2022 has
been an uncomfortable year for me. I am
a year older moving toward my mid-eighties and beginning to feel my
mortality. I have had a couple of heart flair-ups
and ended up in intensive care for two days.
I look in the mirror and barely recognize the old man looking back at
me.
It brings to
mind the book Fool, by one of my favorite authors Christopher
Moore. It is the story of King Lear as
told by his Court Jester.
“Goneril went
to her father and took his hand, ‘Yes father you are old. Very old.
Really, really, extraordinarily, mind-bogglingly –‘
She turned to
me for a clue.
‘Dog
fuckingly’, I suggested.
‘- Dog-fuckingly
old; said the duchess. You are feebly, incontinently,
desiccatedly, smelling-of boiled-cabbagely old.
You are brain–rottingly, balls-draggingly –‘
‘I'm fucking
old!’ said Lear.”
Like King
Lear I fucking old, I’ll stipulate that.
As exposed
in my blog, like most old men I am full of advice, mainly because I am too old
to go out and set a bad example.
the Ol’Buzzard
Time waits for no man, it's true. I read "Fool" several years ago and enjoyed it, after you first recommended this novel on your blog.
ReplyDeletehad to update the year to 2022 - oops
ReplyDeletefuckme..don't remind me..I'm 79 and really feel the age this year. just turned 79 yet I find myself saying I'm damn near 80...and quickly get reminded by the gg's that oh you are not..but I feel it...life sucks and then you die.
ReplyDeleteSome people don't get to be old. Sometimes that is a blessing to that person and sometimes it is too soon. If I have my marbles and sight and hearing such as they are, I'm game to push the years. But who knows the speed at which we approach the abyss.
ReplyDelete