How come? you ask. And I wonder, yes, how come? and something comes to mind about the build up of evidence, the case to be made out for dying. What do the medics say? What are the expressions on their faces? What do their postures, movements, gestures, tones of voice indicate? What messages are coming from the gods? The family? The friends? Is the game up? The blessings dried up? The open road turns out to be a narrowing cul-de-sac? The bad boys are closing in? Or are we simply having a bad day?
Those hard-headed realists are demanding suicide booths on the high street to give extra poignancy to the, ‘I’m just popping out to the corner shop for a pint of milk’. Though, perhaps in the spirit of reality-TV democracy it could be decided on a public vote, the viewers can determine the outcome from the comfort of their armchairs or their bed.
Is this about the final chapters waiting to be written? I’ve taken due note of friends talking about retirement and strongly resist the notion. Yes, it’s true that a younger generation has moved into the space I used to occupy. It’s our children who are exploring their ambition, the joys and labours of parenthood. So I’m free but no longer twenty or thirty or forty or even fifty. So I’m free but . . . there are things I didn’t do fully enough on the journey so far, consequently there is some making good to do, messes that I’ve been too busy to clear up . . . but then I’m still too busy – I don’t really want space – I want to work. Not to sell my labour, I don’t mean that, I mean the stuff I never attended to and the core of that appears to be to do with the necessity to create.
There’s a phrase that’s around in my mind these days, I don’t know how to do it. And I could add, maybe I don’t even know who I am. These days. These days I’m not what I was and I haven’t been able to work out what I am. It’s like waiting to see what this new decade is all about.
HOW ELSE 'viewers can determine the outcome': when unconscious and near to death, according to the Daily Mail (4th February 2010 - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1248356/Patient-vegetative-state-talks-scientists.html), answering end-of-life questions by "standing on a tennis court and swinging an arm to return balls".
Posted by: mmj | February 05, 2010 at 12:24 PM