I love old films. Everyone seems glamourous and sophisticated even when buffoonery is underfoot. It leaves me feeling star struck. However, being the killjoy my brain can be, my thoughts often take a sharp turn down a dark alley and replace adulation with stark reality.
In the films, the actors are young and vibrant, much younger than I am right now. But these actors are now dead for the most part. The old films only capture glimpses of animated stardust which now lies inanimate at the bottom of caskets and urns.
My awareness of myself is like the images of the actors caught on film. They never age and neither does my awareness. I am perpetually eight years old. It’s only my body that keeps aging, like the actors’ did off screen, like all of us do. No one is spared the reality of aging and death.
At first blush, this is a morbid line of thinking. Maybe it’s because I’m a Scorpio. Maybe I’m a reincarnated monk or nun who, in a past life, meditated frequently on death. Whatever the reason, the steady awareness of death serves to remind me to stop wasting time because it flies by whether I feel its passage or not.
I imagine that even on my deathbed I’ll still feel eight years old inside and wonder where the time went and if I left anything of myself worth considering for those who remain. I know my body will be joining the ranks of these old stars, melting into the earth, long before my awareness is ready.
life in jello 