when the things i know and the things you know become the things we know

dan at the kent boys', brooklyn. 1.09.



last night i saw a documentary about an elderly person's home in florida. a 19 year old convinced them to let him stay and get to know the residents. their genius and kindness and selflessness flattened his vanity.

when he visited them a year after the documentary was finished, two of the brightest had died. eleanor, sharp witted smoker with a voice like a diner waitress. bill, diluted by dementia the tiniest bit but you could still taste the wisdom. how could they have? they were alive five minutes before, in my life, i was watching them being brilliant and more aware of the human condition than i'll ever be. before he came in and told us they were gone.

this morning i looked up a book about how to live to be a century old. my obsession with staying alive is going too far. the calculation table told me that if i keep going the way i am, i'll live to be one hundred and one. that's until 2090. that doesn't seem long enough.

i'm banking on science to keep us going, to figure it out before i die. i want to keep my marbles, i want to grow incredibly shrunken and wrinkled and still be there, and these are the days i wish i were religious.

seeing an old silver woman rocking on a florida veranda smoking long virginia slims talking casually about how she hope's there's a heaven, that's for sure, and oh she'll be so busy shaking hands. but she's not scared. that just takes my heart. why can't i have that kind of sense to not be scared? i'd probably live longer.

the weekends feel more important with each passing weekend and that old paradox from childhood, whether to stay up as long as possible and never sleep -because how could i ever waste time- or to sleep in and maybe prolong my life is haunting me again; i end up in the middle, lying in bed trying to sleep, feeling like i should be doing something else. something else like being out on each important weekend passing by.