Another Fall is falling on me. How many are still ahead? God knows… Does it matter?
Would I feel any different about this one if I knew it were my last?
Would I still practice piano, keep correspondence and answer the rare telephone calls? Would I book a vacation? Spend all days reading? Try to make sense of the pile of unfinished works? Would I, perhaps, attempt to create something new, something important and lasting, placing a bet on its survival’s strength? Would I try to live healthy? Read self-help books? Take herbal remedies? Change climate and diet, keep a daily regiment of pills, sleep and exercise? Spend more time with family and with those who care, and avoid at all cost those who don’t?
Would I, perhaps, withdraw all money, raise credit cards’ limits and spend it all on some luxury cruise? And jump off the boat at the end of it, hiding in the night, in the ocean, as if returning to the depth of earth’s womb? Would I cheat death with suicide if I knew the day of departure? As if arriving ahead of schedule to some fancy party? Would I be welcomed or would it upset the plans of the Host?
Would I, perhaps, simply go on living with the usual concerns, as if nothing has changed, and this knowledge has no significance or power over my life? After all, we are dying. We are all in the cage of Time: 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year, an average 70+ years of life. This means we have a total of 36,800,000 minutes (that’s all!) to live, to love, to lose, to remember, to create, to search for meanings, to shop, to say niceties, to worry about something soon to be forgotten.
36,800,000 minutes to make a living, to make love, to make something of your life, to read, to re-read, to take action, to contemplate, to stipulate, to populate, to wage wars, to buy peace, to pay taxes, argue over politics… And also to dream, to dream, to forget dreams, to lose dreams, to meet dreams, to play dreams, to dream again and again and again…
In the age of global warming life is melting away faster, since you are constantly running and can’t stand still, splitting yourself into a million pieces, broken, yet somehow still whole, with a constant noise all around – not hearing your own voice. By the end of this page – you have 3 minutes less in the bank of your life. Each minute softly melts, singing to you its quick farewell.
Living is the art of dying. If you’d know exactly your balance: how many minutes you have – (living is the art of dying, each minute melts away) does it mean you would live them better? Does it mean you could spend them wiser?
It’s another September. Wet strands of grass under my dog’s delicate paws make squashing sounds. I turn the heater on for the first time in a long time and hear the old pipes waking from their slumber. I stop the pendulum of the grandfather clock, not to hear it peck in the dark of the house, but still hear tick-tacks – my heart is still counting. The sand is still running – gravity is always at work.
I welcome you, Fall, my favorite season, with its late generosity, its careless bloom – to give it all away without a safety-net. When you know you’re falling – choosing to fall from the sky.