A Familiar Face

Going Home / Oil on canvas board / 20 x 24 / S. Shawcross / $300

This weeks feature video: Sometimes we just gotta sing and dance eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUMwu_gXK7Q

BIDDING ON THE LOUIS STORY IS NOW CLOSED
The Louis Saga: Bidding on the 1,500 word essay "Tell Me about the Rabbit George." Signed, hand-bound limited edition of 1 is now closed. Winning Bid: $107.22 G.R. Chelsea Monday, December 2, 2011. I'd sincerely like to thank everyone who bid on this story. It gives this writer much encouragement. Thank you all. To follow the initial story see my July post on the right ----------->


This week's column was published in the West Quebec Post March 2011.

A Familiar Face

Now when you get old--when people mumble instead of speaking clearly and keys always misplace themselves and there’s nothing in the world you haven’t already seen or heard, when this time comes people can go one of two ways. They can dance on arthritic toes in the morning sun in celebration of life or they can curl up into a acrid ball of cranky intolerance grouching their way through the bitterness of yet another day on this seemingly never ending plain of existence.

I am looking forward to (or maybe I already am) becoming this second type.

This is because if the truth be known, they are the only ones who actually have any fun and it is quite possibly the only time they can have such fun because when they were children they did as they were told and when they were working adults they continued to do as they were told. But when they retire and then they get old, all that goes by the wayside and they become that which they were meant to be all along.

The problem with this whole thing is that not many people can accept the new you. Where once you used to say, “you’re making the perfect decision for you,” now you say “are you out of your ever lovin’ little mind?” Where once you would smile kindly at store clerks, now you glower and complain about sticker prices and the quality of the avocados. Where once you turned the stereo up to feel the furor and passion of heavy metal music tinkering at your bones, now you demand a certain peace so you might actually think and dream and remember. Where once you watched TV with detached amusement, now you just rage and scream at it because the whole thing is full of blithering infantile idiots who don’t know what they’re talking about. Where once you relished a familiar face, now everyone reminds you of someone else and so you’ve met them all somewhere along the line and don’t care to meet any more.

And because not many people can accept the new you, more often than not you are surrounded by those who apologize for you because they are still young and still do what society tells them to do. “I’m sorry Great Aunt Matilda brought the room’s attention to the size of your nose. She’s a little senile and didn’t mean it at all,” they say with a red-faced stutter. “It’s his medication,” they say to the angry waiter at the restaurant. “She’s been like this since her parakeet died,” they say hoping for some sympathy.

Oh my. Oh my. It sounds quite dreadful doesn’t it?

Not at all! There’s nothing better than a tirade on a gloomy grouchy day when all the world is young and you are old. There’s nothing more satisfying than misery that doesn’t like company but seeks it just the same. Oh the joy! Oh the knobby-kneed muckabouts of another bitter day on this small little planet of foolishness. Oh what fun it is! And by all your shenanigans you have assured yourself enough attention into your old age to know you are indeed to be remembered. That was the whole point of it all anyway now wasn’t it!