I’ll be honest. Death has been on my mind. For a while.
This is not unusual for someone in their early-mid-sixties (i.e., me). In the past decade, my folks died, my brother died, and friends have died. Others we know in our cohort are battling cancer (successfully, we’re glad to hear), surviving strokes, and dealing with the trials of getting older. It’s not like I thought I was immortal, before—I always knew I’d die, someday—but it just wasn’t ever . . . real, y’know? It was an eventuality, but never registered on my radar.
Well, for the past few years, it has been a distinct blip on my screen, and it is now impossible to ignore.
And again, to be honest, I’ve lost sleep over it. A lot of sleep. How long do I have? What quality of life awaits me? What am I doing to improve what’s ahead? What am I doing that is eroding my future? What can I change? What benefits will they bring, and what costs, and would they be worth it?
It always hit me at about 4AM, too, and thus, the lost sleep. Which probably didn’t help things. Vicious circle.
I’m nine months from retirement—the final act in my grand opus—and I am definitely looking forward to it. Except, that is, for all the fretting about mortality.
But (oh, come on; you knew there was a “but” coming) then I remembered something I wrote, a passage from The Year the Cloud Fell. In the opening scene, the heroine is fighting the onset of a vision. She is afraid of it, and she is struggling against it. Her grandmother is at her side, and counsels her to give in, to accept what is inevitable.
“If you fight it, you will only get sick. Then you will have the vision, and you will be sick, too.”
I realized that I was only compounding my problems. Yes, I am mortal. Yes, I am going to die. Yes, I am powerless in the face of that inevitable outcome. And all I’m doing with this fretting and “what if”-ing is making it worse. I’m stealing time, from myself.
The magnetic polarity of Earth flips every couple hundred thousand years or so. But it isn’t like flipping a switch. It’s not like, next Tuesday, we’ll wake up and all our Norths will now be Souths. It takes time. It’s gradual. It staggers around, meandering closer and farther from true polar coordinates until, after a few thousand years, our magnetic north is somewhere in the Antarctic.
This shift within me, it’s kind of like that. Seeing each day not as another step on the path to decrepitude and demise, but as a finite commodity to be cherished and enjoyed, it takes time. And effort. I have to choose to see it in this light. And yeah, I fail, and it’s usually around 4AM when I do fail, but I’m failing less and less.
My days don’t have to be stellar, red-letter days to be precious. Just the sight of a wild rabbit in the back garden, the smell of petrichor, learning something new, a hearty laugh are each more than enough to make a memorable.
Gratitude for the gifts nature has given me—breath, life, senses, emotions—make each day worth the trouble.
Onward.
k
Thank you Kurt for this hopeful insight. Yes every moment of joy counts however fleetingly. Even at 4am, outside, the moon, stars, shadows, life continues to shine. Love the comparison with the gradual shifting of the polarity of Earth.
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Yes! Most evenings, before turning in, I take a step out onto the front stoop (often with Portia) to take in the vista of houses and sky and deepening night. Lately, I’ve been enjoying the sight of Venus hanging in the west, bright and clean and gentle. This morning, I’m on the back deck, overlooking the garden, sipping strong coffee, hearing birdsong, and watching the wisteria ripple as a squirrel makes her way through the branches. Yesterday was a crap day, but these small moments, they’re like booster shots that inoculate me against strife, and keep the fever of daily life from raging. I only hope to encourage folks to slow down, take a breath, and find something of value—any value—in their day, and hold it for a small, precious moment, and to be grateful for it. Even small things can change one’s outlook. Thanks, as always, for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. —k
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Thanks Kurt for your latest detailed accounts of enjoying the moments, life and nature give us. Keep cool.
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“…retirement—the final act in my grand opus…” I sincerely hope not! You have so much more to be and do without the strictures of the day job.
It’s a topic I’ve been trying to explore for myself for years, and I am firmly of the opinion that creative people – like you, and me, and many of our friends – can have a stellar Third Act before the final curtain. If you haven’t been reading the conversation at YorkWriters.com/dispatches come on over and take a look. There’s almost 3 years of weekly posts about the intersection of retirement and creativity; and I still haven’t really figured it all out.
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Final Act without doubt (Youth, Adult, Elder) but I’m hoping it’ll be as long as the others. And (if I may torture this metaphor a wee bit longer) I’m hoping for many scenes in the Act. I keep meaning to check out your writings on the topic, especially as you took several runs at it. But I see many creative endeavors ahead, and finally the time (and energy) to tackle them. Writing, weaving, gardening, letters, maybe a language (or two), and of course reading. So much reading to do.
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All good reflections, and you are already in-process with these — short-term, mid and long-term goals — short term is to wash the dishes and get to bed on time (smile)
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You’ve struck a chord within me today, a multitiered chord-the type you hear in a scifi movie soundtrack. It’s an ethereal sound and feel. It evokes emotions wide in breadth. 3AM is the hour for me and my profound journeys of thought of such things and often spilling into my days…we are perpetual change my brother.🎶☯️💙 Mike
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