Ages and stages

 LISTEN. As we close Susan Neiman's Why Grow Up? in Enlightenment tonight I'm most drawn to her late discussion of *Shakespeare and the respective ages and stages of human life. All the world's a stage for sure, but like Neiman I prefer to think of us players as improv artists rather than scripted drones. Resistance to an age of immaturity and imbecility is not futile. Thinking and acting courageously on the basis of our own reasoned understanding is the thing. The play's conclusion is not yet writ.

I'm pretty clearly at level six, a week out of surgery, living in a world suddenly less wide and walking three-minute laps around the driveway ten minutes at a time. Did that several times yesterday, ditching the old-man walker for the younger man's walking stick I've long treasured for its assistance in scaling the elevated trails of Warner Parks and Radnor Lake. Now it's helping restore the confident balance and stride I'll need to get out of the driveway and back in the wider world. As Rebecca Solnit (I think) said, your homeworld is defined by the length and breadth of your daily perambulations. 

So the next stage will take me around the perimeter of the Brook Hollow Baptist Church for at least fifteen minutes. Then twenty. Then to the Richland Creek Greenway for half an hour. And then it'll be time for the Physical Therapists to marvel at my progress and give me a green light to resume older longer routes and routines. Salvation for me will not be a sudden conversion, it will come incrementally in baby steps. The last will be a leap not of faith but of tenacity.

So far, this past week, I've experienced plenty of the predicted post-operative pain (thank goodness for Percocet) but none of the tingling, burning, numbing and deadening sensations that have been narrowing my world for longer than I've wanted to admit. I do think OLIF has given me the new lease I've desperately needed, and will extend my Sixth Age by years and maybe decades. 

I must thank my wife first for pushing me to consider surgery, and now for changing my dressings (etc.), the doctors for performing it with evident adeptness, Younger Daughter (my primary caregiver) for making this past week almost festive (we watched Guess Who's Coming to Dinner yesterday, the film that woke ten-year old me to a world of racist injustice), the nurses at St. Thomas who were so competent and kind, the friends and family who lent moral support... well, basically I (like Daniel Dennett) just want to thank goodness wherever we find it in the wide world. We forget how much of it there is. (Steven Pinker will help us remember, in our next read starting next week: Enlightenment Now.)

As for the Seventh Age, the age of "mere oblivion...sans everything"? It can wait.

*The Seven Ages of Man

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes 

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

--William Shakespeare (from As You Like It)