Birthday Countdown: To shore up my ruins...

A couple thoughts on turning sixty (two weeks from today).

I. My Brain

Overall I feel increased power of mind at this age. This is nice.

I know a lot--sometimes because I lived through it.

EXAMPLE:
US President Jimmy Carter > putting solar panels on the White House, 

. . . and Ronald Reagan taking them down,

. . . and Obama putting them back.

Other things I know because I saw the movie or, you know, read the novelization or whatever.

Besides Knowing Things That Happened, I'm confident of where I stand on Big Picture Things that used to flummox me.

Example: [Weirdly] Someone recently told me they loved (loved!) General William Tecumsah "War Is Hell" Sherman because he had devastated the South in the US Civil War.

I have no doubt what I think about this.
Total War is a crime against humanity, I said, and Sherman was a war criminal.
(He said so himself, here in a letter refusing to rescind his order to  evacuation citizens of Atlanta, which his troops then burned. His orders, he wrote,

"were not designed to meet the humanities of the cause... War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. "

Yes, well. I can say without hesitation that I'm not signing onto that pov.
When I was twenty I would've felt the same, but I'd have doubted my judgment:
"Am I missing some necessary facts or philosophy?"

No. I am not.

I also notice slippage in my brain's transfer of things-in-the-moment to its long-term storage banks.
This is not so nice––but it's normal.

Entropy wins, but at this point, mere Post-Its serve to shore up my fragments.

II. My Body
 
My awareness of how entropy applies to my Body, however--this proceeds at a slightly more alarming rate.

Example: I'd mentioned to my doctor a couple years ago (back when C = Cancer) that my breasts were sore along the sides---could it be . . . the dreaded C?

She just laughed and said, "Get better support. Buy stronger bras."

And did I?
I did not.
Wearing something like a whale bone corset just didn't appeal.
But the truth is, flesh weighs heavy.

This morning I ordered two new bras with fortification that looks like it was designed by the Corps of Engineers.

 

Yes, please.