A Word to the Wise

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

"Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.” – Charlotte Bronte

"You don’t stop laughing when you grow old. You grow old when you stop laughing. – George Bernard Shaw

“Age isn’t how you are, but how you feel.” Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“Everything has beauty but not everyone sees it.” – Confucius

“In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” – Robert Frost 

Now, I started to say that, on the whole, I am not enjoying old age…until I looked again at that telling phrase ‘on the whole’ and realised that age is but the sum of its parts, just as we are the sum of ours. 

Having always had to take the rough with the smooth, better, surely, to keep the smoother in view and put the rougher behind us…?

Smooth is good and life, at any age, is invariably a mix of good and bad, though not forgetting that old standby, muddled…

I well recall that, as a schoolboy in the 1950's,  I once considered the prospect of 'fate' as something to be scared of until I heard Doris Day singing Que sera, sera (What will be, will be) in such a bright, fun, lively way that it never seemed anywhere near as scary any more, just something to muddle through, for better or worse, as best we can; in the case of the latter, once through, best learned from and  moving on...

So, yes, in the course of writing this preamble, I have reached the conclusion that old age is a bit of a muddle. Since mind-body-spirit has always urged yours truly to muddle through whatever and keep looking on the bright(er) side of life, I guess that’s what I’ll continue to do… 😄

You may well ask what  sexuality has to do with growing up and/ or growing old. What, indeed...?

A  WORD TO THE WISE

Growing old, faster than I would
ever have believed it
of as feisty a mind-body-spirit
as always as a part of me,
tugging gently but firmly at the heart 
strings, reminding me 
I’m gay, and nothing wrong with that;
no matter some folks may call us perverse
it’s good, it’s cool. this you-me-us

Growing old, time passing at a pace,
I’d never have though it,
for making the most of mind-body-spirit
in such ways as obliging
its everyday calling in such life forces
as cheering heart-and-soul on
in what has never been a competition,
just ordinary folks but doing their damnedest
to enjoy the best, endure the worst

Grown old, confirms a birth certificate
that’s but a piece of paper,
not a record of its owner’s path in life,
whether or not ever able
to make any sense of such flaws 
in certain life forces set on 
debasing our humanity for so interpreting
various moral agendas as would have us seen 
an enemy of ‘what-might-have-been’

Where age a measure of potential from the start,
come winners all, the young at heart

 Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

[Note: this post-poem also appears on my gay poetry blog today; after all, we all get old, and we’re as old as we feel… like Methuselah some days maybe, but, on the whole…] 😉RT