When Gold Turns to Rust

I was supposed to be playing guitar for a 50th wedding anniversary within the next month or so. Good news! Celebration! Champagne and balloons galore, list of memories, tears, Frank Sinatra music, the tinkle of ice in half full glasses of drinks, the cacophony of attendees dressed up chattering like it was their golden anniversary, long glances at “the couple” with such a history.-half a century together.

I get news that the gig is canceled. I make inquiries. It appears the couple has decided instead to get a divorce. Perhaps in the land of prosperity, where we have streets called Joy Lane and weekly incomes that outrun what most people in third world countries earn in a year, maybe here where our choices are legion and our lusts are like the worn strips on the back of our credit cards, maybe in this place in space-time this is as good as it gets.

I don’t know. That has become my mantra of late. It’s okay to not know, to avoid being so certain that you have only as an alternative the bogus confession that all is well on Elm Street and that things “couldn’t be better!” when in reality your thoughts run amuck late at night when above your bed the mirror looks down on you.

Today I will take a long walk and ponder those things in my life that are static, i.e., they’re fixed, immobile, immutable.