Sixty-Five

Sixty-five.  Hoodathunkit?  In two more days I’m gonna be 65.  It is an important mile-marker, I think, though age is, in some respects, just a state of mind.  I don’t feel 65.  That is something I have heard a lot of people say-that they don’t feel their age.  When I look in the mirror I expect to see a pup of 20 or so looking back at me but I see an old man instead.  Sometimes it is a shock.  Mostly I am used to it now.   My beard is fully gray and my hair is turning too.  My muscles have lost a good bit of the tone that they had all my life.  I am reconciling myself to the ‘things I can not change vs the things that I can change’ and the things I can still do easily and those that I cannot.  It is more a function of what my body can do as opposed to what my mind can do because my mind is aging more slowly than my body.  At least that is my feeling. 

Things I cannot do easily any longer:

-drive for long periods of time.

-tackle large, labor intensive projects.

-jump off of scaffolds higher than 3 feet off the ground.

-stay awake for the eleven o’clock news.

-put up with stupid people.

Things I can still do well:

-drive to my job in the Bronx (though I wish I had an automatic transmission for when I get caught in traffic jams on the Taconic.)

-work in my garden until I get tired then take a nap.

-climb up scaffolds

-sleep until 3:35am at which time I can sleep no longer.

-keep my mouth shut when confronted with stupid people.

I look forward to whatever is coming.  I used to think I knew what was coming but now I know that I know nothing about what is coming.  I love my wife and I am glad I never cheated on her.  I love my children though I know they are more important to me than I could ever be to them.  I love my dog more than my own life-and she deserves it. 

Pulling up the Vines

Pulling up the Vines

The nasty corkscrew roots

clinging, not just tangled in,

the rocks

and yellowish soil,

makes me wonder if

the plant knows?

The way it sends

its orange roots out

just under the surface

of my garden

scouting

getting the lay of the land.

The way it winds

around my plants

like a constrictor

in perfect coils,

I suspect a plan.

And when I try

to pull it from its

devious exploration

under my garden

it travels and unravels

like a zipper

and snaps

before I can get it all-

there is always a tiny bit

left behind.

That is all it takes,

a tiny bit,

and next year

it will again

be grown

as prosperous

and cloying

and strong.

"busted clay pot garden-by Matt Gartman

photo by Matt Gartman-used without permission. 

All the Time in the World

All the songs on the radio have banjos in them.  Listening to the FM radio someone dropped the bluegrass in the blender.  I’m going all spaz over the music.  Don’t know if I should tap my feet or snap my fingers or lay back on the arm of the couch with a cold compress on my skull.  Thank God for Mississippi John and the Candy man and my new found friend the i-pod. 

We are suppose to depend on little flat phones with TV screens but they only work when someone is listening for the “ring”.  (Ring!  yeah, that’s a laugh.  They do almost anything but ring.)  When I call North Carolina the only thing I get is “Leave a message.  Later.”  I reach out to touch someone and get a lesson in flat, remote, electronic rejection.  I wouldn’t mind so much except I just got a message that said it’s all gonna end!  Not when, just that it would...someday.  And I here thought I had All the Time in the World.