On The Seventh Decade

The new year is less than 48 hours old. And as is the case with every new year, the horizon is shrouded in mist, thick in places, dappled with rainbows in others. Multiple paths, each equally uncertain stretch out.  So I decided to do something symbolic - and I went out and bought a puppy! No not really, though we both have moments when we are dangerously close. Way too much uncertainty in life right now. I remember Smitty’s reaction whenever we proposed a trip; “What will we do with Vito?” I stave off the black lab puppy temptation by watching dog videos on Curiosity Stream.

What I did instead was open a “new notebook,” called The Seventh Decade on Evernote. I realize that seems like no big thing, but I see it as symbolic. I have been using my “default notebook,” rlschrag, for decades now and have somewhere over a thousand posts stashed in there. And while setting up The Seventh Decade I noticed that I have another half dozen notebooks scattered around the app with names like “Blown Away,” “Celestial Sounds” and “Dream Log.” Some day when I am feeling both courageous and bored I will pop one or two open and see what I was writing there.

I’m going to make The Seventh Decade my default notebook for awhile, even though I, according to my birthday, am halfway through the decade. Why? I guess because reminding myself of my lofty seniority frees me to censor myself less. What you say? No, really,I actually do that sometimes, like the last post “Thoughts from the Hollow” was fairly circumspect - particularly the parts about the draft and Vietnam. Didn’t mention my older brother Jim at all. I have moved that Hollow post here into The Seventh Decade notebook which changes nothing other than a digital pathway winding along cyberspace on my various devices and then, often, out to you to save, read, pass along, or delete.

These Seventh Decade posts I hope will remind me of the special opportunities here in the Seventh Decade. Things like remembering the special calm that comes with writing poetry. I need to do more of that. The luxury of having no idea what day it is, and really not caring. My digital calendar reminds me what day to take the garbage out, and if I miss it so what? The guys with the noisy trucks will be back next week. I have friends with a home out on Ocracoke island. And, back in the day when I would visit them, they would relish the fact that they were living “on island time.” Ignoring, at least for a little while, that they would - next week, or tomorrow or the day after -  have to return to their important and rewarding jobs and obligations back in “real world” time.

Collecting these current posts here in The Seventh Decade notebook will, hopefully give me a bit of a leg up on future questions like "Where and when did I write that piece about whatever?" Real issue. For example, earlier today while attempting to organize a couple of boxes of paper from my office at NC State I came across a copy of an article I wrote for The International Journal of the Arts in Society, vol. 1, 2006 titled Beyond Genius, Obsession and Patronage: Technology and the Enabling of Creativity in the 21st Century. Sounds interesting. I look forward to reading it since I have no clear recollection of writing it. Luckily, I am not the president of Harvard, nor subject to review by the arcane processes of the academy. Another benefit of living here in the Seventh Decade.  Just glanced at the first page, and I do recognize myself there. I also recall that this particular piece afforded me some travel money so Christine and I could travel to the Edinburg Fringe Festival. Very, very cool. Learned to love haggis.

So Seventh Decade time brings, like island time, a number of unique benefits and opportunities. Sure, it often comes with the twinges, aches and the inevitable bugs and bruises “that all flesh is heir to.” But melancholy Hamlet’s moaning aside, the Seventh Decade also holds the possibility of a more gentle, more creative, richer life than the hurried, harried, decades that led us to this little backwater in space and time. And, no matter its drawbacks, it is - almost without exception - far preferable to not having made it here at all!