November 2002 / Woodstock Nation

Aging sucks!

There is nothing more frightening thing to hear about yourself then you are now disabled. Even if its temporary, you know the goddess of death has kicked you in the butt. And she is not done yet.

Life has trained you, oh yes, those occasional flues when you were down for ten days or more, oh yeah, that was just bootcamp for disabled. Get a practice going, know how to pull in your life force, go down, go deep, and don't come back up unless your fever was broken. I have done those thousands of times. And when you are rising again, and humanity receives you back into the fold, what joy it is to be able! on the streets, to dance oh gowd that was long ago!

But now disabled is different. It's no fever it's a loss of mobility. The spine is misfiring, the muscles get crammed from mixed up messages from the spine, and pull the bones apart into the wrong places. I look at my still great legs and they soon be old legs, lack of exercise, lack of walking, my poor muscles will sag.

-So this is how you take me down! I cry to the heavens -Bit by bit one leg at a time one muscle at the time. I am only 62, can't you wait a little more? Can I have a run at the third destiny? Can't I just do one more mission of worth and honor? Please?

No witchcraft can halt this march towards death. No witchcraft needs to. This is normal life/death and soon its my time to turn it all back in, give back the legs and the muscles, the blue eyes and the gently rising breasts, the innards and the outers, the entire package.

I hate it when books about aging talk about how wonderful aging is. Lies! Total lies!

Aging is horrible. I don't think the 'wisdom" I gained is worth diddlysquat. Wisdom is ours yes, but who cares? I want to take a long walk with my dogs, I want to climb a mountain. Life without an able body is a burden. Being confined for hours and hours to a couch, worrying about having to go to the bathroom like a journey to India sucks. I a refuse to lie about this, wise woman as I am a truth teller. Aging is not for cowards NOR IS IT FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE A LOT OF PURPOSE IN THEIR LIVES.

Everything I yet have to do needs my body well. I need my body to sit and type my words, my brain to think up new thoughts, my heart to fuel me with passion. When the meds kick in all of my edge is dulled, I am in stupor from the meds I have to take now. I write this before I have taken them today. Soon I have to however if I want to see noon without pain.

I know there are many more serious sickly people who don't complain, who take it nicely as natural decomposition from life into death, but this witch/bitch is going to scream all the way. I know there is a dignity to dying, dying like a natural weather change, from one day it's raining to the next its snow. I know many sickness/painful conditions take you on the fast track into death, others get operated on and get better, others don't get better. Lets face it Mother nature no longer cares once we are past our childbearing age, hey, all she cares about is the young and the breeding mare of our own species.

Mother nature is obsessed with cells multiplying, cells meeting and creating new formations, she doesn't even much care about whose cells are doing the dividing and the multiplying, she can cull from totally bad people perfectly wonderful descendents. Who would have believed it?

To the goddess of nature we are just bundles of cells; we manifest only to leave our DNA and bones behind for the next generation to stand on. And somehow it's fair game.

Of course when it's you is turn to go down its not looking all that "fair" game.

What fair about interrupting your life mission and stop? Whats so fair about lying in agony and pain? Whats so fair about falling apart like an overcooked omelet?

I am fantasizing about my father's death and my mother's death, they both died quickly and hardly felt pain. What blessing.

My dad was on the streetcar number four, going to an appointment, all dressed up, and he got suddenly ill and died before they have reached the next stop. Mother followed six months later even thou they were not married anymore for a very long time. Mom had two other husbands since my dad, but they died together. Sort of. Mother suffered a heart attack and died. In one fell swoop I was orphaned at the age of 38.

Now I am the same age as mom when she died. I felt the fear of death, but I have greater fear of long suffering. I am praying to the goddess to take me in my sleep when she has to, like Kay Gardner the friend and holy goddess musician. There was a wonderful way to leave this earth, just go to sleep and not wake up anymore. If we needed proof that she was a favorite of the goddess her death surely was an exceptional blessing.

I THINK WE the AGING GENERATION, WE the FAMOUS BOOMERS, Woodstock nation BECAME TOO DOCILE IN OUR OLD AGE. Wake up brothers and sisters! We could still do a lot of good, by just staying alive and well. Failing that we should teach or rabble rouse. Nobody please teach giving in, enjoying the defeat of nature, and passivity of any kind.

Remember Maggie Kuhn? She started the Gray Panthers at the age of seventy. Good ol' girl, she has gotten the attention of the country, her office is still open in Washington DC. I imagine its still funded, but they don't answer their phones, their machines give out more numbers. The local group in the Bay Area doesn't answer their phone either. What if the Boomers streamed into the Gray Panthers ranks?? Revive the movement, revive the power????

What would we demand?

For that we should dig into the old dreams goodie bag and see what comes out. I always wanted a world without wars, the Boomers as a voting block could achieve that. Women as a voting block could also achieve that.

The country is divided into the two coastal areas and the northern lake side areas, who are educated and have more fun, and the middle 'fly over" parts where there is little hope, a lot of exploitation by big polluting companies,(go see Bowling for Columbine), and anger being left out of the good times. Middle America gets its news from right-wing radio shows, TV preachers and TV. All their information is managed.

So is ours on the coasts, but we have more education and can find alternative forms of information. And we are not shackled to churchianity like the middle of the country.

But all of the anger has nothing to do with anything like Democrats or GOP's, it has to do feeling "left out. " This is the true couse of all discontent, those who feel left out always feel hatred towards those they perceive being privileged and happier. This is of course pure perception. But that's is what we need to form our reality.

Let's start with making ourselves happier.lets begin to rabble- rouse one more time. Wake up my beloved Woodstock Nation! Wake up and boogie the last dance in style!

Posted by Z Budapest at November 30, 2002 04:28 AM