I courted death in many ways. There was trip through Rosebud Reservation at sunset in the backseat of the ‘55 Chevy when I3 years old, and I firted with the idea that I could just die. I somehow decided to pull myself back to life and since then I’ve used that time as a gauge to measure how close or how far I am from death.
I am alive now. There are various moments, various measures, various people, various levels of energy, ladders of capability. I am here now. For how long I do not know. I cannot tell myself what it is I want from what’s left of time. I’m both sad and happy that there is a limit.... that I won’t know what happens twenty years from now. Or ten years from now. Or even a year from now.
I am not a believer. Among the many things I do not believe in, one is paying attention. I can watch my beloved sky leave me. I cannot believe I will be gone. I do not believe in planning, or in being disappointed, or in some even more nebulous third thing.
Instead I listen to the short stories of F. Scott Fitzgeral as they are tenderly read by a perhaps mechanical voice on YouTube. One of today’s was “The Rough Crossing”, fascinating story of a stormy ocean liner trip across the Atlantic. Detailed and of course something that was common for many years. A bit of it struck me, enough that I wrote it down and I’ll type it here.
“A long discussion, mostly unpleasant on her part, mostly evasive on his.”
The great writers follow us though life. We chose them. Mine aren’t yours. Although if they were yours it would be a golden coincidence. Back when I had wishes, I would wish for someone who read my writers. Someone who liked what I liked. I used to give James Baldwin’s Another Country as a test, to see if I could find someone who read it, who liked it, like me.
You’d be surprised how hard it is to make someone read a book.
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