It is 2:47 PM on Sunday January 23rd, 2022. I’m sitting on the back patio on the new porch swing our neighbors gifted us as they moved away. There isn’t a cloud in the sky and the California sun makes it feel as though this is the middle of summer even though the temperature in the shade is only 59 degrees. There isn’t any wind and thus the air pollution level has risen to the mid 60s. I used to think the air here on the coast was pristine but I guess I just never realized the truth. Furthermore, it is allergy season for me. It is an allergy that does sneak attacks: I can be just fine but then suddenly sneeze three or four times in a row and my nose turns into a faucet.
As I sit here I can here a few birds singing but it is overpowered by the sound of my wife helping my son with Japanese homework, our neighbors kids playing just down the hill and the ever present noise pollution of motors. Technology gives but also takes away. The motor is invented, silence is pretty much a thing of the past for us in the city; artificial lighting is invented, say goodbye to a glorious star filled sky. Perhaps with all this talk of the “Metaverse” we will also be saying goodbye to reality as we know it.
This morning I was feeling a bit restless and since the weather was going to be nice I decided the first part of the day should be spent out on the patio doing a bit of work. Weeding in the garden needed to be done, I wanted to get the pumpkin seeds planted and I decided that instead of throwing the old wooden porch swing away I’d paint it and use it as extra swing capacity for when we had our patio cookouts. I let the family know my plans and after the work was done we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs for a nice afternoon lunch. Then I had a nice sit on the rocking patio chair and thought for a bit.
I thought about how quickly life goes as I realized we have been living here for eleven years. When we were young life was so full of excitement, of change and opportunity with the future being a completely blank canvas. All of a sudden those days were over a decade ago and now I am midlife, sitting on my porch swing realizing my future is mostly written. I look around and see many of our family friends have moved away or getting divorced. I see this country is now something I barely recognize and am afraid of what the future of this land may be. I no longer feel much excitement. Instead of going for a night out at the bars and meeting new people I sit on my porch swing drinking wine alone and letting my mind run free as I slowly become inebriated. Is this what it means to be midlife? It is not so much a yearning for the past as it is trying to resurrect the same sort of natural excitement and spontaneous joy of younger days.
Perhaps it is best to spend time alone. With the double punch of Trump and COVID I’ve lost a lot of respect for a good part of humanity anyway. I had thought that with all of our education here in the USA we were now smarter on average than those in the past. I was wrong.
Tomorrow I’ll follow the same routines, go to work, to to the dojo and go to bed only to repeat over and over again. I’ll then find myself again on the porch swing, only I’ll be 50 years old yet thinking the very same thoughts.
The sun has dipped behind the trees and another day starts to come to a close.
