the chair of doom

Many years ago I came home to an unpleasant surprise thought by the one who sprung it to be a great wonderfulness – a large black recliner that when sat in made me feel as if I were an insect caught on its back with nothing to do but slowly die, weakening legs waving frantically and uselessly in the air. I hated it, feeling instinctively that it was a mini nursing home, a prelude to enfeebled helplessness. To recline in that leathery black coffin was an acceptance of uselessness and death. I said I did not like it and went for a long walk through the forest with my dogs. Even now at age 73, I have no such sarcophagus. I drape my meat in no chair of doom.

You might say I have an attitude. Fine. But neither do I resonate with Dylan Thomas’s “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” I’m fine with dying. I simply do not want to lie in my coffin before it is time. In fact, I am beginning to understand why some cultures buried their dead sitting up. Erect.

I know that some reading this are already composing imaginary letters (letters? see how ancient I am? no one writes letters anymore) telling me how wonderful and essential their geezer chairs are. Excellent. Enjoy them. But I’m not going there until they chase me down and put me in restraints. Even when I had a foot operation and my leg would bear no weight, I was crawling around the house.

Mobile 2, this is Mobile 1. My GPS coordinates are now . . . .

disposal

Once again I sort through my stuff as if I am dead and I am the one whose task it is to dispose of these non-corpse remains. An onerous task for one left behind. Dull and forbidding at first, yet one that must be done. Accompanying is a hope for unexpected treasure -- a note, a journal entry, a photo. Such sorting must be done meticulously. There is no telling what a scrap of paper might hold. I sigh. Why did he write so much? How can I tell what's junk and what's diamond? Am I saving "his" stuff now so that someone may go through my stuff some day and wonder why I saved this?

I find this alive-me-sorting-through-the-dead-me's-stuff a valuable exercise. Not only do remembrances emerge available for reconciliation and for weaving those threads more fully into the fabric of my being, I also think warmly of those I leave behind and who will have less difficulty sorting through my stuff because it is pre-sorted.

sannyasin

Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not. (Hosea 7:8-9)

Woe is me! for I am undone. (Isaiah 6:5)

Each of us is a peculiar, a unique genetic structure, a unique soul. When born into this realm called Earth, we are “strangers in a strange land.” We live amongst strangers and we learn their ways. We become acculturated.

We come here with a sense of mission and purpose. We come here to open in our own peculiarity, to blossom as the uniqueness that we are. To do so, we “mix ourselves among the people.” We conform. Then we rebel against our conformity, perhaps not realizing that anticonformity is simply playing the shadow version of the same old game.

We become “a cake not turned” with all its discomfort and pain – burnt on one side and raw on the other. The “world is too much with us.” We feel burnt out and we are raw with unfulfilled expectations. We feel unopened to our fullness, have not fully embodied our mission, our felt sense of purpose. Burnt and raw.

Time has gone by quickly. Now we are elders, geezers, the older ones. When we look back at our lives, as we are especially prone to do at this age, we may feel that we have allowed strangers to devour our lives. Perhaps we have even insisted that they do so.

Thank goodness for this geezer time of knowing. For we are not yet done. With every remaining breath given, we “renew a right spirit within us.” It is the strange land’s turn to deal with us now.  We allow the unique genetic structure that we are, the unique soul that we are, to blossom, to bloom, to express with loving fierceness who we are. This is our chance. This is our opportunity.

This is the time to unmix ourselves from among the people, to reclaim our strength, our vision, to open with the strong sense of individuality we have so rightly earned.