Pop goes the Weasel

by InkWriter copywright held by Disney

I am not a Tigger.  Just thought I'd get that out there, right off the bat.  You know that guy, the physicist who knew he was dying and stated that "Of course everyone wants to be a Tigger not an Eyore."  I'm not him.  Nor am I an Eyore.  But like him, I may have an intimation of my end point.  Unlike him, I currently do not have irrefutable affirmation that a particular clock is ticking.  I've got a solid "Heads up," for sure.  And six years is the pessimistic timeline (depending on how morose one really is, that could be the optimistic one).

One in seven chance I've got the six year clock; that is what I can conclude.  Etiology (unless put through expensive and rather useless in the end, genetic testing) unknown. Here's the kicker:  Absolutely no current "modern medical" treatment reverses or even ameliorates the progress. 

I am not feeling Tigger-ish about this. Not Eyore either.  Because., I'm not AA Milne's baby.  I'm my own baby.

I don't want to be morbid.  People say that all the time when they are about to be morbid.  "Morbid" meaning--doom and gloom.  But morbidity in the true sense of the word is simply death.  The morbidity rate for the 1 of the 7 etiologies is 100%.  And it hits in one's 50's and one gets just enough years to do something.  Some few things. The other 6 are no cake walk, either.

The morbidity rate for life is 100%, too, by the way. So I'm not so alone.  Hence, these reflections.

Suspecting that one is more than less actively dying is a strange little space to inhabit. But not so strange, really.  There's a stern pilgrim somewhere in me that says I'm being melodramatic.  And I confess--I am a fan of a good romantic swoon.  We love our tragedies because they acknowledge how tragic our real truth is: We don't get to stay around and that is a grand sorrow for the little narrator in our head.

photo by plasticfetish

So this is a truth I'm going to sit with rather more closely than I used to.  And rather less closely than the tigger physicist.  I'm in a third space.  Knowing I'm dying...just like you...and you.  But I'm ot sure if I've got a ticking clock with a little cukoo set to sing at a clearly appointed hour or not.  We've all got the cuckoo....or is it a Jack In the Box.  The catch on those always broke, right?  They always wound up permanently Jack Outta the Box at some point due to some small child's over enthusiastic cranking. Or just latch fatigue, maybe.

Today my Jack is in the box. So I'm going to write from this place.  This place we all are--turning our little organ-grinder handles, trying to get the notes to play attenuated one-by-one little tunes. I'm turning  the crack as slowly as possible. I'm the John Cage of Jack In the Box.  Don't jostle me, okay?