WELL THIS IS A SURPRISE!

A friend called me recently. It was 8pm.

“Did I wake you?”

His first words made me laugh. It was eight pm. Good Lord, I don’t even take my Metamucil until nine!

And then it occurred to me, it was a perfectly reasonable question given that I am 76.

Getting older is a fascinating experience. It is at one and the same time foreboding, as the ‘evidence’ mounts as it is freeing as the ties that have bound us lose their elasticity and snap. Or is that my ligaments and tendons and … well, you get the idea. I mean at my age shopping at Costco is an act of pure optimism, buying toilet paper is just reckless. I mean the last thing you want to leave your children is thirty rolls of unused Kirkland brand toilet paper.

As my mother aged and expressed dismay at the changing times she took to saying, “Well at least I won’t be here to see it!”

I heard it as the frustrated shout of someone who realized she was neither heard, nor relevant any more. I get it. At a certain age, and I am well passed it, you are neither seen nor listened to anymore which as I come to think of it may be why old men shout so much. But that is not me.

Quite the opposite. I’m just disappointed I won’t be here to see what the future is bringing, what achievements, what celebrations, what calamities. If you ask me, I’ll tell you with a straight face, that I would live to 130 if it was possible.

So, I’ve lived most of my life anxious. I suppose most of us have. Not a debilitating anxiety but ever present, interfering on an every day basis with whatever the experience of the moment was. And I gave it bandwidth. For as long as I can remember I allowed it in.

Until now. I have reached a stage in my life where I can say, I am not anxious, at least not in the interfering way I have experienced most of my life. I have never been happier. My life is full. I am well married and well loved. My days are full, writing, spending time with my grandchildren and friends and generally embracing experiences as though they could be the last time I do.

Which gets back to where I began. There is no doubt that a sharp awareness of my mortality has sharpened my enjoyment of the moment. It is very freeing in its own way. And I’m more reflective than I have ever been in my entire life. I mean cut me some slack would you. How do you think an extroverted Taurus is going to live his life. That’s right, bouncing from the last great adventure, the last great moment – to the next. It was a fun ride, I have to say but not much time for reflection in there.

And that’s okay. I have plenty of time now and it turns out reflecting is a great past time. Things happen all around, the trick is to see them for what they are. Mac and I are on vacation in the Maritimes as I write this blog. We drove from St. Andrews by the Sea to Fredericton today, the beautiful capital of New Brunswick. Not very big actually, about 80,000 residents but it has five universities including the University of New Brunswick. On the drive over I had complained about my hair. During a fantastic lunch of crab cakes Mac turned to me.

“Why don’t you get your haircut?”

“Where?”

“Next door” she said, “It looks very cool as well.”

And before I could think about it, I was seated in a barber’s chair at The Royal Barbershop. And this was not just another barber shop. This barber shop had a bar in it, serving alcohol, bringing new meaning to the word ‘BARber.’ It was great.

“Short on top, shorter on the sides.”

“Yessir” answered my barber.

“What’s your name?”

“Ahmed Sir.”

“Tony, please call me Tony.”

A few minutes passed and I asked another question.

“Where are you from Ahmed.”

“Iran” he said, “Tehran actually.”

There was sadness in his voice, and his eyes.

Ahmed told me he had a masters degree in Civil Engineering and that his wife is doing her Ph.D in Physics at the University of New Brunswick. They had been in Canada since 1924. Since then his home in Tehran has been bombed into oblivion and he has not had contact with his mother or family for months. Neither had his wife.

I was humbled, to my core and surprised.

A plague of locusts on the United States of America! But all that aside that chance encounter with this gracious Persian man, stopped me in my tracks. It was just what I needed to stop my self indulgent, narcissistic, self reflection. And it is where this blog ends. A long way from where it began.

My life is good. I have never been happier. I am a lucky man. End of sentence.