These Fragile Bones

"Don't clap too loudly—it's a very old world"
— Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

By necessity this month's newsletter will be a disconnected jumble of thoughts. Necessity because if I don't spill some words soon I won't send anything, and it's already three days late, according to my arbitrary schedule. And disconnected jumble because my mind is refusing to be coherent at the moment, offering instead a mad flurry of ideas, broken shards that if I'm lucky will come together in some sort of crafty mosaic. Let's see.

I've been dwelling on age this past month, on bodies falling apart, memories decaying, brittle bones cracking, muscles seizing, cells rebelling. I look in the mirror and see deep etchings, I wake up stiff and sore. I'm frequently distracted, my mind in a different place to my body. And it's all okay. I am part of a community: senior citizens. I even have my membership card now. And here's the thing, we are the most beautiful people of all. Each facial line is a triumph of experience, each twisted muscle achieved through trial, each stiffening joint symbolic of our decisions and choices; each grey hair embodies a story and our scars are epic poetry. Ageing humans, fragile, breakable, broken, patched up, sewn together. We are living art, we are kintsugi.

We are breath.

I've been fascinated recently in reading various commentaries on the book of Ecclesiastes, the one that begins, "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." Or, depending on which translation you read the dominant word may have been translated as meaningless, or utter futility, and could equally have been foolishness, nonsense or absurdity. And yet, the hebrew word hevel from which these terms are all translated, has a second, similar meaning which translates to vapor or breath.

A recent translation of Ecclesiastes 1 uses this meaning, and thus translates the opening sentence into "Merest breath, merest breath ... All is mere breath." which gives a completely different feel to the work. In place of the rather disapproving tone suggested by the abstract concepts of vanity and futility, the use of the biological function of breathing reminds us of our sheer humanity, our ephemeral nature. Life is not meaningless, it is merely transitory, temporary. It evaporates away. The text of Ecclesiastes, while beautiful in its questioning, doesn't offer any particular idea of what we should do with our fleeting lives, but I rather think it is up to us to figure that out. Age helps, perhaps.

"And a young man should think: By Jove my father has faced all weathers, but it's been a life!" — D.H. Lawrence, Beautiful Old Age

It has been a life, and not yet a complete one: a life so far. I remember being seventeen, falling in love with age even back then. It's all relevant, of course, age in those days meant mid-thirties. Funny how that's tipped upside down now. She lied about her age, of course, but the back of her hands gave her away. I would never have worked that out for myself, it took a yet older woman to point that out to me. But I liked her hands, so I forgave her the indiscretion and loved her all the more. We lasted a little over two years, and are still friends to this day. She'll be seventy-seven this year.

Relationships, and friendships too, these have never been my strength. They tend to be fleeting. All is vanity. If I'm distracted today though, it is not by youth. Rayna once asked, not altogether jokingly, if I'd ever leave her for an older woman—and she didn't mean older than herself, but older than me. I think she understands how I see beauty in age. She must see it too, which is perhaps why she married me. They say age and wisdom come together, and it's true. I have age, and Rayna has wisdom. And here we are, together.

Those cranes over London in the picture above look like giant bird skeletons, both strong and fragile all at once. Don't sing too loudly, birds; it's a very old city.

1 The Wisdom Books by Robert Alter, 2010

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March News

March was another month of me traipsing back and forth between London and Sheffield. It can be disorienting to be away so often, for all of us. I've been trying to become more disciplined about separating work and family life, a.k.a. staying off my computer when home, resisting the powerful suck of social media. It's not even real work. I attended two more Human Givens workshops in March and in the process of practising techniques like guided meditation and solution-focussed questioning I was able to be jolted out of my computer-trance, and wake up a little more.

Happily, I found time to indulge in a little home improvement. I built shelves out of scaffold boards, which I planed and waxed. Good, solid shelves to house our collection of books—my one indulgence in an otherwise slimmed-down life. And we made the garden safe for the children. Next month, the landscape gardeners come to take it from safe to beautiful and practical.

So, April is here, my favorite month, although it must be said that March did a pretty good job impersonating April with its unexpected capriciousness. This month we have family birthdays, quite a lot. And I've managed to schedule a whole block of twenty days with no work and no travel. Enjoy the month, enjoy the rain.

Tobias

March Writing & Video

3rd April 2019, midnight