When archaeologists discovered King Tutenkhamen's tomb, they found his mummified remains had disintegrated. The jewels wrapped in the cloths and buried with the child king, together with the adhesive tar or pitch used to adhere the cloth to the body, reacted chemically over eons, creating a fire, and turning the once divine king into nothing. Old cemeteries, places where the living revisit to find connection with their past, with old loves and family long passed, find the names on the headstones fading with each drop of water, each blinding ray of sun, each breath of wind. Bodily forms are lifted up from the soil, taught to fly, swim through life, and then fall back to the earth.
The mind ages with the body, and the spirit depends on the mind. As the body goes, and inevitably all bodies go, we become trapped in broken down shells. We are bombarded and shelled and beaten; Cooled and heated, burned, frozen, assaulted by winds, until our backs are broken and we hate the world. The spirit, once young, once glowing and flowing like spring sunshine, now coughs from the smog of the cities. The mind, engorged on the gristle of the Modern Tribune, tosses wildly on frantic seas.
The pain started in the back. The lower back seized up often, doubling me over at times. It often migrated to the middle of my back, behind the diaphragm, bringing the image of a creased or folded mat to mind. The kind of crease you try to unfold or reverse bend to get rid of but still it remains. Then at times the upper back would contract, pinching nerves and slumping me down like a crippled man. Night after night on a bed like a rack, and soon my blood flow was disrupted. Waking to a hand tingling with need, shaking the pain away and restlessly trying to find a good way to sleep. Now both wrists feel arthritic, and I can't make the number three in the american fashion. I can't make a good fist. I can't hold a pen for long. Years of walking on uneven ground, in bad boots, on old tennis shoes, over the rocks and rubble of bombed cities, on lakeshore rocks, on hot beaches and ice, have worn the ligaments in my ankles, shins, arches, and knees. Overexertion leads to a humming pain in my hamstrings, cramps in my arches and pelvis. Sitting too long has bent me over, and my energy has waned. If I don't get coffee in the morning I get headaches, and sometimes I have that pain in my chest that I know comes not from heartburn, but from high cholesterol. This body, which I used to think could get me through anything, is rebelling against my bad behavior.
It's no surprise we become cynical in our old age. All we once were is forgotten, the memories of how we acted among friends and family is golden fogged, and we see the world now through a lens of what once was, what is now lost. Yes the world changed, but the world always changes. The population has always gone up, and the complexities of the times were merely reflections of the complexities of us, of our relations with each other. "Love is for the young." "Revolution as a young man's game." "Youth is wasted on the young." Are we so much better? Were we any different than the kids we rail against now? Do we truly know how the world is while we sit and stare at the bits and pieces that reach us from our little media machines? Our bodies, they begin to fall from grace. Our minds, at once reject and recoil at the truth of this, and our spirits become older with memory. It is a fight, an endurance test, this life. If we don't fight the rising tide, the world keeps spinning, and we keep hating each other. Let thee not sell out thy spirit to comfort, leisure, and the machinations of the world, go out into the woods, breathe in the soil, go down to the river, let the ever freshening life of warm weather feed you and reawaken you! For me, I have to change my body first, then the mind and spirit will be young again. Until we meet again...
