Old and Wise

…an extra letter for you to read this week.

Dear You,

I write in haste.

If this letter were written in the scene of a period drama it would be set in the dark of night. I would be sitting at my desk wearing a white linen nightdress, my hair pinned up with tousled wavy curls. The makeup artist would attempt a naturally messy hairstyle and almost succeed. Candle light illuminating my face, the ASMR microphone would pick up the scratching of the quill on parchment as I scrawled the words with urgency. Hastily the letter would be sealed with wax and passed onto my alter-ego who dressed in black would ride by horse through the night along the old coach road, silhouettes of trees, a cottage with smoke billowing from the chimney, perhaps it were full moon, the sound of galloping hooves, dodging potholes, puddles and highwaymen until finally arriving at your door. The messenger, revealing by the look on their face a combination of being wired and weary would place the letter directly into your hands, no words necessary.

It’s not that we don’t have much time, but that our time is speeding up.

More haste less speed.

Then you would open the letter, peeling off the wax seal, the sound of paper between fingertips,… the camera would capture this in an extreme close up, focusing on the first line. Your hands would be perfectly manicured.

The narrator would read it aloud for the audience to hear

Dear You ,

THERE ARE NO WISE ELDERS GOVERNING OR GUIDING US.

We were told to hold onto our youthfulness, to hide our wrinkling skin and thinning grey hair, that ‘old’ was abhorrent…undesirable. And desirability was something you must not only own, but something you must buy.

So we have no elders, or very few to show us the way. They’re pretending to be young. Forever warrior, never king or queen. What happened to our rite of passage? The ‘Lost Boys’ get ‘thinned out’…the wise become hermits. Peter Pan was a self obsessed, uninitiated narcissist.

Big boys and big girls.

What is so appealing about never getting old and wise? Are we so afraid of Death? Surely this mysterious unknown could be something to work toward?

For a culture to live a life attempting to avoid the only truth we have absolute certainty of happening is a malady of monomaniacal absurdity. It is an illness in itself.

WE LIVE IN A CULT.

It’s time to WAKE UP.

Are you ready to get old…?

The narrator would stop reading. The camera now zooming out would focus on the reader who drops the letter, grabs their coat from the hook, and looks knowingly into the distance.

The episode ends and you’re left wondering what will unfold in the next one. There isn’t an option to - >skip to next episode, this period drama isn’t on Netflix.

I remain most humbly your loyal friend in service

Erin

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