surprised by whatever happens as their various futures unfold.
But how else could it be? We have broadly lived and now they must too. Getting older is not a ticket to stardom. On the contrary, it is an invitation to recede from central casting and take more modest and minor roles. Typically, we are not even in the “cast,” but more likely, members of the audience. As observers, if things are “right,” and we have each other, there can still be joy. After that, we will do the best we can with kindness and concern, and by necessity, mostly from afar.
“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”—Abraham Lincoln
Names have been omitted to protect the not guilty. There are no innocents.
John Pace lives in Honesdale, PA. He writes on Substack as John in the Woods.
2 comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here
jpkhan
You nailed it with this My View! Right now I feel more connected to you than to my grandchildren.
Friday, January 9 Report this
johnandherta
Friend,
I think we all seek and need more connection, perhaps more so at this time of unprecedented Democratic challenge. The "rock" upon which we all stand has never felt so frail. Stay-at-home mom murdered in her car cluttered with toddler toys, massive redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, bombings and the invasion of a country explicitly to extract its wealth; when did these events become part of the routine morning news? No, you and I are not crazy. There is a criminal in the White House and his thugs and enablers compose a gang of the amoral. They keep raising the ante, but when they are "all-in" they will lose. Keep the faith; the connection.
Friday, January 9 Report this