63

Forgive my brief absence.  I've been even more self-involved than usual.

Today is my father's birthday.  I bought him a large cardboard box that contained three things: a weber grill, an ape mask, and case of white tic tacs.  The man loves grilling and has been doing so on a strange little red number that is falling apart.  The man enjoys scaring the Christ out of people, hence the mask.  The man also loves fresh breath.  I felt this three-tiered attack would be proper for the 63rd year of his life.

I began the day at the dentist (dad receives his presents this evening).  The dentist made me think about death far too early in the morning.  Firstly, I can't imagine being 63, almost twice as many years as I already have, and further, I can't imagine my teeth falling out.  The dentist believes I am on this road, and I am never certain if this threatening is something they learn in school as a means of behavior modification for their patients, or they're sitting on a throne of knowledge and carelessly letting you know you're going to be hideously deformed in a rather short amount of time.  Perhaps when I am 63 the art of dentistry will have blossomed to such a place that teeth can be easily screwed back in, taken from baboons, or made out of milk.

At any rate, it crossed my mind--as he was pointing to the x-rays explaining how my bone loss would eventually cause my teeth the wiggle themselves out of my face (maybe)--that I have never been able to imagine myself old.  In fact, when I was young I always imagined I would die young.  I have no basis for this.  I wasn't imagining dying specifically, or planning insane things that would activate the many ways in which I might tragically expire, but I just never saw it.  Like it wasn't in me.  The bone loss thing, the teeth falling out (maybe), showed me my first vision of age and I decided in that moment that I would rather be dead then be toothless.  If possible, I am thinking of this only in a philosophical way.  Looking at the x-ray, I remembered my childhood feeling of impending James Dean Death and wondered if perhaps there was something woven into my cells to make it so, something of a timeline.  Maybe I was a perceptive child (maybe) and I was just aware.  Aware.

I was thrilled to live past 27.  I thought I was in the clear.  I think I am in the clear, at least until this morning.  I will try not to think about all this as I sing to dad in a couple hours.  My father is a great man.  He is a practical joker, a pun-er, a lover of human beings.  He probably owns three pairs of pants, he hates change but secretly loves it, and is openly baffled by the things he doesn't understand.  He adds glitter to the world like garlands at Christmas.  The length of his life should extend and extend, and I will do everything I can to continue adding popcorn onto his string.

It's not that I'm afraid of being ugly.  I'm sure I could pull off the yammering toothless man bit pretty shimmeringly.  I don't know...I don't know if it's my wonder at the hidden timeline in my bones or my inability to envision my old feet on the earth.  I am not as terrified of the future of the planet as many of my peers, so it is not my inability to envision earth or astroturf underneath my chubby feet.  I don't know.  I wonder if I am brave enough to live without worrying about legacy.  Without worrying about witness, as I am to my father and am happy to witness, but can I--as the yammering toothless man I (may) become--sift into the dirt without feelings of regret?  No one beside me who is one with my soul, just pleasant memories?  Is this so terrible?

I don't know.

~ B