So, I suddenly find myself within a few weeks of my sixtieth
birthday. And, of course, (life being a countdown), I have been expecting it.
However, the notions that I had of what it is to be sixty
have all been revised. I see age in the mirror, but not sixty, not by a long
shot. Nor do I see it in the faces of my relatives and friends, not sixty, not
seventy. I have to assume that others do see it, (all too clearly), but still, I, somehow, hold out the hope that I am an exception.
Which brings me to the point of my reflecting on my age. I met an American girl many years ago; her name was Sara. She
spent sometime in Ireland, during which
she attended a writers group. In truth, I only spoke to her a couple of times;
in her work, I recognized the subtlety that the very best writers possess. I got what she was
about, and she understood my efforts. Today, I still have the
testament to this in the book of English translations of Lorca she gave me that
last night she attended the workshop.
Occasionally, I have
googled her name to see if she has become the writer she promised. Yes,
there is someone out there writing under her name; it doesn’t appear that she has made it big, but at least she is still
indulging a passion. Is it the same
Sara: we never got past some friendly words, I’ll never know.
She comes into my mind, because I think I fell in love with
her. Not a wild physical love, but I think one falls in love with those who see the
beauty that you see, (imagine), in yourself. And those who see that deep internal beauty,
see it because they too have it. And so you meet a soulmate.
It has happened a handful of times my life; that surge of
recognition of a soulmate. It happens in brief encounters, maybe brief enough
not to have found the negative; and so the person remains unsullied, perfect in
your mind. The memories persist like hauntings. They persist as tiny,
nagging, life-long longings.
At this age, I can permit myself to say that certain things are life-long. I can say too that there are feelings that persist. That aging is not as it appears in the mirror, because some things just haven't changed.
