Jingle Death

The inexorable passage of time brings death to even the most charmed lives. I've lost two grandmothers, an aunt, some cats and a dog - some friends, some bosses, an uncle, great aunts...yet I feel untouched by death. This year it's getting closer ...all of a sudden you're sitting at the head of the table...and you keep going. The kids need me to, and it's all so foretold.

I repeat to myself and all who will listen that this is why you have to live in the moment, be doing right right now - take the time to practice gratitude and laugh - watch the pretty girls, go for a jog, do that extra thing for your spouse without keeping a scorecard...eat and drink for tomorrow we WILL die. It's all still a few degrees removed for me, I'm still somewhat at arms length, but it's more likely I'll be attending funerals than weddings any time soon.

And Molly is walking! Life laughs onwards, I do not mean any disrespect, any diminishing of the real suffering of those close to me - but it's not my anguish yet, not my grief - and maybe that's just how we all go on? Watched ’The Devil came on horseback’ the other night and it was all so apart from me - so other people's problems - I felt a rational guilt - these are dead humans, murdered and worse, but it didn't pierce through to me. Was I just too out of it? A little drunk, a lot exhausted? Was the movie poorly made? I get weepy at much less - or was it like the bhagavad Gita? The constancy of death and suffering? The infinity of sad stories that we simply cannot contain - or if we do contain them, we do not drown in them. I always think of the line in ’How to win friends...’ ’a man cares more about his toothache than a million people starving in China’ and I believe, in a sense, there is nothing wrong with that.

The other night, before Japandroids




we were talking about how the Harper government has probably decided that global warming is good for Canada - or something we can afford to survive - and while I personally believe the risks even to us are real, I understand that logic - have thought more than once ’well, it might get a little wetter, but I live on the plateau...’ so what hope for us? If relative liberals are all honey badger about the coming unpleasantness how will the deeply selfish ever be compelled to change? And I suppose that is how I see the answer - compulsion - we’ll only deal with climate change at the end of a barrel of a gun, or when our homes get threatened or destroyed. We’re only monkeys after all - better at eating the free lunch, stealing and raping than doing much in the way of actual long term planning. Oh well. Molly started walking, and the truth is her well being is certainly more important to me than a million person famine in China. Though perhaps they are linked. At which point I'll take an interest. If it isn't too late.