(Note: The following column was written by Julie Quiring. Ms. Quiring - left - is a Seattle-based humor writer and a colleague of renown poet David Whyte in the Many Rivers organization. Her marvelous writing may also be found at www.nationalliteraryreview.org )
Increasingly, a look in the mirror brings me face to face with the fact of my eventual demise. Although I might reasonably expect to frolic, or at least mosey, through a few more decades in a human body, it won't be long before gray declares victory in the battle of dominion over my hair and formerly perky body parts begin their descent in earnest. I try not to hold it against them. After all, they're getting a head start...
If this sounds morose, it isn’t – or, to put it more accurately, it isn’t always. I’m trying to make peace with my mortality, but it is turning out to be harder than, say, accepting being short or having really lame hair. I pride myself on being broad-minded, but death just does not seem like a good idea.
As Ted Koppel said recently, quoting his ninety-something year old friend, none of us are getting out of this alive. Articles referring to the upcoming legion of geriatric baby boomers appear with depressing regularity. For our part, said baby boomers seem to be steeling ourselves with a parade of platitudes, like bumper stickers in a long, slow-moving line of traffic approaching the exit ramp. This is what stands between us and the great beyond: Carpe diem. The gift is the present. Be here now. Don't sweat the small stuff.
These are annoyingly glib and preachy, but I haven't come up with anything better. At times I respond to intimations of mortality the way I do when I am about to leave on vacation - by becoming possessed with a compulsion to attempt to do everything I've been putting off for the past five and a half years, like cleaning underneath the claw foot bathtub or investigating the plastic containers at the back of the refrigerator. Only with mortality, it's the usual big kahunas - write a book, travel to remote places, learn a language. I'm thinking of downgrading to something more manageable: change the light bulb on the front porch; vacuum before stuff sticks to my socks.
Immunity from loss is not an option, no matter how perfectly you follow the rules, but I did not always know this. In my twenties, I set out to be the perfect parent the day after I left my diaphragm in the bedside drawer – on purpose. A normally undisciplined person, I adopted habits that would make a drill sergeant proud. I exercised, avoided nasty pesticides and drank plenty of water, which I hate. I read voraciously, learning which tiny body parts were developing in weeks 8, 9 and 10 and that the amniotic fluid was being completely changed three times in every twenty-four hours - an awesome thought when you think about how much trouble it is to maintain an aquarium. My first daughter was born after six and a half hours of labor, which I took as an indication that doing things right would save me from heartache. Unfortunately, this plan did not factor in things like mental illness or divorce. Or teenagers.
Perhaps all of life’s smaller losses prepare us for the big one. Like the rest between two notes, in the spaces between checking things off a grand, worthwhile, to-do list and browsing for shoes on nordstrom.com, there will be moments – even hours - of love, joy and earthly delights. There will be chocolate, and freshly turned earth. On a good day, I think this is enough.
