I am 53 years old.
Somewhere on the Australian coast in 2017, SJ and I sit watching a group of young people cavorting on the beach we share. I look down at my bloated self and complain about the passage of time, yearning for the form and function of youth.
“That shit is gone,” SJ says, “and it ain’t coming back.” Spoken like a man who knows.
I am 56 years old.
During a 60 Second Answer session I remind SJ of the beach, of the gone-ness of youth.
“What takes its’ place, then?” I ask.
“If you’re lucky, nothing at all,” he tells me. “If you work your ass off, nothing takes its place. It’s a BIG thing in life: Going, going, gone…but not everything goes at once, so you’ve no obligation to scramble to try to reassemble all the parts you started with. You’ve got fewer, you’re lucky. It’s less to carry around. The room for manoeuvering increases the less you’re bound to of the stuff you used to understand yourself to be.”
I am 58 years old.
Every night on stage on this tour is a chance for me to be fully that age, but it’s not granted as a guarantee. Often, the first notes I play are like a key that unlocks the door behind which is every self-immolating thought, every failure I’ve stored away during the run up to the gig, and they pour through. And there I am, taking a public shower under a torrent of insecurity. It’s a precarious moment, and one would think, at my age and with as much time in as I’ve had in the scenario, I’d have a sure fire way of handling it.
I don’t. I throw myself on the mercy of the moment. Hardly a sure fire way of doing anything, a kind of reactivity of a 15 year old.
We talk about this on the drive from Salt Lake City to Moab, Utah, where we will play tonight. As we talk, the landscape starts to be accompanied by the red sandstone monoliths the area is renowned for. Older is in the truck with me, and older is surrounding me outside.
Would that I have all I need to remind me to manoeuvre tonight.
gh
Gregory Hoskins 