'Good Bones'

I can't figure out how to download my photos. So this post, written 30 minutes ago, is the best I can do. Thanks for coming by even though I'm not reliable. love, kj

I’ve been thinking about this for the last year. Sooner or later I end up writing something about how I see life. I lean on the optimistic side of things. 

Maybe not so much this time. In the last year some major events took place for me. For one, my back gave out. I saw a half dozen doctors and psyched myself for surgery. My brother died, the end of my childhood family. And I turned 71 in August. Seventy-one. That is not an age easily fudged, inside or out. 

The result of these events is that I dropped out of my cushy active confident life and stayed quietly on the couch, uncertain how I”d end up. ( I still don’t entirely know.)

Now, just a year later, to my surprise, the treatment I did to avoid surgery seems to have worked! I walked a full block this week and today I made it to the bay beach with Janet and Mattie, where before I couldn’t tolerate ten steps. I’m not a fan of exercise and I actually like time on the couch. But it’s now within my control to decide how much I help myself through movement and weight and diet and good energy.

The other major event—age 71—is something else. It’s weird to be this age. It sounds old. And based on the number of medical discussions I seem to now hear and have, ‘old’ includes more physical problems and more lost objects. (It’s okay to smile at that last point.)

I’ve worked in a number of different careers and jobs but mostly I’m a Counselor and a Writer so over the years I’ve had a lot to say about life and stress and happiness. I’ve seen people change and grow in giant ways and I’ve always felt the world is more beautiful than savage. But now, at 71, I’m less sure. 

The poet Maggie Smith wrote a poem I wish was mine. She called it “Good Bones:”

“The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, 

Though I keep this from my children.”

It’s a great poem: worthy of googling and reading.

I’ve wondered A LOT if I agree with this. Fifty percent terrible. That’s A LOT. 

There’s also a third major and troubling awareness that’s grown quite large for me—not just my back and not just my age, but how should I name it? Trump. Incivility. Racism. Wars. Refugees. Harmed Children. And damn Cancer. 

Maybe it’s my age now, but I’m not as likely these days to jump into the big picture to change what I can. My family, my friends, my neighborhood—that’s different. In those cases I still do what I’ve always done: offer my skills, help how I can. But I’m not choosing to ‘make a mark’ anymore, at least not in the same way. That’s not to say I don’t hope to have a publisher pick up my novel-manuscript this year. But I’m increasingly comfortable enjoying the company of wonderful children and interesting adults, cooking up new recipes, reading and writing, watching Wheel of Fortune and the Great British Baking Show. I’ve begun to travel again, because I can walk again!—and I’m glad of that. But I don’t mind sticking close to home either.

So I ask myself a BIG question. DO I think the world is fifty percent terrible? 

I answer with great sadness. Yes. Yes I do. BUT:

The end of Maggie Smith’s poem is also true:

“Life is short and the world 

is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger

there is one who would break you,’

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones. This place could be beautiful, 

right? You could make this place beautiful.”

Yes, says me. Yes We could.