some thoughts on getting old ...

There is growing up and getting old, and there is growing up. 

Poetic Outlaws

“Good God, how old I have become! Everything bores me, I don’t feel anything, even about myself… I am prepared, within the limits of my powers, to bear this sad burden of existence.”

— Leo Tolstoy

 

 

Sloan Bashinsky  

Now 80 and some months, and a writer, poet, blogger and more recently a podcaster, and not counting a few bright anomalies, totally unimpressed with the state of human and the declining state of my body, sense of humor and irreverence, I perhaps can resonate with the gritty old Russian in some ways, although there still is enough spicy stuff going on in the world around me that I cannot say my life is entirely boring. Although I didn't come any where close to achieving Tolstoy's literary works and fame, I have a modest audience since the podcast went into the Torrent system and some of the writings went into internet archives/libraries, thanks to a tech wizard friend of mine, who got the libraries to hold the writings and podcast episodes after he uploads them. 

Meanwhile, I'm at the point where I think maybe the Lord taking me and thus cheating doctors, hospitals, elder care facilities, hospices and lawyers out of their perceived ju$t due$ is a far more useful disposition of me and my remains. Were I a beloved pet, my owner already would be talking with a veterinarian about when to put me down. Were I a member of an ancient nomad tribe, I would be preparing to wander off on my own to save the tribe having to look after and feed me, as I become food for Mother Nature's animals, bugs and worms. Instead, I get up each day in a city apartment, wondering why I'm still here? Then, I get on with living another day the best I can, cherishing bright moments, groaning most of the rest of the time, wondering why I'm still here?

As I marinated in that, this showed up in my Facebook timeline, and I was glad it did.

Poet's Corner / Esquina Poetica 

"I sat on the park bench feeding the birds today

and a little girl with a yellow ribbon came

up and stood in front of me

and said

"Hey mister, buy me ice-cream."

Go away, I’m busy I said.

I wanted to cut her little pigtails off and feed them to the

pigeons.

But she wouldn’t let up

"You look melancholy,"

she said

and twirled around in a circle.

I stopped from feeding the birds and stared at her spinning little head.

Do you even know what that word means? I said.

"Yup."

Well?

“it’s what old people are when they don’t want to admit that they’re sad,” she said

and began to twirl again.

I couldn’t stop staring at the ribbon in her hair.

“You should buy me ice-cream” she said, “the truck is riiiiiight over there.”

Humph I said, it will rot your teeth.

She held out her hand and smiled

And I stuck a quarter in it.

“Listen mister, it costs $1.25.”

Holy shit, when I was your age you could get two ice-cream sandwi---whatever.

I gave her the damn money and she took off like a freight train.

I watched the ribbon in her hair disappear over the small hill in the park and

I felt my limbs go soft.

The little son-of-a-bitch was right

melancholy

it had set in years ago

Taken me over like a world war

like an old score

I was settled in to it

comfortable in it

The loss

The lecherous

The left handedness of time had come and gone and left me a veteran

of the battle within me.

The rage had left

And I had replaced it with regret.

“Hey mister, I got you one, too. I was wrong, they were two for $1.25.”

Go away I’m busy, I said, and wiped my eyes with my sleeve

I wanted to pull her pigtails off and stick them in her ice-cream cones.

“You should have one, it will make you not so sad,” she said and stuck one in my face.

The smell of cheap chocolate and half melted ice milk hasn’t changed in forty years

and

goddamn it if that kid wasn’t right

the second that cone hit my stomach

the sugar

the cocoa

the cream did its work

and I sat smiling as she skipped around the bench

scaring the birds

tugging the ribbon from her hair and looping it in the air

pulling it over my shoulder

evening the score

calling off the war

settling

the loss

the lecherous

the left handedness of time

and the battle inside me

the rage

woke up

and began stirring

the fight

the fire

replacing regret

and I laughed as she left

saying outloud

“best bucktwentyfive ever spent.” 

It's been a while since I spent time around small children, of whom Jesus in the Gospels said the Kingdom of God is made? Yet, elsewhere in the Gospels, he was crystal clear that adults faced a serious trial, if they followed him into that Kingdom.

For example, this post at a Reddit spirituality group, where everyone uses fake names. I'm Puzzleheaded.

 

spirituality (Reddit), 

u/true

can a spiritual awakening cause depression?

If so, Why?

 

Puzzleheaded

You can pretty much count on it, but to label it depression probably is not accurate in either the spiritual or the clinical psychology sense.

You might wish to read the Sufi poet Rumi's classic poem, The Chickpea, which is about his own spiritual trial by fire at the hands of his teacher, or at the hands of God, depending on how you read that poem. Rumi's teacher was named Shams, who was irascible, irreverent, yet he certainly got Rumi's attention, when Rumi thought he was already pretty far along the spiritual path.

You might also wish to read in the Gospels what Jesus told his disciples about what was in for them, if they stuck with him and did as he advised them to do, while he did it himself. For example, he told them, Many are called, but few are chosen; the road to life is difficult and the gate narrow, and few enter; the work is great and the workers are few; and:

Matthew 3:11 “I [John the Baptist] baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Luke 12:49 [Jesus] “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

John 8:31-32 So Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, “If you continue to obey my teaching, you are truly my followers. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

I do not mean to promote Christianity, which seems not to understand Jesus in the Gospels very well. However, reading about some of the later saints in Christendom might inform what trials they endured, say, San Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross) and St. Francis of Assisi, both of whom experienced the dark night of the soul, about which Juan is considered the expert in Christendom.

Waking up is painful, because of what it causes us. Looking at other people more realistically. Looking at ourselves more realistically. If we do not get our perceptions dashed, then are we really waking up? If we do not feel lonely and distressed, alienated, are we really leaving the herd, which history has proven over and over is never right?

The spiritual path is not easy, How can it be, when there is so much to change and shed in us? So that, hopefully, we emerge eventually someone else entirely, yet we are still in it. For once it starts, it doesn't end, unless we do something that causes it to end, like boozing, drugging or killing ourselves.

I'm not speaking theoretically here, but from decades of being on that road. Fortunately, I was and still am assisted, steered, corrected, even spanked, and carried by angels known in the Bible. But I do not belong to that religion, through which the angels took me back into and through it into something else entirely.

Each person is unique, and so each person's spiritual path. However, there are certain benchmarks that generally apply, which I have tried to explain here.

Another is stated in the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament: Once the cleansing of the Lord begins, do not turn away. Hang in there, endure it, because an attempt is being made to change us from drinking milk, to eating meat; from being children, to being teachers.

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com