Rants

“He’s doing as well as can be expected,” they say.

But, expecting what?

Good to have a hapless verbal nostrum handy, something like, “Hope you feel better soon.” Which can go without saying. Should go without being said.

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Older, in deep shit. Putting my affairs in ordure. Surprised that the situation I’m in is my situation. Though, whose should it be? Just back from the hospital after a nuclear imaging scan—any lung clots to be seen?—I remember something ol’ Confucius once told me. About, as he put it, being up shit’s creek without a paddle. I recall him saying that though the shit hits the fan, the current can change direction.

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Beneficiary of another operation, test, procedure. One more recovery, pick up where you left off. Status quo antebellum. But, before which war? Back to where you were when you were just getting back to where you were when you were just...

Regression, but to the mean?

How mean?

A regression, but not infinite.

Gifted coronary surgeon explaining that heart-valve replacements are currently lasting fifteen years. Thoughtfully not mentioning that for me it’s already been five.

Recuperate. Latin recuperare, “to take back.” Gettin’ back on your feet, they put it. After this latest recovery, chills / fever / muscle ache / bone ache. To invoke King Pyrrhus of Epirus, “Another such victory and I am undone.”

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Showing your age. Old before his time. Diminished capacity.

Old(er) age as rearguard action: delay, defend, retreat. To evacuate—empty, drain, void. Void, verb. But, also, void, noun. Don’t fall in.

“Perishables”: what’s gonna spoil, decay, become unsafe. And not just foodstuffs, Honey.

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Phillip Lopate: “Old age is a great leveler: the frailer elderly all come to resemble turtles trapped in curved shells—shrinking, wrinkled, and immobile—so that in a roomful, a terrarium, of the old, it is hard to disentangle one solitary individual’s karma from the mass fate of aging.”

Try it again: “Old age is a great leveler: the frailer elderly all come to resemble turtles trapped in curved shells—shrinking, wrinkled, and immobile—so that in a roomful, a terrarium, of the old, it is hard to disentangle one solitary individual’s karma from the mass fate of aging.”

Or, as Judge Richard Posner expresses it: “The utility of living, net of disutility due to suffering, bereavement, and other losses, declines with age. A falling present value of remaining life intersects a rising curve of suffering.”

A falling present value of remaining life intersects a rising curve of suffering? Si, claro. You got that right, Jack.

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“Taking a leak,” kids used to say, toilet training and diapers erased from memory. Leakages for adults, however, make you feel... permeable. Second childhood, in which you might get to change your own diaper. In 1910, a month before he died, Jules Renard wrote, “Last night I wanted to get up... Then a trickle runs down my leg. I allow it to reach my heel before I make up my mind.”

Since, gods be praised, I’ve not experienced incontinence, a word about nocturia—nocturnal polyuria. Poly, “many”; uria, “urine.” Three a.m., waking up to pee. Having to pee. More awake in the dead of night than one wants to be. Hanging out with the dead of night.

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At such an hour and under such an imperative, the adjective precarious surfaces. Words, and where they’re coming from. The older I get, I can’t get enough of etymologies, as if I’ve spent life not adequately understanding my mother tongue. Greek etymologia: logia, “study of”; etymon, “true sense.” Precarious, then, from Latin prex, “entreaty or prayer,” which gets you to being dependent on others, hence at risk. Which could put you in mind of vulnerable (Latin vulnus, “wound”).

In the middle of another night—there are two equal parts?—I wake to the word jeopardy. French jeu parti, a “divided game,” hence uncertain. Yet another night it’s the word overwhelmed. Middle English whelmen, “turned upside down, submerged,” like a boat in... jeopardy.

And then, not surprisingly, exposure comes...