Life is curious and becomes more mysterious as one gets older and perhaps a bit wiser. Strangely, one even becomes less fearful of the unknown as it expands, less fearful of one’s own mortality. Now that I am officially old as far as the Canadian government is concerned (I qualify and receive Old Age Security Benefits), I somehow seem oblivious to the fact that my own death can’t be all that far distant in the future in relative terms. It just doesn’t seem to matter anymore. What does matter is simply that I am alive and well at this moment, perhaps in the best shape mentally and spiritually of my life.
Many people approach old age frantically and with fear. I don’t know if it is simply the fear of “death” as a natural consequence of life that we will all experience. Rather, I think it is a fear of what will result when death does come. Judgment Day – somehow some deity will see all of the shadows, all of the defects, the lies, the meanness, avarice, jealousy and whatever else is tagged with the term “sin.”
Death exposes each of us in ways that we never want to be exposed. The stuff we leave behind us hidden in our closets, on our hard drives, and perhaps most importantly, in the minds and memories of others that escapes from the rigid confines, passwords, and strength of our characters as we bluff and bully our way through life evaporates freeing what has been so long hidden and denied. Since I have basically stripped naked in front of the world – my family, my community and strangers – through my “Broken” book series, and through my “Naked Poetry” series, there aren’t any secrets left to worry about..
It is quite liberating. I think of Sisyphus who must toil forever rolling a boulder up a hill.
My boulder has been taken from me leaving me free to smell the scents in the air, to cherish the sounds that reach my ears (sometimes with the help of hearing aids), the textures of the world that meet my skin, the tastes of new life that had somehow materialized out of the shadows with the withdrawal of mask, armor and camouflage behind which I had previously hidden from life. So others can see my body – nothing there that is anything but natural should they only dare to see their own bodies. So others can know my history – we all have histories.
Today, I can dare to be authentic in the world, naked where and when practical and possible, honest without fear of someone “finding out” some dark and dirty secret.