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There
is a scene at the end of the l956 film, “The Body Snatchers” in
which Kevin McCarthy is running down a line of stopped cars in the
rain, pounding on the windows, warning people of the invasion of the
body snatchers. No one listens.
I
know how Kevin felt. Time is stealing my body, and I am…we all
are…helpless to prevent it. The theft is diabolically slow,
apparently to keep us from being aware that it is happening, but
Kevin and I are aware. I view it with the horrified fascination of
watching footage of people leaping from the doomed World Trade
Center.
That
it is “all a part of growing older” doesn’t work for me. That
it is “just the way life operates” is so flimsy an explanation as
to be discarded out of hand. The fact that we all age and are all
robbed of what we once had may be true, but it does not make it
right, nor does it mean we should just meekly accept it. Of course
Time will win in the end. It always does. But I for one am not going
gentle into that good night.
I
have been chronicling the details of this theft endlessly in these
blogs, to the point that I am sure you are tired of reading about it.
I remember a guy I served with on the USS Ticonderoga, whose
parents had been killed when their car was hit by a train. It was all
he talked about, though they had been dead for many years. I seem not
to be alone in being incapable of letting go of the past. For those
like me, the past is a huge old tree to which we lash ourselves
against the hurricane of time. It worked for John Hall and Dorothy
Lamour in the 1936 movie “Hurricane;” why can’t it work now?
To
recognize a problem is, unfortunately, not to make it automatically
go away. I dwell on aging largely because I cannot comprehend why it
is happening. It shouldn’t be happening. It can’t be happening.
To everyone else, maybe, but not to me! How the hell did I suddenly
find myself in this Bates Motel mansion of a body? I constantly have
to resist the temptation to grab people—especially young people—by
the shoulders and shake them until their teeth rattle, shouting “This
isn’t me! I’m 20 years old, fer chrissakes!”
And
even as I criticize my body for increasingly failing me, I feel
guilty for being so ungrateful. It doesn’t deserve it. It’s
really been a wonderful, eminently serviceable body which has given
me a great deal of pleasure and on which I could always rely. Maybe
not a Mercedes Benz of a body, but certainly a Toyota Corolla, and it
has served me amazingly well all these years. It’s not fair for me
to suddenly disown it, or criticize it. It can’t help what’s
happening to it, and I feel terribly sad for it. And just as I bought
my 1978 Toyota Corolla—probably the best car I ever owned—off the
showroom floor and drove it for 12 years with an absolute minimum of
problems, so has my body served me well from the day I was born up
until my bout with cancer in 2003. It’s still serving me amazingly
well considering all it’s been through, but I can’t help but look
at newer models and wish I had one. Ah, we fickle mortals.
You
will note, ladies and gentlemen, how in an amazing display of
non-linear thought, we have, in one short blog, somehow managed to
carom from Time being a body snatcher, through 1960 and 1936 movie
references, to comparing bodies to cars. And you will note that at no
time did my fingers leave my hand. What can I say? It’s a gift.
But
much as I rant about the various cruelties and unfairness of aging, I
am reminded of two little bits of wisdom which we all too often
ignore: first, people often refer to life as being a roller coaster,
it is seldom pointed out that nobody rides free. There is a price to
be paid for the luxury of being alive, and it becomes more expensive
as we grow older. Second (and you might want to write this one down):
The only people who are as young as they used to be are dead.
Dorien's
blogs are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday. Please take a moment to visit his website
(http://www.doriengrey.com)
and, if you enjoy these blogs, you might want to check out Short
Circuits: a Life in Blogs (http://bit.ly/m8CSO1).
3 comments:
I feel, too, as if I'm in my twenties. Mentally, I have more experience than that, but when I don't look in the mirror, I feel as if I should still look like I'm in my twenties.
The strange thing is when I see someone today who's in their twenties, I have nothing in common with them. We simply grew up in a different generation, so I imagine it would be pretty confusing if we all looked the same age.
The hubby's father had a roommate for a couple of weeks in the rehabilitation place who watched what we now term 'old' movies day and night. I loved listening to them and watching them when time allowed there. But as young at heart as he was, we grew up in different times and the differences between us served as reminders of this.
I must admit I found this a bit strange coming from you, Kage...you've always struck me as the kind of person who would gravitate to the things which connect you to someone else, rather than things like age differences, which admittedly often do divide us.
When it comes to popular culture, I'm quite out of the loop nowadays whereas I used to be right in the middle of it. In that, I had more to talk about with someone younger than myself. In talking to folks younger than myself these days, we don't watch the same movies, listen to the same music, follow the same news etc. So unless we're having a heart to heart about a serious issue (and even then I have more experience than they do in terms of living life), conversations are a bit stilted.
Now, with someone older than myself (I seem to be caught in the middle now), some of it even applies with them the same way it does with me and the younger generation. How many times have you said "Who are they?" when I've brought up a music group? Fortunately, we do like some of the same films. And you and I have writing in common.
I do love listening to some of the stories someone older than myself tells about things I haven't experienced and places I may never see. That captivates me and draws me closer to them. I gravitate to that.
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