The View from the Top Shelf
The last project my friend and I worked on was far from the fanciest bit of woodwork we had ever done. But it pretty well summed up what life is all about. Quite amazing. We made a number of little tripods on which a picture could be placed, and the whole business then put on a shelf somewhere. Amazingly, each of our children who had received these as gifts, immediately placed them high up on a book case shelf from where our picture pleasantly looked down at them. I saw this as a metaphor, several, in fact.
Firstly, we were put up out of harms way so we could no longer interfere in the particular family’s business, while still harmlessly in view. The perpetual smiles on our old faces in the photograph would gaze down approvingly on everything that went on in that household.
Not bad. But I read something else into that positioning. It kind of looked like we had outlived our usefulness and thus we were put up on a high shelf, out of the way to gather dust. That took a bit of getting used to. It was sort of like cutting the apron strings all over again, except that this time, it was our children doing the cutting. Well, you have to get used to your own reality, and once having done that, you can make your own choices.
Not one to say the glass is half empty; I chose the one that is half full. I suddenly saw our place in the family from a whole different perspective. Perched on this high plateau, I had an amazing view of everyone’s activities; their successes, their failures, their mistakes and screw-ups. Of course we’ve seen all that before. We had in fact been part of it all. But now it’s changed. Now we are only observers, footloose and fancy free. What a spectacular view! Our children and grandchildren have become part of the general population and we are free to do whatever the hell we like. Aside from the odd obligatory visit or phone call we are, for all intents and purposes – dead. Hallelujah! Let me tell you there’s nothing like being a healthy dead. Mind you, one must take things into account like the effects of gravity, wear and tear on the body, degeneration of this part and that, and even replacement parts that don’t work near as well as the originals. But that aside, this kind of dead ain’t so bad.
Having the benefit of hindsight of about sixty years, give or take, we can pick up where we left off at the age of seventeen or so when all that hormonal activity forced us into adulthood and all its attendant foibles. This time we can focus on enjoying ourselves to the degree that our aging bodies allow without the worry of consequences. If, in the course of following our own pursuits, we happen to cause a bit of embarrassment or even concern to our now middle aged children, let them worry about it. We’ve done our fare share of worrying over them. Turn about is fair play.
We can no longer be held responsible for knee-slapping laughter every time one of their children puts a dent in the family car, or plays hooky from school, or becomes unreasonably unruly and runs away from home. Aw - - - Tee hee; not our problem. That’s funny! Well it wasn’t so funny thirty years ago when we were going through all these problems ourselves, but now from our lofty platform, it sure looks that way.
Well that opens up a whole new vista of possibilities! If I look around, I find that most of the movers and shakers in the world around us are either the same age or younger than our own brood. And mostly, they aren’t any smarter either. In fact, some of them are a whole lot dumber. (I could name some examples) Why should I only pick on my own brood when there are so many targets to entertain me and fill in my time? Well, don’t get me started. I think I’ll open another blog page and start firing in some anecdotes. Who knows, if I do enough of them, it could turn into another book. Hm. So look for a new page in the next week or so. I think I’ll call it “View from the Top Shelf”. Should be an adventure.
