Skinny Dipping Into Books

We all feel it, don't lie to yourself. The danger of age is inherently part of self and part of love ones. This is a dangerous linear sequence of though: your love ones will die, and this create this internal insecurity suggesting you will too two. the weight of this is diminished, a hidden sometimes gnawing little voice inside your head, but for the most part it imparts little on your life, and remains hidden. It comes out, though, when you loved ones,—especially a parent—grows older, and inevitably death becomes thoughts of your own vulnerability, as well as the tragicness of loss takes front and center. After that persons death you enter the well know, well established sequence of psychological mourning. Again understandable. But you go forth with the monster on your back. looking at lines on your face, the corner of your mouth, the raise of your hairline; all these things take on a crucial role. These things become paramount to your being and suggest the inevitable; at least to some degree.

What a scary place to be, listening to your body's continue, inevitable march to your own death. But for now, if your parents and/or loved ones are still alive, still health, or dying, you are caught between some level of vulnerability and pain. We can either submit to this, or take on our role of first taking care of those who are our elders and then recognizing change in ourselves or we can flounder about, pushing it all down; an action that inevitably kicks you in the arse.

I refuse to look at this book from some adult analogical, critical and cynical lens. I also refuse to apply my MSW to its contents.

This books, for me as a child was about the sequence of life. We all watched things die as a child; pets etc. Some of us saw dead birds on a beach and poked at them with a stick secretly willing them to life with such hope it left a void in our little hearts when it didn't flap a wing. Some of us stepped on ants and watched with sinister eyes, but mostly innocents... Most of us, fortunately didn't have to confront a parent's death, the idea of it, or the reality of a parent's absence, and this may be why this book acted as a bridge to a wider meaning rather than a clear link.

But somehow, somewhere in our little eyes we saw the differences the future would bring. It, this book, sat at the horizon of fear, wonder, and more fear, but never really spoke the language of either. Some of us started to question our parents life, never really grasping death, never really looking at a birthday cake as another year past and the eventuality birthdays bring. Those candles never suggested the inevitability that our lips would crinkle on the sides and that the corners of our eyes would follow shortly after, that the sun-which once we flocked to- would become our biggest rival, an enemy that already left it's mark. That our hair lines would fade, our necks would roll downward, that undergraduates (the youngest of cousins we fondly loved, respected, and tried to copy) would stir such annoyance as we became adults and the world kept creating 18 to 21 year olds, and we NEVER thought that we would have our own tales of 'when I was your age..' (i still resist these thoughts thirty one years later, although undergraduates are so freaking annoying).

Our parents were old, but we were children, and they got that way out of some mysterious happening that we rarely questioned, if not completely ignored; but we did like rubbing grandpa's bald head, didn't we? How strange it was not to have hair from a child's perspective.

This wasn't understood; this association between time, age, death. It was suggested in this book in a silent manner that only smoldered into a sort of puzzle piece that we would slowly assemble, wedged between the dead bird, scruffy, and those endless black bugs; somewhere around six or seven when we told an older sister/brother ( old enough to know better, but still lacking tact, or just plain mean) "but grandma Helen will wake up again" to which she to he would answer "people die and that's it" (most likely more cruel) . But there was, at that time (before your sister or brother mistakenly revealed the basis concepts of death) an overwhelming sense of 'things do change but I really don't understand why'.

I realized as I became an inquisitive five year old that the lifeless bird, the ants that no longer marched, and pets that no longer gathered at my feet during TV time, had some sort of connection and that this book, still read to me with my eager, unwavering, painfully nagging, held some sort of secret. I can't remember the rest, but I remember knowing that something hidden in its pages was scarier than the monster under the bed, but my mom's reassuring 'love you forever' pushed it away.. For awhile. It still does sometimes. It still often does. And I still-many many years later-, as often as possible, regress to that place of protective uncertainty... Because, fuck, that monster is scarier than anything I can think of, and being a five year old is sometimes less scary-at least in concept - than being a thirty one year old with a single wrinkle between his brow (mind you not Anderson Cooper like) and a closet full of SPF 30.

disclaimer... written on cell phone. 4 am.