From
B.C. to Star Wars, that's where I was taken as I awaited the programming of my car's spare key. 'Ellen,' a
vital "87 years old," sat down in the plastic chair beside me. "That thing a computer?" she demanded, pointing at my iPad. I acceded. She held out a newspaper
and pointed at the crossword: "Who wrote the cartoon, B.C.?" I typed
in the phrase, and J. Hart immediately showed. "Of course," she
stated, "I knew that," and her story began.
Children
are “doomed”. Society is doomed. "Glad I have no grandchildren!"
Neither of her two sons had had children, and the one had been married 25
years! The "impending Cascade Plate earthquake"; the "xenophobic
reactions" to “global take-overs (I have a big Oxford dictionary at my desk,
as well a little upstart one" she averred); and the inability "anymore"
to leave doors open; "to allow children to go play outside"; all of
it, conspired to impel the future to doom.
The
keys to longevity and health lie in vitality. One readily intuits that much.
Thing is, in the intermittent periods between our years, between paradigm
shifts, between leaving one room and entering another (where 'waiting is like
silent action' as we may take on someone else's words, ideas, ideology,
contentions), there can be days, weeks, years. It is in retrospect that one
sees the chronology of another's life as seamless. ‘Ah, your husband fought in
the Second World War while you were a WAC, in the women's army corps. And then
this happened, and then that.’
Our
own lives may seem too trivial on this petty path from day to day. The hurtle
from home to work ("compared to the old days"); the sheer volume of
media coursing through our senses (compared to a time when “a single newspaper
was precious”); the incredible ease with which we divorce and remarry and blend
families and "expect everything to be given to us, well, life is just not
what it used to be! Nowadays we lock up everything!” Yes, we lock ourselves inside
the cages we make for ourselves. We lock ourselves inside our heads. “Yes, we lock
up our hearts! We are selfish and myopic and moribund! ... Now then, there's a
word for you to look up!"
There
are Facebook placards of 'Life Back When it was Simpler'. There are youngsters,
even now, who agree that our world is doomed. The issue is one of
"preponderance". (She twinkles at me: "See," she exclaims,
"I love my dictionary!") Eight billion people "are suffocating
our planet. All those cars! All those mouths to feed!" (She leans in
closer, looks about to ensure no one is overhearing,) ... "All those
toilets! Euw! ... And ne'er you mind the extraterrestrials!"
My
wife and stepson have lunch with me (about a week after my typing these first
five paragraphs) and we choose a spot by the window, where it's quiet. We've
not been together for several months, and we look forward to a pleasant
conversation. But the workmen arriving at a nearby drink-less fountain commence
drilling and pounding and hammering and yammering, and the din is so great that
we, and others at nearby tables, raise our voices too. Interestingly, Keith, at
31, says he hardly notices it. But it is enough for Linda and I to seek
relocation.
Intrusion
has many guises. The neighbour's knock. The car passing by. The telephone
jangle. The new beeps from the computer. The stranger who engages. We lock
ourselves away, or not. And the key to it all (if peace be 'it'), the key is
certainly not necessarily ‘vitality’. Vitality can have one moving and being
grumpy and being disturbed, even in our longevity. We each have hidden clauses;
(and Jo and Hari see things in us neither of us sees). No, the key to peace is
to accept, to change what one can, and to let the rest go. Life unlocks itself.
(Now then, where’re my keys? Ha!)