I’ve been aware for the last couple of decades — since the advent of those ‘middle age’ years — that there’s a good chance I’ve lived over half my life.
I know that some folks worry about such things more than others, and that hitting the big ‘4-oh’ or ‘5-oh’ can be a reality check that rocks them to their very core.
I don’t know that I felt that way too much. At least not consciously. But within a couple months the Beatles song, ‘When I’m Sixty-four’ becomes a reality for me. And now, it would seem, I am having a bit of an aging anxiety issue.
Part of what gets me is my attempts to be a good guy during my life. I was in one fight in my days, and that was back when I was a real kid. Had to have been younger than ten.
Always treated my girlfriends with respect, too. And, I suspect, that is gnawing at the root of my mid-60s sensibility. As a respectable church-going male, I don’t admit to enjoying erotica to many. But I do. I have one heck of photo library, I don’t mind telling you, and a small collection of paperbacks. Always thought reading those pulp novels made me a bad boy. It was a part of that ‘dark side’ good guys can’t let friends and family see.
But now, with the coming of the E. L. James’s Fifty Shades collection of erotic fiction coming to the silver screen — and with the coming of my being 64 — I am looking at that issue a little differently.
I have no doubt some of the scenarios in my old BeeLine collection are more graphic than the antics of Christian Gray and Anastasia Steele. But still, here’s a guy with some personality issues that encourages him to ‘get off’ by having women sign agreements that he can dominate them sexually and they, in turn, will be submissive to his desires. And the girls will like it, by the way. Ana struggles with agreement issues, but she (as far as I am in the first book) is willing to take it in order to have Christian. (Such an interesting name for dom, INMO.)
That does feel exciting to me on some level. Sexual play can be fun, though I have to admit, I haven’t had the courage to engage in much in my mature life. Even amid the digital collections of couples I have purchased, the ones that get my heart pumping most are the ones where a beautiful pair of folks are having graphic consensual action that both seem very much to be enjoying.
And then — to completely change the subject — I stepped out on the deck of this amazing place I’m lucky enough to have for a writing retreat the other day to take a picture of a lovely pink/purple sunset in the clouds reflected on the water. As I stood in the fading light, steadying the camera on a deck post, a wren popped out of the little birdhouse on said post, popped me on my hat, then fluttered down to the deck floor, turned around and looked at me. I had seen the little person working the birdhouse over the last week, trying to figure if this place would be best to raise a brood come warmer weather. I apologized verbally to the little guy (or girl) and got the heck out of the way.
I posted this event on Facebook. Maybe you read it. In any case, one of my friends commented, ‘You have always been a considerate man, Tom. I am sure the wren appreciated it. :-)’
Which brings me to the topic for this post: Yes, I would agree that I have tried to live a life considerate of other life forms on the planet. I did, after all, just hang sunflower seeds out on the deck yesterday afternoon. I hope it helps somebody make it through this very cold week.
But then the nagging idea hits me that my life of consideration has kept me from having some pretty decent ‘sinful’ fun.
Sin, of course, can be interpreted as many things. Stuff we were taught as kids was designed to keep us out of trouble. Then when we got older, we realized some limits set were more a product of making society more comfortable, and not so much tangible issues of right and wrong.
So here I sit nearing my 64th birthday and I wonder what I’ve missed. Fact is, I’m no kid anymore. I am now of the older and wiser generation.
Still, doesn’t change the fact that I wonder what kind of fun I’ve missed out on.
***
I expected this blog entry to be a bit shorter, hoping to direct you, gentle reader, to my other blog, The Dressy Adventuress. With the focus this winter on my book, I encourage you to share this important time of production with me. Shoot, when I get it done, I just know you are going to want me to sign your copy. And you can say you knew me when! ;-)
Today’s elder idea: There is something deliciously satisfying about actually owning land which is truly one’s own.
Mabel Loomis Todd
20 July 1908 diary entry
image: Sunset over Lake Cumberland (20 January 2014)
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