mmmm midlife crisis anyone?

M is for middle. Middle of the road, middle aged, middle of a muddle. It’s a word that should have all kinds of nice balanced overtones, but it seems mediocre somehow. There’s a definite neither here nor there connotation about the middle. Who wants to get stuck in the middle of the stream? Once you’re in the middle, going back would be just as tiresome as just keeping on keeping on until you make it across. So if we take a leaf out of Lady Macbeth’s book, being in the middle means you’ve bloody well committed yourself now!

Alright then, we’re only half done. But it’s been a good first half I think. Middle ground is a good place to rest up for a moment and take stock of the game so far. There have been losses and gains, and there have been some crazy booboos and some flashes of brilliance. Half-way mark is a chance to reassess and perhaps make some changes to the plan.

Then again, I’m not so sure nowadays, where the middle is supposed to start. Middle age used to be the forties, but I’ll bet your average forty year old in this Invincible Modern Western World would flatly deny that. Forty is mature youth. So I suppose fifty must be the magic mark. Then again, life expectancy has increased, and anti-ageing strategies promising health and virility despite the tally of years are leading us to believe that we are going to make it to immortality one day soon. And then there would be no middle....

Until then, let’s peg it at fifty. My condolences/congratulations to those who have crossed the line ante immortality. Never reaching the end could get old...just how many re-runs of I Love Lucy can any person stand? I am all prepped and ready to enter those golden gates of middle age myself next birthday. So is my favourite cousin. We are planning a celebratory escapade commensurate with the bodacity of such an auspicious anniversary.

Looking around, I needn’t worry. The local papers are advertising activities for fifty-somethings like rock climbing, pub jiving and parachuting. Facebook keeps flashing pictures at me of topless, ripped, greying dudes in dating sites that warn young women not to apply. The middle is already being swept neatly under the carpet. Fifty is senior youth. I’m cool with that, going to keep on rowing, in fact I’ll put my name down for some white water rafting.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily... life is but a dream...

Mmmm, being stuck in the middle of a dream ain’t so bad..

http://www.thenorthernlight.com/news/article.exm/2011-07-20_flying_high_

A is for....

A is for apple. And airplane and ant, something I’ll never forget because my beloved kindergarten teacher taught it to me. Who could not love, with the devotion of the cherubim, the sweet and patient young woman who had time only for her charges, and whose smile seemed to radiate candy store approval! 

Later I was to discover that A also headed up the collection of letters that denoted aardvark, algorithm and appendix. I cannot say why it is I still remember this, since it was learned under the loveless and unforgiving stare of a succession of science masters, all of whom seemed to possess the pinched features of birds of prey.

Thankfully, 'A' also ushered into my vocabulary affection, adoration and ardour. What pleasant lessons were these! Suddenly the acquisition of additional attributes became an attractive adventure, and I an assiduous and attentive A student! ... I must pause a moment here to admire my own amazing adjectival ability... alright,... I’m laughing now. I had you going there for a minute didn’t I? Were you thinking you’d landed smack in the middle of some kind of erudite literary blah blah? Sadly, no. Life carries its disappointments. Never mind, we were onto something there, I feel it down deep in my atoms...

Right now I guess I’m somewhere between almond truffle and Alka-Seltzer, or perhaps more accurately, halfway between alpha and omega. It’s not such a bad place to be. Rather than start to panic at the approach of age and the accompanying agents of doom which threaten arthritis, alzheimers, atrophy....arrrghhh!! .... no, rather than pack a thesaurus of assumptions into my expectations, let me pause once again. Perhaps to laugh at myself, or perhaps just to enjoy the achievement of reaching this moment with my wits intact.

A is for atmosphere. I create my own, with the thoughts that I breathe, and the actions I allow.