How Come?

 Posted by at 10:24 am  Atelier
Feb 052010
 

How come? you ask. And I wonder,
yes, how come? and something comes to mind about the build up of evidence, the
case to be made out for dying. What do the medics say? What are the expressions
on their faces? What do their postures, movements, gestures, tones of voice
indicate? What messages are coming from the gods? The family? The friends? Is
the game up? The blessings dried up? The open road turns out to be a narrowing
cul-de-sac? The bad boys are closing in? Or are we simply having a bad day?

Those hard-headed realists are
demanding suicide booths on the high street to give extra poignancy to the,
‘I’m just popping out to the corner shop for a pint of milk’. Though, perhaps
in the spirit of reality-TV democracy it could be decided on a public vote, the
viewers can determine the outcome from the comfort of their armchairs or their
bed.

Is this about the final chapters
waiting to be written? I’ve taken due note of friends talking about retirement
and strongly resist the notion. Yes, it’s true that a younger generation has
moved into the space I used to occupy. It’s our children who are exploring
their ambition, the joys and labours of parenthood. So I’m free but no longer
twenty or thirty or forty or even fifty. So I’m free but . . . there are things
I didn’t do fully enough on the journey so far, consequently there is some
making good to do, messes that I’ve been too busy to clear up . . . but then
I’m still too busy – I don’t really want space – I want to work.  Not to sell my labour, I don’t mean
that, I mean the stuff I never attended to and the core of that appears to be
to do with the necessity to create.

There’s a phrase that’s around in
my mind these days, I don’t know how to do it. And I could add, maybe I don’t
even know who I am. These days. These days I’m not what I was and I haven’t
been able to work out what I am. It’s like waiting to see what this new decade
is all about.