praying for wrinkles

I can’t sleep at night because the dog keeps me up, pacing and panting, barking at cats or maybe a raccoon, drinking water and whining to go outside just to feel the cool breeze. I don’t mind because she’s getting old and we all deserve to get our kicks, especially the elderly, who have worked hard and done their duty of being alive in all it’s joy and ennui and have the right to a midnight snack and a roll in the grass, the same way a child might before life turned them earnest.

Of course, even when you’re young your body aches. But I hope I get so old that I can’t help but hobble when I walk and talk to young people about how we’ve always thought the world was close to ending and we’ve always been at war. I want the line on my brow to get so deep that no one will have to question how skeptical I stayed and for my teeth to turn in so when I smile, they think of my father and especially his laughter at the dinner table where he gave many toasts and said many prayers over roast turkey back before I believed in godliness or asking for what I need.

What a privilege, to have a lifetime of memories.

I hope I get to be so old that the furniture in my home seems outdated and that I smell like pressed powder and potpourri, that children I adore hug my knees because I can no longer lift them. And that when it’s hard for my old soul to sleep, someone who loves me gets up to get me a glass of water and opens my window just so that I can feel the cool breeze.

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