I am sixty-six today and my chest tingles with
that sensation that means the words must out. Something wants to be in this
world, some thought or sentiment previously unexpressed pushes for itself
because every time we speak, every time we write, the words fall themselves
toward a pattern never before manifest. We live in this miracle every day. Let
me share with you what today’s words need to express.
I am sixty-six and have successfully avoided
success with its excess of things, its game of envy, the heavy weight of owning
objects identifiable by everyone else; instead, the unique eruptions of what I
own fomented from the strictures of my heart. Where I could not help but love,
and work, and sweat, and worry, material world responded to my attentiveness.
My glorious child, now a mature adult, with the required amount of discontent
and as yet unrealized goals, his wife and two flames of delight and surprise my
grandkids; my beautiful, humble, small home where, from the windows, I see
trees, and sky and oceans of clouds, all these and more rose from the great
silence behind all things, the great invisibility that keeps all things until
the right moment for their arrival in form. Had I set out to attain them their
form would be different, perhaps compromised and so I celebrate the beauty and
power of what has arisen despite my inadequacies.
My home opens daily to the riches of life in nature, in seasons and my home birthed a stone terrace spontaneously, as magnificent a structure as the palazzos in Italy and every bit as stunning. This magnificent oddity eclipsed my conscious intent and rational thought to rise like Botticelli’s Venus on the shores of the lake I call mine.
I am sixty-six today and have easily outrun fame. I walked out that door, leaving that singular persona, same every day personality, same as everyone else cookie cutter psychic cluster demanded of anyone claiming fame. For whoever makes us famous, throttles us, chains us, demands performance in more ways than I am prepared to play. I celebrate my lack of fame with the resulting freedom to frame any moment, any word, any breath with my twin, the great liberator, Death.
I am anything because
Death owns me. Always has.
At sixty-six, I have escaped the darkest parts
of life, narrowly and have still a profound sense of the mystery of men and
women. I have not lived decades in the same marriage and the
combustion caused by my tempestuous emotions ignited more than one
star—although the men involved may point upwards to a black hole.
I am sixty-six today and have claimed the
liberty of work, my work, by drinking from the cup of sorrow, sadness, bitter
grief, loss offered by others who visit me. I drink deeply to know the one
taste of salt in all life. Having reduced the salt in my own, I must have this
life balancing element from the darkness of the stories of others to recall how
salt’s acid burns away the frivolous and shallow, deepens the etches of having
lived, once, this glorious experience.
I am sixty-six and still the child in me tugs
towards the dolphins, the oceans of the world, skips hearing the news of Benoit
Mandlebrot that we dance in the field of infinity, his presence of mind as wide
as Rumi’s meadows.
I am sixty-six and curious about almost
everything, humbled by how little I still know, grateful to have survived the
harsh certainty of my earlier years when life demanded, and when I believed I
had, answers.
Now, I mumble frequently and resort always to
simple phrases that wish others well. May you be healthy. May you be happy. May
you be glad of this day, this moment, as I am, may you be.
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