Thought Control

I hope you never get old, my young coworker at the wine shop remarked to me.
I'm already old, I told him as a flash of sciatica worked its way across my lower back.
But you don't look it or act it, he said with a sideways grin, I mean, you don't think it.

And therein lies the key, I thought to myself, out of the mouths of babes and just two days shy of my 62nd birthday. The sciatica passed and I got to my feet although with a little more effort than it used to take. Lately I've been noticing that it's easy enough to drop down to achieve a particular camera angle or snatch a piece of debris off the floor, but I'm a little slower to get back up. When I sit crosslegged like an Indian, which I can still do, I pay a price. While everything still works, my muscles and joints are sometimes out of sync with my mind but I'd still rather wear out than rust. Nobody gets a lifetime warranty anymore, I think to myself, but I'm not expired quite yet.

In days gone by, old was aprons and sensible shoes, a basket of knitting, hair in a bun. My grandmother often said she looked and felt every one of her 60 plus years, had in fact, earned her white hair and wrinkles through struggle and hard times, child rearing and domesticity. She moved like an old woman, thought like one, and became one. For whatever reasons, aside from a very few expected parts that don't work as well as they once did (knees and memory), a touch of chronic bronchitis (self inflicted, to be sure), and a little leftover sciatica (the only legitimate work related failure), I am in ridiculously good shape - no arthritis, no broken bones, no migraines, deafness or exceptional vision loss, no internal breakdowns. For this, I am profoundly grateful - but mostly, I want to believe that my body's well being generally follows that of my mind and that it will pretty much keep up. If it's a delusion, it's one I'm hanging onto.

I loved my grandmother dearly - I just don't want to turn into her quite yet. Imagining her reading this philosophy, I'm pretty sure she would either a) tell me to get over myself, b) approve profoundly or c) give my ears a proper boxing. She may have looked a little like Mrs. Santa Claus - didn't they all - but she hadn't much patience with my flights of fancy. Her inner child was born grown up.