THE AGING GARDENER; 'I GROW OLD... I GROW OLD... I SHALL WEAR THE BOTTOMS OF MY (GARDENING) TROUSERS ROLLED.'
Growing old. It's as inevitable as death and taxes and late spring freezes. And yet, while our bodies are constantly delivering the bad news that we are aging, demonstrating this with aching knees and backs, overactive bladders, failing eyesight and diminishing strength, our minds are locked into a very different calendar. In our minds, we are always young and capable, envisioning a future in which we will set goals and achieve them. This paradox of human existence (Shakespeare wrote: "Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty") makes us a strangely conflicted species, perhaps even a pitiful one. I confess to being as conflicted as any old sod, but I feel as if I may be gaining wisdom about this stage of life, at last. This wisdom wasn't purchased without pain, and I mean REAL pain. The scream-inducing, white-knuckling, how-did-this-happen kind. It began innocently enough, as many major watersheds of self-awareness have commenced in my life, with a couple of hours...
