So I have been thinking about dying. Dieing? I got sick last week - sore throat, terribly painful sinus congestion, achy joints. Finally went to the doctor on Friday and besides all that my blood pressure was way up and I was in afib. I’ve had afib for 13 or so years, so that was nothing new. And BP - it’s been borderline for a longtime. Anyway, got my antibiotic and my mucus relief, went home, took my medicine and went back to bed.
Blood pressure got higher. And higher thru the weekend.
Meanwhile, I’m reading.
I’m reading a book of notes from a man who never finished his book. And I finished reading the notes. And it is a fascinating book of notes - about literature and poetry, and construction and economics, and politics and revolutions, and poor people and rich people, and wars and peace, and Paris and neighborhoods, and religion and theatre, and art and dreams, and railroads and telephones, and collecting and history, and
I’m not afraid of dying. I was thinking this weekend - I don’t want to die. I love living. I hate some of the things in this world, but I like my life. I would hate to die before my father because I think it would devastate him. And before Brook, I know it would devastate her as well, but she can recover. No - I don’t want to die, but I accept that I’m going to die and I think I’m okay with that.
I also read a novel about a man who had taken 10 years of notes about a composer that he wanted to write a book about. But he couldn’t write the first line. He was always going to do it today, or tomorrow, or the next day. Meanwhile he struggled with illness and loneliness and self-consciousness and a form of hypochondria - he was sick and it was diagnosed, but he was obsessed with the fact that HE thought he was dying - death anxiety? How come there is a word for being obsessed with an undiagnosed illness but not a word for being obsessed with dying? And while he was trying to write a book about his chosen composer, he wrote a book about a trip and a memory of a prior trip and a discovery.
Fascinating combination of books as at a fascinating moment in my life.
The first book is one that I had heard about for some years - like A La Recherche du Temps Perdu, or The Man Without Qualities or Ulysses - one of those touchstones of modernity and criticism that so many of “those people” point to as a critical if not indispensible step in the world of cultural, historical, and human philosophy. And I am so proud and glad to have read it and it is everything everyone has ever said about it - impossible, un-narratable, indigestible, gargantuan.
The voraciousness of the author - the utterly unquenchable thirst for knowledge and connection between things and people and time and causes is to me so wonderful and admirable.
A comment made about a friend of mine some 30 years ago comes to mind - “The thing about Ken is that he wants to know everything.” I always took that as a goal. I want people to say that about me.
I was walking through my house yesterday, these various things floating in my mind - books not finished, interminable notes published as a 1000 page book - and noticed a book of poems by Baudelaire and another by W.H. Auden. I saw a Times Literary Supplement and a New Yorker sitting on the table. I noticed a book of paintings by Joan Mitchell. And I felt so glad about my life. I felt so wonderful about what I am surrounded by. I am so pleased that this is my house. And I’m not worried about dying. I’m happy and I’m satisfied with my life and with my being.
I want to live longer. I want to read more - there is so much more I want to read. I want to write the way all these people I read have written. I don’t know what I want to say, but I want to write. And I feel so fortunate to be alive now, here. And to have been born male and white to parents that valued education and erudition, who wanted the best for his and her children, who cared enough to not drink, to stop smoking, to eat well, and to take care of things.
For all of that I am so grateful.
I wish everyone could have that. Could be this way. Could be fascinated with beauty, and philosophy, and history, and peace.
I don’t know how I got here. I could trip off the places I’ve been, the experiences I have had, the people I’ve met. But I don’t know how I got here in my head. I have so struggled at times to be comfortable in my skin. To be okay just as I am.
I used to go to classes at night school at UNCG and following class or before class I would go to the library. I would walk around the humongous periodicals room or through one of the floors of stacks and I would marvel at all that was there and yearn to be able to just spend time walking about, sitting anywhere, picking up anything and seeing what I could find. I would make mental notes of authors to look up, books to sample.
The other day I was thinking - at lunch with some workmates - and I was talking to a young man who is on my team. He’s in his twenties, his wife is a teacher. He asked me what do I do when I’m not at work. I was struck dumb. I read I said. And I couldn’t come up with anything else. I was struck by that - years ago I would have said - I play softball and basketball and golf; I swim in the morning; I ride a motorcycle; I go to the beach; I go to movies; I take care of the yard.
I feel so rich. I feel so excited. I feel so many full emotions at this moment.
After reading these two books - one - an insurmountable, indigestible thousand page aglomoration of notes, one a 156 page stream of words about an unwritten book and a journey - I realized it didn’t matter WHAT I wrote, but it was okay to write whatever. And that is okay.
All the anxiety about what to write - the anger at our times, the bitterness over how people are treated, the fallacy of capitalism, the density of the populace, the unfairness of the marketplace - all the stirring of all of that - just go. Just go.
But do it. It is time to turn and go. I feel so glad to have been where I have been - in my reading, in my mind, in my life. I feel so grateful to have been where I have been, to have glimpsed and tasted all that I have tasted. And I am so eager for more - for more reading, more authors, more perspectives, more considerations. And I want to go more. But I am happy now. I don’t want to die. I probably am not going to die anytime soon. But regardless, I am happy. And pleased. And I’m okay.
