Intimations of mortality

A Honda 750 4-pipe: my bike 30 years ago

When I was young, I never really believed I would die.  I was, in my heart of hearts, not just immortal but invincible.  As an example, I used to ride a big motorbike along De Waal Drive, which is an old, very winding freeway along the face of Table Mountain in Cape Town.  Drunk.  And I survived, idiot that I was, to tell the tale.

But over the last few years, I have had several warnings from Ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων  ( Silver-bowed Apollo)  A heart-attack scare, a cancer scare, decaying knees, gut problems,   The sore knees won't kill me (I hope!) but they're just another sign of wear and tear.  And tiredness,  I used to have abundant energy.  Now I seem to need more sleep in the day, but can't get a decent night's sleep at night.  Boring.

Yet I might live for another 30 years.  Who knows?  These days I live as I did then, from day to day.  Then because each day's fun was immediate and thrilling.  Now because I don't know when it'll all end, and since there's sweet FA I can do about it, I  might as well get on with life.  The deep depression I endured after Henrik died is past.  All the same, I'm still not joyful, as I was then.  I miss the insensate joy of those days 30 years ago, driving too fast on a sharply curving road along a very steep mountain, drinking too much without ill effect, staying up till all hours, sleeping with unsuitable people, finding out about literature, music, art, cinema, talking intensely with other people about the meaning of life.  But I am still alive, for now, and there is still beauty and interest in the world, despite everything.

Now hollow fires

Now hollow fires burn out to black,
  And lights are guttering low:
Square your shoulders, lift your pack,
  And leave your friends and go.
 
Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread,
  Look not to left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
  There's nothing but the night.

A E Housman

Anniversary

Thinking of you, my dear.  It's five years today since you died.   Dligo tson.

Melancholy

Tonight I'm thinking of friends and family who've died.  It started with a post from Andrew Sullivan, The Last Lesson We Learn From Our Pets,  and I thought back to my own dear dog, and with tears in my eyes, after that to friends and family who have died.  My mother, my father-in-law, my friend Henrik, my friend Anneliese, my father.

God has so badly organised this business of death.  So much suffering before the end.  And our grief!  It's just not fair that we should suffer so.  But "not fair" is childish.  The world is what it is.  But the way people and animals die, and the grief that survivors endure seems to me to argue very cogently for the absence -- the total absence -- of God.  We are alone, and what we make of our lives and of the lives of those we love is up to us.  Not believing in God and in Heaven and Hell makes it all the more important that we show love and compassion and forgiveness and grace now, while we yet live, and not rely on some mythical ideas about life after death and paradise.  I know these notions comfort some people when someone they love dies.  But for me, the horrible savagery of our ends, of the permanent severing of ties between us, is a compelling argument to loving one another while we still can.

Omnia vincit amor

The world is full of sorrows. Ppl -- and dogs -- you love die. Friends stop being friends. You fail to do all the things you hoped to do. But, somehow, if you love and are loved, it's bearable, sometimes even wonderful. Omnia vincit amor. Love conquers all. Them Romans knew a thing or two.

Saturday night thoughts

A couple of glasses of wine, and I am taken back to the loss of so many whom I loved.  It's a beautiful summer evening outside, and that somehow makes it worse.  My mother, my friend Henrik, my friend Anneliese, the little dog I loved so much.  Grief is part of life, no?  The price you pay for loving, for being happy.  To be happy is not enough.  The Gods must make you pay.  So They send grief and regret, sorrow and loss, pain and suffering.  We are but playthings in some vast game, threads in the Tapestry of Life, and happiness is a chimera


Sois sage, ô ma Douleur, et tiens-toi plus tranquille. 
Tu réclamais le Soir: il descend, le voici:

Telle est la vie

Yeah right.  But it doesn't effing make it any easier.

My nephew's bowel cancer has returned.  He's just 25.  He may have just a few months of life left.

It's so fucking unfair.  My sister is beside herself.  How do you live with such horrors?

Josh

A story about my guy, long ago. Well, based on him, anyway.

Someone else I loved found it very wrenching.  But then he was dying, poor bloke.  And he knew I'd written it for him as well as to exorcise something.

Josh

And some win peace

And some win peace who spend
  The skill of words to sweeten despair
    Of finding consolation where
      Life has but one dark end.

From The Riddlers, by Walter de la Mare

Indeed.