Aging Well

Somehow, in the last three moves and four years of lendings, our copy of The Honesty Room by Dar Williams evaporated- or maybe slipped into another dimension. So this week I bought it again. I am listening to it as I write. I had to click on the Cat during my favorite song, "You're Aging Well." I first heard it played and sung by Cyndie G. Cox many many years ago. Since then I've seen Dar in concert twice (once in Cambridge, MA) and still, that song brings tears to my eyes. I think of my mother, who halfway believed the signs the signmakers made, and my wife, who could have heeded the signs but didn't. Carmen could have stayed in Arkansas, married a good old boy and been barefoot and pregnant ever since. What a criminal waste of material that would have been.

I've never heeded the signs. Of course, that's why I'm unemployed now. No college, still getting dirty every day at fifty six, but with a thousand stories to tell. I wouldn't trade a minute of it. Luckily, my current predicament is merely a minor setback instead of a disaster, but even so, there are many good things that have come out of this period of too much time on my hands. I learned Powerpoint; I joined Facebook; I am a valued volunteer at the theatre; and I have very much enjoyed writing this crapola. I'm thinking of starting another blog devoted to my hundreds of travel stories. There are some good ones.

I'll find a job here, I know I will. I hope it is less strenuous and time-consuming than my past twenty two years. Those days of ten to sixteen hour days didn't give me time to amuse myself so completely. The signmakers keep trying to tell me I'm doing things wrong. My sign reads: If You're Not Enjoying Your Life, You're Not Doing It Right! So there, amen.