Diminishing Returns - Not
Monday, June 26, 2017
On my way to Costco to buy some long, sweet red peppers so I
can barbecue them for Lauren (it is her 15th birthday tomorrow Tuesday and she loves
them) at the corner of Granville Avenue and 41st Avenue I noticed
that there is a brand new senior housing complex that is now open. I looked at
it and I thought (just for a second, “I am not one of those!” But I am even if
I know I will never go on an Alaska cruise.
I cannot discount the loss of memory and slowly becoming something
(someone is not appropriate is it?) else. I currently tell (and I should stop
it) when Rosemary asks me to open a jar or to reach at something high up, “Make believe I am dead.” Our lives are in compartments. If she
were to die I would not know how to pay Visa bills or deal with the banks. We
depend on each other but thankfully we are not yet in a senior centre. I savour
every moment that we are together.
I have written before how I no longer need to listen to
Gerry Mulligan play My Funny Valentine. The pleasure of listening to it is ensconced
in my head’s memory. I need not smell my Rosemary’s sweet peas for the same
reason.
Dropping something on the floor, putting on socks or my
boxer shorts is an exercise in pain avoidance. But it happens. It hurts. Walking
hurts. I am pleased that when I cycle nothing hurts.
I look at myself in the mirror and I wonder where all my
family and friends have gone. Most are dead.
It would seem that old age is an event of diminishing
returns. Sex depends on working plumbing. Tasting food is all about tasting it.
I seem to be losing my sense of taste so I put hot Mexican chile sauce in my
food and I overindulge in freshly ground pepper. All of that is to no avail.
I remember that day in the late 50s when that beautiful shiny
box from Olden Cameras was given to me by Brother Emmett at the store he ran at
St. Ed’s High School. It housed my first really good camera ($100) a Pentacon-F
SLR. I look at it behind me as I write this and I can almost imagine and
perhaps relive that sense of wonder and remember the smell of black leather and
metal.
So in this world of mine of diminishing returns I have found
something that is still alive. It is the dance of eroticism. It is an
obsession. I cannot be alone in this can I?
This is the obsession in my head of erotic images, of erotic
photographs, of erotic ideas played out and some yet to come.
My grandmother used to say to me, “Nadie te quita lo
bailado,” which sort of means that nobody can take away memories (dances)
lived. If she were around I would tell her, “I have still more dances to dance."
