The next day, still reeling from little Bobby Zimmerman’s Nobel, the old man was still reading that Leonard Cohen article in The New Yorker by David Remnick.
“I have no idea what I am doing,” [Cohen] said. “It’s hard to describe. As I approach the end of my life, I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to be very superficial evaluations or opinions about the significance of one’s life or one’s work. I was never given to it when I was healthy, and I am less given to it now.”
If you thought about it – and he had – the old man had been a fan of Cohen’s for nearly half a century. Sounds like a long time when you say it like that.
He said it like that. Always liked the idea of great writers singing badly.
The old man was listening to As I Lay Dying as he danced around the dog run picking up one pile of dog poop after another. Bending and stretching and reaching. Dancing like Tommy Tune in slo-mo. Careful not to get any shit on his hands. Sorta a life-long rule. Couldn’t help wishing he had his dog’s digestive system. After all, they now weighed the same.
If you study your favorite writers, you might find the name Faulkner oft cited. The old man did. He had seen all the movies. Big fan of “The Long, Hot Summer.” Might have to listen to that one, too.
But he hadn’t actually read the actual books. There, I said it.
After a workout watching political speeches (wrong is the new right) ninety minutes of leg-draining ass-stiffening, dick-numbing spinbike, he headed for the butterfly garden. Now with cooler temperatures, he could venture outdoors. Reminded what his friend Joan Benoit – name drop! – had once told him long ago: “My garden grows but I have no time to weed.”
The old man knew he might not be able to stand up straight tomorrow morning. And he wondered why you’d do something you loved when you just know you might get hurt.
When you are young, you don’t even ask that question.
He decided he was still young enough to weed.