Satchell Paige is supposed to have asked, “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” It’s a sweet question.
Some days I would be 73 years and 16 days old, maybe even older. But then there are the days when I’m 14 again and being dazzled by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band — imagine hearing “A Day in the Life” for the first time, and now imagine it’s 1967 and you’re hearing sounds you never expected to hear in a pop song and that amazing final crescendo and what the heck is a House of Lords?
Or walking through a patch of wildflowers holding hands — surely I’m twentysomething from the feeling in my heart, but there’s something old and wise in my head whispering, “Enjoy this while you can.”
I know how old I might want to be if I didn’t know how old I am, but that nagging reminder — I think it’s my bum knee — keeps tugging at my psyche and telling me to the day how old I “really” am, and that skews my perception.
I do know one wonderful thing: When I say to myself, “Make believe you’re not this old” or “You’re only as young as you feel,” something lifts inside me and I remember what it was like to be 14 or 22 or 31 or 44 or 56 or 68 or holy cow it can’t be 2023 already, I’ll be 70 then — how terribly strange.
The songwriter poet who wrote in his twenties, “How terribly strange to be 70,” is now in his mid-eighties. I wonder how he’s feeling today.
