(I think I’ve stolen that image to accompany a blog before… right?)
Monday night and it’s a bit of a jostled beehive here as we’re realizing that we have to leave for Oregon tomorrow and have little time to get ready. With morning obligations, packing has to happen tonight. But… we’re not packing, neither of us. Sharaun’s working on the computer in the kitchen and I’m sitting here on the laptop. By my estimates then, we’ll be up late scrambling to get things in order. It’s a longer visit this time, five days in all staying at my folks’ place. Work at the local sawmill promises to be busy, with two meetings of import Wednesday and Thursday. I know things will go OK, because I plan to a fault… but I still obsess… I still obsess.
I have only one topic for the night, and barely got that one down to boot. Feel lucky you’re reading anything at all, OK? OK.
Tonight, unfolding myself from my nightly position on the couch (leaning sideways into the upholstered arm that holds the laptop from which I suckle my nightly diet of bits and bytes, legs tucked up into myself and knees pulled close to my chest), I arose from my gargoyled perch to a loud crack! from beneath the flesh, blood, and atrophied muscle of my shoulder. My bones. The snap, crackle, and pop of old age set into my joints. While I’m ignorant of the physiology of the phenomenon, I do know that it’s as good as a warning shot fired off my bow by USS Death. Sometimes at work, I’ll turn my head sharply and hear the same auditory harbinger of my pending demise. And I’ve even noticed that, as my foot makes its small pushes on the gas pedal, my knee will often pop in protest of the minuscule motion. It’s like God is communicating to me in some secret language of clicks and pops, telling me I’m neglecting myself… urging me with with creaking bones to get out and run a mile or jump rope.
I’m listening, Lord. I’ve tried Morse Code, I’ve tried that clicky language they speak in the Gods Must Be Crazy movies, I’ve even tried dolphin – but I can’t seem to decipher the message. Maybe I should play the lottery? Eat more greens? File for medical leave and drop off the grid as an experiment to see how long a company will pay an employee who’s MIA? Perhaps I only have a piece of the decoder, and I’ll need to augment my popping joints with the growls and grumbles of my aging gut or the scraping sound my hairbrush makes on my bare scalp in the mornings to reveal the true message. A full sonic testament to old age, my geriatric symphony played right through the instrument of my corpus.
I offer you a wet old-man kiss through well-used lips as a heartfelt “goodnight.” Wish us luck in our travels, and I’ll type to you next from Oregon.