Daydream

In the daydream, I am weathered with age. 

I know it’s a daydream because I am both in my body and an outside spectator.

I hobble onto a stage, with jiggly knees

Eager hands rushing to help me.

I wave them away.

In my 85 years of living, I have found reward in both pain and insanity. 

But never in rushing.

Instead I savour it, the stretch of my limbs of their own accord. 

A lightning quick process in the brain, assembled into walk.

My heels staccato across the stage and I hear a collective breath. 

I can smell the anticipation, heady and inspiring, rolling off the crowd in waves. 

From me, they await : 

Words of wisdom. 

The keys of life I have supposedly acquired on my journey. The one they suppose is ending.

I allow myself a small chuckle.

I am not here to be honoured. It is but a ruse for what they’re really after.

Something profound.

Finally I draw my lips to the mic, my smile accompanied by laugh lines

It is easier to smile now than it ever was before.

“What is profound?” my voice echoes in the room. “I keep hearing it upon my travels. But you are so profound…” 

“What is profound if not the stains of life made pattern, which appear pretty when swept up in the magic of it all. But no such pattern exists the second you blink. What is profound, can it be touched…can it take any space at all, can it save a single soul?

Tell us something profound, you say… 

Ah, but would my words, laced with bravado, 
lend you any on your journey? 

Or will not any truth I impart become lost to you on the path?”

“In fact I insist you forget. Many of you in here are carrying pens…stop it! Stop it this instant! The truth of the world is too bright for the naked eye, too fearsome to face. Destined to be lost the instant you look away. And so you will pursue truth endlessly, demolishing and rebuilding all understanding tirelessly…that is the definition of living.”

“So from me, remember nothing but the pleasant feeling that accompanied my presence. The bright yellow of my essence, already a distant whisper..."

I sigh with more sass than they thought I had left. What? 

Was wise old woman the only mould yet available for me? 

Did bitchiness become extinct at sixty? Was old age a magic cure for wickedness?

Of course not, they were all pretending.

I however, spent too much of my youth simpering and eager to please and I shall no longer partake in this deceit.

I plant an arm on my hip.

“A journalist, by the name of Paul Roodman, I think. Asked me this question, it needled me a bit. ‘Now that you’ve achieved everything you possibly could, what do you have left to look forward to ?’

I thought it odd, but I understood. That what he was truly asking was, what do you have left to live for? Now that you’ve found what millions of others spent their lives looking for. And I think that million, included Paul.”

“To Mr Roodman, and many in this room. My greatness is defined by my accomplishments. Yet for me, greatness is not a height to be reached, but an endless well within myself. I am no more great now than I was at 13, or frankly, infancy. 

You see the accolades, the tributes, awards, the attention of you people

….I deeply appreciate. But they could never make me great. 

All that you see is not the measurement of my greatness, only the product of it. 

Leaking out of me, more obviously. 

And if I’d spent my life manning a grocery store, it would be no less and no more than it is this instant.

Isn’t that beautiful? Doesn’t that excite you in the bones?

Or are mine just old?”