At 67

I observe myself aging. To observe is not necessarily to experience. One looks, the other feels and thinks. Here I will only observe, for these observations will allow me to experience them in quieter moments of reflection. Actions have slowed down a bit; I bend cautiously, sometimes with exertion. In my mind the young man is fleet-footed, in actuality I am not. My hair, once black, has turned to a gray and the hairs themselves seem not as soft as when I was a younger man. I am gray all over. I no longer can look straight down my chest to my tool, for the belly extends over like a half moon to block my view. When I rest my hands on my chest, I really rest them on my own personal crater. The body betrays and the body does not lie. I am aging I suppose in other areas.

I don’t feel, or I don’t believe, that my core self is any different than it was at 40. Inside I am still me, narrow here, open and expansive there, emotionally stingy for that, largesse for this. I am still impatient with others, aging has not moderated that. I ask myself here, what is it I want from aging? Does it provide solace or sorrow, or should I experience a kind of generativity which Erik Erikson spoke of, the capacity for giving of one’s wisdom, the whole ball of wax and human lint we accrete from a lifetime’s living? I really need to examine all this, and this little essay is just a self-questioning.

The grand pleasure of my life is watching my son, Jordan, struggle to find his way, acting upon life as an artist — he is presently writing a screenplay which is a kung foo script; he plays the bongos and something of the guitar; he’s taking an art class in drawing — he grows and grows, experiments, which gives me much joy. Of course, dear reader, he is brilliant. Brilliant not in academics but brilliant, I believe, in asking the right questions, in living. God bless. He is me, he is not me, he is his mother, he is not his mother, he is his own self-amalgam.

The other personal conquest of my old age (did I really admit to that?) is the reward of a lifetime, for I have been writing in solitude for about 40 years and at last in my sixties I have seen two books published, both well-received. I have constructed a patrimony for my family. Long after I am gone they can point to a grandfather or great grandfather and say that at least one Freese got out of the rubble of that family and made something of himself, left something of value. From shit rises life. I have the capacity, it seems, to endure, to take adversity and slowly convert its straw to gold. I persist, I persevere. I metabolize my own self-depression as it abrades and debrides my crucible and somehow and in some way I turn it into art.

I just associated to a passage in The i Tetralogy.

Pages 329 to 330

A horsefly buzzing about a barn fell into a barrel of milk. Overcome as milk soaked his wings, flooded his mouth, blinded him, his antennae sagging from the weight, he was drowning, but he persisted. In some remarkable way he managed to circumnavigate the barrel. With wings draping, body and head all awash with thick milk, again, somehow, he made one orbit of the barrel. Exhausted, feeling he was about to go under, he leaped with his body upward in what he felt was the last gasp for air, exposing parts of his lower body. In such fits and starts he contemplated yet another orbit of the barrel. Well, now, he thought to himself, I am still here, alive, not yet drowned. Encouraged, he moved his wings and scaly legs, his peeping antennae, and this time he sensed he was not so inundated by the barrel’s milk, and so another circle of the vat was accomplished. In such fashion he made his orbits, until he felt substantial basis to what was below him. Finally he felt little drag on his body, and with that he commenced walking, then trotting and then he took flight and flew off the barrel top, for by his efforts, his struggle, he had turned milk into cheese.

The parable is apt.

As I am musing and reflecting on all this, I feel I cannot really account for anything, that is, what is this essence we have that puts us straight into life and leaves us in a dither? If I think about it, here I am pounding on keys to describe something about me that cannot be accounted for, much less described. It goes beyond the temporal fact of my human aging. I seek to define what I am experiencing at this moment and I am overtaken by the feeling and the thought that who and what I am is unaccountable for. I look out the window and see the Arizona sun, the arcades overhanging my walkway, the Arizona rocks that populate the ground, the inoperable water fountain, my hands skipping along the keys, the monitor, the daylight and, for the life of me, what is all of this? Meaning must be delayed, like seeing a ship  adrift; that first sighting is sufficient, the meaning of that to be later determined.

At 67, I imagine, makes this particular self-cartoon look at the other creatures in the panes aft and stern, to determine his place. At 67 I am with pondering, questioning, and with the rue that comes from having left so much time, so much dazzling day after day unexplored, unsampled and simply put out of mind. At 67 I am of mind. Not only is it carpe diem, it is also tempus fugit.