On A Birthday

Birdhouse and Morning Glories

It’s my birthday. Seventy-five. Three quarters of a century. I’ve seen a lot of history. Don Larsen threw a perfect game. Mays robbed Wertz. The Marines escaped Chosin. I liked Ike. We started rocking around the clock. The Russians launched Sputnik. King marched across the Edmund Pettus bridge. He marched on Washington. Kennedy was killed. We landed in Vietnam. King was killed. We landed on the moon. Nixon resigned. You get the drift.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself this morning as I got up and mulled it all over, thinking about the history, the music, the books, and the loves I’ve won and lost. Then I slipped my feet into my bedroom slippers to be greeted with a cold, wet sogginess because I’d used them coming out of the pool yesterday afternoon and forgot to dry the liners. Welcome to the real world and cold water, the destroyer of dreams. I really need to buy some slippers for use around the pool. The old crocs are not really dual purpose.

Back to the birthday meditation. I’m going to toast to the future, even though no one looks at me and thinks about the future. That’s one of the interesting things about getting old. No one believes you have a future. They almost seem surprised you’re still alive. Of course, that takes all the pressure off. People with futures have expectations to meet. Not me. I’m in one-day-at-a-time mode. Mortality and I are best buds. We pick our way along, work in the garden, and tend the soil celebrating a perpetual Ash Wednesday. But let’s not get morose. They tell you from the beginning you never know when your time will come. I’m just putting that into action and trying to enjoy the life I have, because at some point, as I feel my way along in the dark, I’m going to reach up and touch a wall.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale