I was talking to friend who was ruminating on how as she’s aged she’s become invisible, in the sense that she no longer attracts sexually oriented attention. I think mostly she was glad. With a lingering sense of how this also is a harbinger of decline and death.
As a male I’ve observed how I have moved into a status somewhere between invisible to young women and cute. It’s the cute I don’t think I really like…
Yesterday afternoon I strolled along the street in the tourist part of Pismo Beach replete with the young in various states of undress and finding myself thinking how interesting how youth all by itself adds a luster to one’s life. And, of course, watching them walking along, crotchety old George Bernard Shaw’s throw away, on how “youth is wasted on the young” did indeed pop into my head.
But.
Really.
A bubble, passing quickly…
Quickly, I found myself thinking of how much I enjoy this period of my life, which younger friends have been calling “old school,” although according the cartoon is now retro. Heck, that sounds almost cool…
I enjoy the hard won sense of place in this poor hurt world.
I enjoy good work, that helps a bit.
Made more precious with the awareness how quickly each time of our lives passes…
And, also, ruminating on having just spent a few days at a training retreat for Zen priests hoping to expand their understanding of ministerial arts and the related, I enjoy sitting around and telling the young ones what’s what.
Until that last door, it really does appear when one door closes another seems to open.
And even knowing the sands continue to shift and drift and then take up new forms, only, in a moment, to change again…
Not bad…
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