Longing

I understand why women, especially, do plastic surgery so much now. It’s really hard to age and have other people look at you in a way you wouldn’t recognize being looked at. It feels like they’re looking at somebody else. But they can’t know the you that’s really you if they just met you and you’re older.

They don’t see that 15-year-old is still in you. They don’t see the 20 year-old, or the 30 year-old. They see whatever they think is in front of them, and that is not at all what they’re truly seeing.

This elder phase of my life is not one I asked for – it’s not one that any of us ask for.

My doctor’s office had a sign in one of the exam rooms that read: “Don’t regret getting old – it’s a privilege denied to many.”

I both agree with that and disagree with that. I remember watching my relatives age, and really felt like, ‘wow death is often by 1000 cuts.’

It’s accepting the indignities of an increasingly hurting body, or a body that doesn’t want to operate the way you used to be able to operate it.

It’s such a strange design, this human body. And there’s also the reality that even if we live beyond 100 years – it’s just a moment in the expanse of time.

And who wants to live 100 years if the end of that is barely being alive or functional?

My grandfather, at 102 years old, didn’t know why he was still waking up. He could barely see, he could barely hear, and it was just existing – it wasn’t being functional in the way any of us would want to be functional.

Maybe science is working on that, and the other side of that is I wouldn’t want to be here forever either.

We are a largely warring, selfish, greedy people bent on this planet’s destruction. As one of my very dear friends said, with a broken heart, “we could’ve made this a paradise.”

Did you ever drink or eat something while far away from home that you wanted to find again because it had an ineffable something to its taste or aroma?

For me it was a cup of coffee I had while visiting a friend in San Francisco in the 1980’s. (Yes, that’s how long I’ve been hoping I’ll once again taste that amazing coffee.)

I have tried every style bean, every way of making it, and while the coffee I drink is good – it’s not that one.

I will know it if/when I taste it again.

It could have been the water, that coffee batch, or the coffee itself could have had a particularly good growing year.

I get it. Let it go.

I’m still enjoying coffee. I wouldn’t want to have to live without it. It’s an elixir for me. It’s not just the taste – it’s the experience.

It’s the steam curling up out of my favorite mug into the chilly morning air as I sit on the porch steps. The coldness shivers me under my clothes, but cradling my hot coffee mug keeps me warm enough for those few moments of quiet reflection.

On that long ago visit, my friend brought us to some fancy hotel near Fisherman’s Wharf, or maybe it was the Embarcadero. She took my hand and pulled me along inside, telling me to just act like we had a room there.

There was an open buffet along the wall with delicious looking pastries, fruit, and other more hearty fare, but we were on a mission.

There were waxed-paper bags and to-go cups – so we did.

I so admired her brazenness. We got outside and laughed about our pilfered goods as we hurried to catch the ferry to Alcatraz.

My first sip of that coffee startled me with its strong, slightly bitter taste – but my second sip was better. Maybe the croissant I grabbed along with the coffee, the beaming sun, and the salty air as we sped toward Alcatraz combined to create an inimitable experience, but I still seek out that delicious taste that keeps me searching.