I was thirteen when my piano teacher decided I was to master the pipe organ and become a church organist. I viewed the career path laid out before me and shuddered, as church organists at that time appeared to have poor fashion sense and bad hair. I am thankful to this day my mother gave me the choice and I firmly declined.
Recently, it’s as if my husband and I are standing on stage with an attentive audience as we perform an organ recital of our own that has nothing to do with emitting musical tones but rather one that barks out body aches and pains. Our knees scream out in an A minor as our backs bellow in G. Not to mention the bass vibrations resounding tones that reflect our daily loss of memory as we search for our missing keys, phones, glasses and wallets.
It appears we have crossed the mid-life mark and seem to be hobbling down a path with arrows pointing “For Senior Citizens Only” …offering great discount rates by the way!
I noticed yesterday, most of what my husband and I say to each other has to do with our physical discomforts. Now given, he did have a free pass earlier in the year as he was battling cancer, which thankfully has been eradicated. But as of late we seem to be in harmony as we perform a constant dribble of:
“My back is out again, My neck hurts, My sinuses are flaring up, I hardly slept a wink last night, I screwed my knee up, I’m so exhausted, I lost my keys”, et al. And the ending stanza, a quiet hum that whispers, “Where have I gone?”
I made a request of my husband upon which it was agreed: No more ‘organ recital’ complaining unless it’s requires immediate attention or is an emergency.
The first few days hardly a word was exchanged between us as we held back our physical profundities. I was surprised to realize that we had misplaced the ability to share thoughts and feelings that were not linked to our aging bodies!
A month has now passed and outside of a small detour of talking about other people’s aging bodies, I’m happy to say that not only have we regained the ability to orate on subjects ranging from light banter to weightier matters, but we have also noticed the aforementioned physical aches and pains seem to have become only light background noise to our ‘soul awakened’ days!
Perhaps proving it to be true as spoken of Sir Charles Lyell in 1863, “…the improvable reason of Man himself — presents us with a picture of the ever-increasing dominion of Mind over Matter” (The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man)…
…and most assuredly had we continued to perform cantatas on our biological witherings, we would have produced only dissonant chords resembling dirges for the decaying, and in turn, disabling our purpose and numbing our joy.
A reminder: Aging is what we make of it. Now go climb a mountain or a hill or just go for a walk and let these words create a melody that resound in your mind and spirit as you sing, “These are the best days of my life!”