In the depths
“I become lost in imagining an unknown river with headwaters in dreamed-up mountains of alabaster ad sapphires and ending in a sea of emeralds. Lord, grant me to see an unknown fish at my feet. Was not a scaly, breathing animal caught of the coast of West Africa an actual fish that otherwise exists only in fossilized form? A Chinese general has his troops assembled and summarily baptized two hundred thousand men with a garden hose. In the depths of my heart I decided that my favorite plant was the fern, and not only because of its name: fern beaded with rain. I carry my world with me in a little net made of liana fibers. Death is hereditary.”
-Conquest of the Useless, Werner Herzog
Nothing under my skin but light.
I just realized that I turn 40 this year.
I mean, I knew, logically, that if I turned 39 in July of 2009, I would most likely turn 40 in July of 2010. Mathematics! But it just dawned on me that I’ll officially be shed of my 30s and have crept closer to being “a woman of a certain age.”
Whatever the hell that means.
Because time passes in fits and starts, and sometimes not at all it seems, I still feel oddly connected, as if by a really long piece of nearly-translucent fishing line, to my early-20-something self. This chick. This, despite living in another state, being a different weight, having much more gray hair, and generally being not that young anymore. I think I feel connected to her because I remember her quite well, even if I don’t remember those years that well. They were a blur of fumbling around trying to be an adult, constantly fighting against myself and my tendency toward giving into the seductive inertia of (mostly ignored and misunderstood) depression. Yet, it never occurred to me to do anything but keep my head down and forge ahead, even if I didn’t always do it consistently or successfully.
I still don’t do it consistently or successfully.
Forty isn’t particularly dramatic to me. I find my own personal milestones unremarkable. I don’t know if that is due to a general lack of ambition on my part or something else. I do know that it is relaxing to not constantly be casting about for deeper meaning all the damn time. Observing other people do it exhausts me even as it sometimes informs me; I can only imagine how exhausted I would be if I tried it for very long. I can easily imagine how much I would exhaust everyone around me. I mean, more than I already do. There’s really only so much anyone should have to endure from me, and I try to keep that in mind, considerable evidence to the contrary.
I guess the point is that I recognize that this is somehow significant or supposed to be, and that’s fine. It doesn’t matter much one way or the other except that I am happy to report that it pleases me to be here.
Turning 40 will, I assume, be satisfactory. I will try not to be exasperated by it.
What starts on Twitter makes it to Facebook and sometimes ends up here.
jagosaurus: Coworker is earnestly saving salt/pepper packets. It’s comforting to know we’ll be ready when the seasoning apocalypse comes to this floor.
c: What’s the CNN breaking news headline for this crisis: Blandgate?
jagosaurus: Heralded by a band of angels called the No Spice Girls.
c: Or Salt N Pepa
m: Is it Iodized Salt? Hafta fight Goiter.
jagosaurus: Fighting Goiter sounds like some Biblical story. Goiter rose up and slew many a fine profile. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and hurling of sea salt. And lo, the angel of Morton came unto them and told them to build a monument to Iodine, but it was just a big “I” and it was boring. And they hated it.
c: When did Morton go up to Mt. Cyanide to get the Ten Condiments?
jagosaurus: Around the same time God was deciding what to do about the Tower of Basil.
