Disintegration

 It does occur to me now that I have some decisions to make.

I have spent my adult life with those closest to me kidding about how "you'll never stop working, will you?" I chuckle, knowingly, and push the comment to the side. They understand something about me which I have not fully reckoned. 

One need look no further than this blog for evidence of just how correct this assertion is. What started as a lark nineteen years ago has become essentially an avocation. Eleven years ago I was interviewed for a documentary short about "megabloggers." At that time I said that the reason I kept on writing and writing was that no one had bothered to tell me to stop. 

Apparently, this is still the case. Which translates roughly into the realm of my chosen career. As yet, no one has come up to me and asked me to stop teaching. Part of my plan has always to be "value added." Sure, I can teach kids how to use computers and keep them from jumping off the top of the play structure, but I will also pick up the occasional rodent corpse and climb up on the roof to try and figure out where that last soccer ball went. As an elementary school teacher I have found that there is not much that is beneath me. This is how I believe that I have become invaluable. 

But to be honest, the last time I was up there, looking down on the playground, faces of children staring up at me, I heard their words more distinctly: "Mister Caven, what are you doing up there?"

Sixty-two years old, creaky knees and a growing sense of my own mortality at the top of a ladder that for some reason I seem to be the only person who knows how to use it. Plummeting from this precipitous height would probably not kill me, but the damage to my vintage frame would be significant. Perhaps enough to keep me from climbing back up on the roof.  

Because eventually I really should stop doing that. Like clambering up in the trees in our yard to mount our holiday lights, there will come a day when my part of this grand experiment will be that of consultant rather than the astronaut. As I find each time that I bend over to pick something off the floor, I discover that the ground has moved further away. I indicate this by making one of those not-so-discrete groans that have become more a part of my catalogue of sounds. 

Which doesn't mean I will actually stop doing any of these gymnastics. It just means that I can start to ponder how to cope with the appearance of those folks with the clipboards, wearing their sad faces and politely showing me the way to the door.