2970 Smokey sketch, life phases

Monday, May 24, 2010

A witty saying proves nothing.
--Voltaire--

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In 1966 my cat Smokey, black with a white spot on her chest and a white bar on her belly, was eight years old. She was sitting on a table looking out the window one day, and I happened to be holding a ballpoint pen and notepad. I quickly sketched this:
She died in 1975, aged 18 years. I've had a lot of cats over the past 50 years. At one time I had seven cats (two adults and five kittens), but Smokey remains the most unique and memorable. She was extremely intelligent and sensitive to my emotional needs. It's been 35 years, and I still miss her.

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To niece, who said that the BMW rode hard, and I should get a Mercedes, I now know what you meant. They gave me a 2010 128 loaner (Hal is a 2011 135), and the older car rides hard and handles awkwardly by comparison. I felt every bump in my street and driveway yesterday.

"John" called this morning to tell me Hal was ready (they found and fixed a pinched speaker wire), and I mentioned the difference to him, and he gushed yes, such a difference. They softened the suspension in mid-2010 or somewhen, and the newer cars corner better and feel solidly heavy. The 135i, being a convertible, feels especially heavy, which smooths the ride, but steering and cornering are still dancer nimble.

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The Man turns 50 today. He is embarking on some major and scary changes to his life path. When he's stressed he withdraws, and I know that, but it doesn't make it any easier to be rejected when you want to help.

I sent him a happy birthday email at midnight in which I mentioned that he's starting the second half of the 60-year adult phase, in which one gets to start over, redefine, redirect. He's absolutely doing that, but I'm not sure he understood what I meant and I didn't explain it.

I have a theory that the ideal life has four phases:

1. First 20 years - youth - you get to be silly and childish and experimental.
2. Next 60 years - adulthood, which has two subparts:
• First 30 years of adulthood - you have to be sensible and responsible, building a family, a future, a support structure for later years, perhaps doing what you have to do rather than what you want to do.
• Second thirty years of adulthood - you get to reexamine the first thirty, and restructure your life, redirect your energies to something you really want to do, using different criteria for decisions, perhaps contributing more to society than to the economy.
3. Next twenty years - youth again - you get to be silly and childish and experimental.

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