Stream of consciousness

by Paul Kandarian

Okay, reality check: my youth technically passed a little while ago. Maybe at 65. Okay, reality check, continued: maybe it was sooner than that.

But trust me, I’ve not turned into a curmudgeon who sits on the porch frowning at those noisy kids skateboarding down the street and snapping “Don’t you have any other place to do that, dammit?”

I’m young inside where it counts – inside being the soul, not inside the body which has creaked way ahead of the soul in the aging race. But as I stand knee-deep in that chilly stream on a trail I’ve walked many times before, my 70th birthday approaching like a laser, whereas the teen years crawled like a snail going uphill through molasses, I realize the best part of youth – things that don’t hurt and the confidence to do stupid stuff – have sailed into the mist.

I had gotten off the trail when I encountered the stream just because I’ve always done that. I like taking the non-trail less traveled. But all these fallen trees and thick brush that populate the woods that I used to duck under and crash through with confidence now loomed large and scary and Tolkienesque in their gothic horror that to my eyes appeared a vegetative obstacle course. Decades ago, I would’ve sailed through as easily as walking down the street.

I hike frequently with friends, one of whom is 81 and still ambulatory, albeit far more slowly than he once was. We will be walking and see a rickety old stone wall in the forest by the trail and recall how as kids growing up in our respective hometowns, we’d run long stretches atop those rocky roads barely touching the stones as we skimmed fluidly from one to the next and leaping across gaps that presented no more of a problem than stepping over a small puddle. It was our version of parkour.

Now, common sense, side by side with arthritic joints and sketchy balance, makes us walk by those walls, not flitting atop, our parkour days a dim memory.

But this day, I’m alone on my hike and that fact alone gives me pause recently. Should I hike with others… just in case? Should I tell people where I’ll be hiking… just in case? Should I stay home and safely do chair yoga… just in case?

The latter is not an option, nor will I ever let it be. So says I, at this moment in time, which stubbornly refuses to slow down. Time marches on, but I will not go gentle into that good night – which today translates into standing by a cold stream judging the best way to get across it.

And that appears to be a thick log bridging the roughly three-foot gap. I could jump it of course, done that a million times… awhile back. But I’m not where I want to be – 10 or 20 years younger –so common sense prevails. Okay, reality check: if common sense truly had a hold on me, I’d have walked back the way I came to get back on the trail and avoid risking disaster.

So I climbed up somewhat unsteadily onto this thick tree trunk, ancient and rotting and yet seemingly sturdier than the old guy wobbling on top of it. In days of old, I’d have sprinted across this thing, or just leapt across the damn stream, but now I slowly shuffled on using my walking sticks for balance and creeped along figuring I’d be fine.

And I was. Until I wasn’t. And that was when I pushed off with my back foot, a part of the rotting log sloughing off, me slipping and plunging feet first into the cold water, the nanosecond it took to go from dry to wet giving me ample time to consider what was happening and fill the otherwise quiet forest air with self-deprecating invectives and finally coming to rest standing in cold, soaking wet hiking boots and pants.

“Oh screw it,” I also thought, “I need new hiking boots anyway.”

I sat back onto the log, the feet that failed me soaking in the fast-moving stream, and sighed, mumbling a phrase that I would often jokingly use when pushing too hard athletically at anything from about my 40s on up: “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

Okay, reality check: now it’s true.

Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I mean, it’s not true as in stay-home-androt true. But it is true as in slow down, you can’t move too fast, gotta make the rest of this trip through life last. And there I go paraphrasing a song from 57 years ago. Fitting.

So I’ll keep moving and doing and enjoying and realizing there are limitations that aging imposes that we wish it didn’t. So I won’t crawl through tight spaces with my grandson anymore, but will watch and advise him on how he can do it. I won’t go skipping over the rocky uncertainty of a stone wall anymore, but will walk beside it and admire its lasting beauty. And I won’t try to traverse a cold stream on a rotting log with wonky balance, I’ll just remember when I could.

Okay, reality check: I probably will still do that last one because hell, I can always use new hiking boots.