When I was 21 I picked up a 35mm camera, bought some Kodachrome, and began taking photographs. I had met a family with seven kids, three of whom were triplets. Here they are—Cindy, Kathy, and Kristy. Or is this Kathy, Kristy, and Cindy? Or?
I really began my photographic career with the Andersons.
I wrote this:
“Congratulations, Kathy! How did this happen? When did you stop being the little girl I used to see Sunday afternoons in Cincinnati?”
A couple of days ago, Kathy, either bottom, middle, or top, retired from her position as an occupational therapist, a job she held for forty-three years. She posted this photo on Facebook at the party her staff gave her to honor her.
Kathy responded to my text, “Time is so interesting, isn't it? As a young therapist, I can remember thinking of retirement as being so far off in the future and now, here it is!”
But this isn’t about Kathy, photography, or retirement. Carl Sandburg’s “Fog” is a metaphorical equivalent of the surreptitious way that time passes us by.
“The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.”
Cat feet enter quietly. Unobserved, the silent haunches remain for a moment, then move on before we’re even aware of the cat. Kathy never thought about retirement; now she’s gardening, playing with her dog. Sunrise, Sunset. My past fills volumes of memories. My future will perhaps be no thicker than a comic book, at best a thin paperback. I never saw the cat.
Dylan Thomas wrote a poem to his dying father, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” One of the lines reads, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
If I’m dying I don’t know it, unless in that very broad sense that from the moment we’re born we’re all dying. At age 77 I’m out of diapers. Pimples are so over. I’m of age to vote, to drink, and gain free admission to the Oakland Zoo. People on BART offer me their seats. The cat, still moving on its little cat feet, has left me behind.
We rage, rage in different ways. I rage when I swim a mile twice a week, when I take five mile hikes, when I wash the car, cut the grass, prune trees, pick strawberries, sweep the sidewalk, walk to the grocery, take the 66 steps out of BART in SF (not the escalator), carry my cans to the street, vacuum the floors, eschew TV, video games, arguments, complaints, regrets, self-pity. I’m working on new songs, learning new chord voicings on the guitar.
The reminders won’t go away. They beckon when I try to get up off the floor, put my socks on, bend to tie my shoes, when I stand on one foot trying not to lose my balance, or walk on rocky paths, or strain to understand conversations in crowded restaurants. I have no interest in the 63 rap stars who’ve passed , Snoop Dogg, twerking, the Kardashians, Trump supporters or flat-earthers. I can’t throw a baseball very far, play racquetball anymore, shoot baskets. More people call me “sir” now; I’m never asked to show an i.d. to qualify for senior discounts.
I’ve taken liberties with the definitions of “rage.” My raging isn’t centered on anger. It’s focused on taking the energy and violence of rage and turning it into something else. I’m raging against the dying light by lighting up the present, by celebrating the sun breaking through the morning fog, by admiring the flowers of the mimosa tree in the backyard,
by enjoying the sweetness in ripened strawberries in the garden, by the golden boot that Susanto held up commemorating his soccer win, by listening to Hazel read, by the first bite of a fresh doughnut, by the countless unpredictable pieces of life that show up unannounced each day. Writing this little essay is a gentle reminder to me that the cat, having moved on, has left so much behind.