8.21.2023 – thinking of death but

thinking of death but
dressing it in the raiment
lyric, metaphor

Most of the people I like, or love, or can barely stand are between the ages of forty-five and sixty-five, give or take a year or two at either end, and only about three of them are capable any longer of achieving what was once casually called, and is now wistfully called, a good night’s rest.

For ours is the age of the four “A”s: anxiety, apprehension, agonizing, and aspirin.

People are smoking more and enjoying it less, drinking more and feeling it more, and waking around three in the morning to lie there gloomily staring at the mushroom-shaped ceiling, listening for the approaching drone of enemy bombers, and thinking of death but dressing it in the raiment of lyric or metaphor: the gate in the garden wall, the putting out to sea, the mother of beauty, the fog in the throat, the ruffian on the stair, the man in the white coat, the sleep that rounds our little lives.

From The Watchers of the Night in Lanterns & Lances by James Thurber.

For ours is the age of the four “A”s:

Anxiety,

Apprehension,

Agonizing,

and Aspirin.

Change Aspirin to Advil and change mushroom-shaped ceiling to and waking around three in the morning to lie there gloomily staring at the ceiling fan and counting the blades as they go around and you got me, nearly 70 years after Thurber wrote these lines.

I agonize about my apprehension over my anxiety so I take an Advil.

Then though, reading this, I seem to be right on schedule.

One less thing to agonize over.

One thing to feel apprehension over.

One less thing to fuel my anxiety.

One less Advil to take.

I am right on schedule!