A Friend of Beethoven

I’m tired. It was a long walk today, longer than I was expecting, but my perpetual companions proffered a tired soul enough to make land. As of late, within the last couple of years, its hard to tell as my memory has begun to find uncertain purchase, and the difference in seasons is negligible here, one of the reasons I came west so long ago now, my body has begun to hurt and tire easily. Michael and David tell me its because I’m getting old, mocking my rickety, unsteady attempts at rising in the morning with calls of old man, old fart, and their favorite: worm food. That last one always make me laugh. They, in turn, have given up youthful aspirations; creases and deep set wrinkles, the marks of long years of laughter and sorrow, characterize once youthful faces. Friends, too caught up in the goings on of life, too distracted to notice the steady, rhythmic onslaught of old age are now deep within its clutches. We, moving in unison, shared youthful beauty, the respect and handsome accolades of middle age, and now the pity of those who navigate their way around our unsteady gait. All, except Anita, fight the ravages of time; she doesn’t look a day over 25, exactly as I met her so many years ago, baring an uncanny resemblance to my young wife. Maybe it is this recent sense, this recent awareness, that not an inconsiderable amount of time has passed in my life, and that the infinite well of vigor and vibrance of youth has begun to sputter and spurt.