In my time of dying is just a badass Led Zeppelin song. I thought to myself, “I’m going through a Led Zeppelin phase…” and I thought a little more, no, you are going through a Led Zeppelin life. Your Mother introduced you to them, you never went away, you listen to them, sometimes when someone else was playing them, you never went away. It’s how I started music, it’s how I’ll finish but this isn’t about dying…
It’s about not living, let me tell you a story.
It’s Saturday, I have some chores to do, actually, not chores, things that make me happy. I have an old camera lens that has lost its grease, it’s squeaky. The lens is crystal clear, the aperture blades are clean and snappy, the lens works, it’s just not smooth, the grease has solidified and the lens is dry. I think I paid $15 bucks for it but the value I see in it is worth the $65 to place it back into position to last decades. It’s actually my second copy of this lens, the one I use is on my Nikon FG and once I get it back, I’ll probably mount it on my camera, use it and the lens I have now will go on a camera that I’ll gift to one of my sons.
I’m older now, I don’t feel older but I know I am. I’m forced into it. I’ve lived an exciting life and I’m not done. I look at my peers and see old people, the signs of living a long time. I’ve lost weight, I feel good. My mind is kept working with intense brainwork taking care of people, answering to many highly educated people that are demanding of me.
I love it, it’s how I stay sharp.
But it’s intense. Sometimes people die. It’s inevitable, we all will die but for now, I’m here living. And it’s the weekend and I’m on the freeway. I used to be the fastest, now I’m just fast and bookin to get to where I got to go. I understand the traffic, I know it having driven it since before the freeway was built. I blaze down the road in a car I dreamed of owning my whole life, I feel I don’t deserve it but I know I do, I payed for it by trading in my time at work. Lots of time there, I’m on my nineteenth year, working on twenty and I’ll try to do twenty two, that is if I do it all right.
It’s July, we are half way through the 100 days of more than one hundred degrees. I’m smiling but I know if I can just make it past August, I’ll live another year, I’ve always said that I will die in August, I’m trying to live a different life where that just isn’t a thought anymore. A large chunk of my life has been spent hating on August but now I am at the last quarter of my life, I’ve softened my view. The heat is worse than it’s ever been but the house is cooler than it’s ever been. Life is good, the bills are getting paid and we serve our community.
I turn up the volume, I just bought Physical Graffiti again, it’s been some time since I’ve cued it up and wow, what an album. I mash the pedal, the Forester accelerates and I pass a slower car. I look up and I lift my foot off the accelerator.
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| I took a silver Sharpee to remind me to live life… maybe slow down a little |
Slow the Fuck Down
Ha ha! We are adults. It’s my sticky note, my reminder in my phone.
Slow down.
I got this.
I peel off the freeway, right on Priest, left on University, a mile and some and I pull into Tempe Camera. Grabbing my old lens, I walk into the store. I place the lens on the counter, we chit chat, initial here, sign and date here. It will be done in a few days, you want us to call you?
I back up and there is a picture of a friend on the wall. He is high up on a backside turn in a desert pipe! It’s the flyer for the Tempe exhibit for skateboarding! Yeah! Heck yeah! I could have been there that day! I did that, super cool and there he is!
I know that dude!
I snap the pic and I’m out thinking about those desert pipe trips.
I ease out into traffic and turn up the rest of the song.
Yeah. I’m not dying, yet. I’m living. I used to do some crazy stuff, now I’m doing other things, and I have no regrets.
I turn up the volume and mash the pedal. On to the next thing.
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