Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.”
― John Mortimer
Some time around 2:35 this morning, the bright glow from the southwest awoke me to the sight of the moon hanging above the still waters of the bay.
Around bedtime it was behind the building to the east, and I figured there was no point in trying to stay up for an eclipse that would take place behind several tons of glass and concrete. Now I'm wondering if it happened right out there where I could see it.
But there will be others, won't there? I mean, lunar eclipses happen with some regularity. But will I be around for the next one? That's always harder to say.
I woke up maybe three hours after snapping that photo, and spread a towel on the floor of the bathroom for the first of my two bottles of prep work before a CRNA sends me to the Land of Nod in a couple hours so Dr. Finlaw and I can have the most intimate of encounters.
As I curled into the same fetal position in which they sometimes find mummified Neanderthals who slipped into a glacier's crevasse, I pondered my own crevasse and the indignity of this moment. How I wish P were here to help me figure out how to . . . well, come to think of it, this was a moment best spent alone. Sharing this morning's project would do nothing to keep the romance alive.
And of course, in my mind there was a soundtrack. Back at USC nearly forty years ago, I remember the playlist at KROQ ("The Rock of the 80s!") included a peppy little punk ditty called "Teenage Enema Nurses in Bondage" that resonated with my sophomoric sense of humor. Then again, in my defense I was an actual sophomore at the time.
Teenage, green age, awkward in-between age
(Teenage enema nurse)
I turned fifteen, thought it was a teen scene
(Teenage enema nurse)
Thought it would be easy, but it makes me queasy
I'm a teenage enema nurse
We're all just teenage enema nurses in bondage
Teenage enema nurses in bondage
Teenage enema nurses in bondage
Teenage enema nurse
So with that song thumping in my head, I leaned into the unpleasant task at hand, with the Man in the Moon peering in through the window with what seemed a sort of cosmic smirk.
Laugh all you want, Moon Man, but you're gone now, disappeared under the horizon as the sun begins to rise, and I'm still here.
At least for now.
I've been fairly sanguine about Finlaw's announcement that I'm on the regular monitoring plan from here on out, figuring it has more to do with the wallet biopsy than anything he found digging around in my alimentary tract. After all, my only blood relative to die of cancer was Uncle Donald, and he siphoned diesel fuel for years with his mouth and a piece of rubber hose, smoking and drinking in between, before throat cancer got him. But even then he was something like 75 years old. My sainted grandmother smoked two packs of filterless Camels a day for over a half century, and died of old age at 91. This shouldn't be the thing that gets me.
On the other hand, I am a Gulf War veteran, and that seven month sojourn in a toxic waste dump has knocked down a lot of otherwise healthy folks. Flying through clouds of smoke from burning chemical weapons factories may have reordered my DNA in who knows what bizarre and unforeseen ways.
But in truth this is no big deal, a precautionary peek through the back door to make sure those polyps he excised haven't returned. It's an indignity, not a threat.
I watch my folks, in their infirm senescence, and realize this is just the beginning. There's going to be more and more poking and stroking by folks in scrubs between now and my cremation, as they act as caring and compassionate mechanics trying to keep this old vehicle running for now. And if the indignity of the exercise causes me to cringe, I just have to keep in mind that even the greatest among us endures the same attentions at a certain age. The frailty of man and of life is a universal once we're out of warranty.
For the second time in maybe ten minutes, and osprey has plunged directly past the patio rail, maybe twenty feet away, and splashed violently into the water, emerging with a fish wriggling to escape the grip of the talons as the hawk makes its way back to the nest. A tough morning to be a finger mullet.
My instructions from the doc call for me returning to the loo in a few minutes to repeat the whole unpleasantness. Looking forward to getting this all behind me, pun intended.
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