An elderly couple, each armed with the lengthy teeth that come from eight decades or more, stopped me on my walk this evening. I had Mica and Nala on their leashes, my friends' dogs pulling at their collars and burying their noses in the leaves sprayed with other mutts' urine. Oh, to be a dog.
The woman took Nala's head in her hands, and peered into her gray eyes. She started bumbling, speaking in that silly child voice that apparently isn't sequestered to any particular generation. "What's your name, you precious-wecios wittle woofer-noofer?"
I took her nearly incomprehensible English as a question directed at me, instead of the dog. I had to whisper, "opps, sorry Ethan, hold on," and then answer the woman's question.
"That's Nala. The other one is Mica."
I happened to be on a phone call, but when a pretty canine comes your way, it must not matter. In truth, though, that's not fair to Granny. I must have looked unoccupied, as the phone wasn't held against my head by a hand. I've taken to using some Blackberry provided headphones that have a microphone built into the cord. My friend and I spoke through these, the distance between Burlington, VT and Boulder, CO reduced to a four foot cable connecting phone to head.
When Bluetooth headsets first came out, I would regularly find myself flustered. Initially, I assumed a sharp increase in well dressed schizophrenics, men in suits who heard voices and spoke, in turn, back to the imagined. I was only half wrong, as these men did in fact hear voices. They just happened to come from other executives. Now, though, hands-free devices have taken the form of ubiquitous ear phones, and I'm sure men and women in their golden years are having as much trouble adjusting as I had at the onset.
Though I was annoyed to have to put my conversation with Ethan on hold, he didn't get impatient or irritated. I think he could hear the old man begin to tell me stories of his neighbor's hyperactive border collie, and combined with the old woman's crooning, Ethan could tell what was going on. I took a cue from the quiet coming through my headphones, and let my evening cross paths with theirs. Ethan did the same. Eventually, I excused myself and went back to my phone conversation, but have been thinking about those older folks since I got home.
Looking at these two people, both happy to be strolling around a park on a lovely summer evening, got me thinking about my own impending old age. I know it's a bit ludicrous to say at only 27, but life has gone by so quickly up to this point, and I've got little reason to believe it'll slow any time soon.
An article that was forwarded to me today drove this point with some urgency. If you'd like, you can check it here. In essence, the text talks about a mindful connection with each moment in life. For me, lately, I've been wildly oscillating between the delightful aspects of my life and the painful stimuli that accompany a break up, sputtering family relationships, and an uncertain future. When I'm out climbing, or happily spending time with good friends, I welcome the warmth. Looming, though, is the hope not to lose the pleasant feelings too quickly. When I'm sadly facing the less jovial realities, those that seem to define large swaths of my existence right now, I'm wishing the moments away and hoping for somethings else. The whole time, though, my lifetime continues to whittle away. I get older, the moments pour over me like water from a river, and there's not a dam in sight.
I'll keep trying to live these moments instead of dodging the dirty ones. It's all I can do, anyway. The alternative is to grow old and speak to strange animals in a park in 2059 with nothing to show for my years. I'd like to meet that couple again, and ask them how they remember their moments. If I can't find out, I hope they've spent their time with open eyes instead of avoiding their suffering over-gripping their peace.
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