An annoying thread connected with a recent tooth extraction has thankfully dissolved and let go.  I felt its prickly plastic sensation during breakfast this morning while eating a slice of peach. I am one step closer to getting the implant – though there may yet be months ahead as the periodontist awaits proof that the post she inserted has grafted to the bone. Even the synthetic must take root. So in the tradition of J. Alfred Prufrock I shall continue to wander between the rooms.

This uncommon stepping stone is one of several which currently monopolize my focus. Life’s anomalies are incalculable. Just as one obstacle is confronted another arises. Perhaps for this reason we’re advised to treat them all as mere abrasions along the path of existence. Seldom does fussing over them succeed to anything but further convolution.

Accordingly I have for the moment adopted what I perceive to be a fruitful expedient; namely thinking about what it is that allows me most easily to relate my perception of life albeit an indolent exertion. Call it a form of expression or communication – a conversation, my attempt to put my varnish on things.

At the tail end of my seventh decade, the journey no longer thrives on novelty. It is the privilege of age to dawdle. Gone are the days of active discovery. Whatever I did in the past – whether commendable or otherwise – is of no relevance. Assessing the merits has passed. I say this not to diminish the value rather to distance its importance. Life is no longer a curriculum vitae or an application for employment. Now is the translation of things, not work, an effortless expression of what I see, whether a gnarled boney tree in a winter landscape or a moral revolution among our youth.

Though I haven’t any direct frequency with young people, my indirect incidence is the inalterable and inescapable confrontation with them through the most common daily events – at the gas counter, at the car wash, at the bakery or restaurant or the dentist’s office.  Young people have overtaken the terrain once aligned with my generation. I am the exception, the grey haired man with a stick. My feeble appearance allows me to blend with the wallpaper. From that inconspicuous perspective I may caste a sustained glance at those about me. It is indisputable that the dedicated youth unwittingly betray their philosophy. The universal changes have blended. There are, I suspect, few who would deny the influence upon today’s youth of fossil fuels and climate change. Indeed I have recently read that those issues are rapidly broaching critical concern. Young people in the Western world are living longer among their parents and are less inclined to marry and have children. These form material changes to popular thinking. The public theme of the 1950s – 1970s for example was all about family, there were even popular television shows devoted to the subject (All in the Family, Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver). Our culture is capital. Archie Bunker may have begun questioning the ethos of American middle-class families but the inquiry has lately accelerated. As a friend of mine quipped, “There was a time when people did not cut their lawns on Sunday in my hometown…”

Shall I part my hair behind?   Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T. S. Eliot