an open letter …
on the loss of recklessness
They drank and they danced and they fell. Eyes wide, mouths open. Life was theirs for the taking, and they grabbed at it with both hands and slapped it on the arse. Bystanders to their horseplay, we flicked through our phones, hunting flattering pictures of our children to show each other. We calculated how much we’d owe the babysitter if we stayed for one more and thought about what we had to do the next day. It was Saturday night, it was a 21st (you may recall my doubt at what to wear a few columns back); and I did not begrudge them their youth, their light hearts, or their pert breasts, I did not envy them their hangovers in the making, yet they did have one thing I coveted.
Two weeks ago we dug out our thermals and headed to the snow. I’ve never been a great skier, average at best, but I’ve always papered over any dearth of ability with my daring. While I was looking the other way, though, distracted by the changing topography of my body, perhaps, by new softnesses and strange corrugations, I’d lost something. Oh there were signs. The terror that clutched at me last summer on the theme park rides I used to love so. A recent reluctance to attempt a handstand at yoga. But because they did not fit the thrill-seeking version of myself I identified with, I ignored them, privately continuing to scoff at those I judged wussy. Bwwaaaakk, bwak, bwak, bwak. Sitting in that chairlift, though, swinging gently in the frigid wind, boots and skis dangling heavily, ice, rock, and certain death or at least serious injury below, I was forced to admit I might have lost my nerve. Of course, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy; my timidity making me clumsy, each time I stumbled my fears confirmed. And over the next three days, as I inched my way down yet another so-called family-friendly run, all I could think about was making it there in one piece, about the warm safety of the cafe.
It may be the physical shifts you are first aware of with growing older. How, when lying on your side in bed at night, arm crooked to support a book, the necessary glare of the 100 watt bulb in your reading lamp reveals a curious cragginess to your inner elbow. Or how, waiting at the traffic lights, your heart skips a beat when you catch sight in the rear-vision mirror of the soft down furring your jawline. And I’ve yet to meet anyone who can tell me they have welcomed these maturations. But it was the meeting of the physical and the psychological aging processes that shocked me. The collision. It pissed me off that my mind was hindering my body from doing something it had done hundreds of times before.
Watching the foolery of those 20-something year olds from the safety of a barstool the other night, listening to their hysterical conversations in the bathroom, it was their recklessness I hungered after. Their willful blindness to consequence. I yearned for a time when risk was still that attractive.
FOLLOWING ON
It was surprisingly comforting to discover how many among you have been similarly unsmiling these past few months. “It’s an effort, isn’t it, this living business?” said Chris. Kristina believes, “some of us think deeply and can’t skim the surface. We are compelled from life experience or just because it’s in our DNA to look under the beauty of life and see the flaws.” Remember however, she urged, “We only get one chance and it’s random we’re here at all. That alone gets me happy nowadays and out of bed.” Kevin said: “The winter blues are as difficult to shake off as mud from your gumboots.” However, he said, there was a new leaf on his willow tree. “So it can rain all day, my quad can get stuck and my cattle up to their knees in muck, but spring has sprung!” Lovely Marianne sent me a photo of an orchid flowering delicately in her garden.
It pissed me off that my mind was hindering my body from doing something it had done hundreds of times before.