“Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is ageing.”
Maya Angelou (was an American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist.)
The photo above was taken as for my Redeemed by Dave hobby making jewellery from old silver-plated cutlery. I’ve been doing it for about 3 years now and have become a reasonable ammature Silversmith. It’s actually where the idea of one day writing a book or blog called ‘Redeeming Dave’ came from. I found the process of taking something old and fashioning it into something with a new purpose made me think about the same kind of process that had been happening for me.
I discovered along the way that one of best parts of the jewellery was allowing the wear and tear of the past use to become a design feature of this new thing with a new purpose and a new story. Some people don’t like the look of having flaws in the things they buy, For a lot of things I get that and mostly agree. Who wants to spend $1000 on a new tv only to find it has a scratch on the screen. Not me and no-one I know so for some things new needs to mean pristine, unused and in perfect working order.
Not to contradict myself but having said that most of the possessions we have owned over the years were certainly not new and pristine. They were cast offs from friends and family and, much to the chagrin of our children, they were also found on the side of the road on the way home from somewhere or other. Parents are embarrassing enough without pulling over to the side of the road and picking up someone else’s junk and acting like they just hit the jackpot. I think those years of furnishing our home with old stuff has given us a bit of an ability to see that sometimes flaws are a feature rather than a bug.
When it comes to recycling old silverware and crafting it into jewellery, there are a lot of people who happily pay more for a piece with evidence of a past and the wear of age. I know I do in fact one of the signs I have for my little stall at the market says ‘It’s more than Jewellery, it’s History’. I do love coming up with lines like that, In fact I’ve got a bit of a reputation for cooking of clever marketing ideas, clear doesn’t always mean successful of course but still, I do love doing it.
It struck me while I was developing my skills as a Silversmith and shaping a narrative around it to help promote my creations that perhaps this whole project was leading me to a new and uncomfortable discovery about myself and the above photo would come to represent that discovery.
The idea of the photo was to establish a ‘brand’ for Redeemed by Dave, I thought that along with a title like Silversmith (it’s a pretty cool name) I should also develop a look that suited the old profession, ageing materials and the arty alternative kind of feel. So I grew a few whiskers like I imagined a Silversmith of old might have, put on some chunky earrings I made, hung a black sheet in the background and got my bemused partner to start taking photos. Then I got a free trial version of a photo editing app and out came this picture.
I love this photo and what it represents but it isn’t real
RD
I mean it’s real and from time to time I do grow that strip of whiskers on my chin and I do own that coat and I make and wear those earrings so it’s not that it’s fake but it not entirely real either. It was and is a picture of what I want to look like rather than what I usually do look like. I have spent most of my life doing some version of this photo, in my work, my friendships, my marriage and family, I’m sure you get the idea,
It’s not all fake but it isn’t all real.
RD
It would be a short jump to assume therefore none of it is real, than my whole life is a manufactured series of branding exercises designed to get a particular response, to ‘position’ myself as the marketing people call it. Perhaps a while back, if you caught me I a darker moment I would say that it was all fake in fact about 20 years ago I went through a long phase of believing and actually saying out loud that ‘I’m all window dressing, an empty shirt with little to no substance’. It felt cathartic every time I thought it or said it, it still does but nowhere near as much and I think I’m learning why.
There are very few people in the world that don’t, at some stage feel like a fraud. “If only they knew what I’m really like underneath they would hate me’ would have to be one of the more common bits of self talk many of us engage in.
The fear of being ‘found out’ is so common it makes me think it is part of what it means to be human.
RD
What makes all this worse is that it’s probably true, at least there’s a lot of truth in it. There is no story that spreads quite as quickly as a ‘Fall from Grace’. We are shocked, aghast, disappointed, angry and lots of other words like that but underneath, I am certain some of us are relieved. Underneath the surface, behind the image, further back behind what we allow anyone to see, way back behind that photo and in that cave we hide from others because ‘If they knew who I really am they would hate me’ right down deep in that place I am relieved it isn’t me being exposed.
I wish I could say that if you were to just be honest and let all those skeletons out of the closet all would be ok and you would at last be free and be able to live what’s left of your life without fear of being exposed but I can’t. I can’t because it isn’t true and that’s not only because of the omnipresent schadenfreude that has become a hallmark of an online society. I’m saying there is all that, but it’s not only that.
Maya Angelou (the first quote) is so challenging to me I considered not including it. As I understand it she is distinguishing between ageing and maturing or growing up. It is entirely possible, in fact Angelou is asserting that most of us don’t really grow up or mature at all. We gain skills and carry out roles and for the most part appear to be a good citizen, respected by those who know us and able to travel through life find a parking space, pay the rent and generally fulfilling the expectations of an adult. We smile and frown at then things we’re supposed to smile and frown at and depending on what social group be belong to, we say and apparently do most, even all things we are suppose to do.
If I do it well I am impenetrable, even to those closest to me, even to myself
RD
As I think about the billions of lives that have come and gone ageing as is socially appropriate and eventually being celebrated at a funeral with photo’s and stories all telling a story of a life well lived I confess a good deal of despair rises up inside me. Partly because of a feeling of ‘Is this really all there is?’ Mostly though it’s that line delivered by Jack Nicholson in the movie of the same name that maybe this is ‘As Good as it Gets!’ Maybe it is possible that at 57 all there is left is remembering or at best reliving the past, I hope not, I really do hope I have something more waiting for me to see and embrace. One thing I’m sure of is that if there is something more I can do it won’t be done by simply carrying on ‘ageing’
This is where Maya Angelou’s words begin to do more than make me feel uncomfortable, although they still do. If (and it’s a big if) there is to be a next or even final chapter for me to ‘write’ I’m going to have to do substantially more than continue to age, I am, in Maya’s words, going to have to grow up. Staring at this screen I am left with a mysterious if obvious question I will need to find an answer to. ‘What does in mean to grow up and mature?’ Before I discovered Maya’s quote that would have been an easy question for me to answer, it’s obvious, it’s all around me and it’s well accepted by most if not all. Growing up. according to most of the evidence available it to be a responsible citizen in other words and forgive me for repeating that quote one more time but this is the precise moment I find myself in this morning:
“Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging.”
See Above
The person in that photo at the top of this post has been and continues to be a mystery to me. Am I the powerless child carrying the weight of a lifetime of trauma, am I the Christian Missionary completely committed to the ‘Kingdom of God’, am I the Youth Social or the Social Worker, The Protestant or the Catholic, the Musician, the Silversmith, the Husband and Father, am I the Success or the Failure the Workaholic or the Lazy Bastard who just can’t be bothered, am I the Gardener or the Pizza Maker, The sufferer of 20 years Chronic Pain the Drug Addict, Website Builder, Visionary, Writer, Teacher, Leader, Podcaster, Mentor. Am I the Window Dressing, that Empty Shirt filled out by the telling of stories or the writing of a blog (sigh).
It is unbelievably temping to say ‘I am all these things and more’. I want to write that and I want to project that. I can feel it right in this moment that what I want is for anybody reading this to be impressed at my list and I want (I hate that this is true) the reader to be impressed
RD
It feels like I have arrived or at least I’m beginning to arrive at an important intersection in the life and times of whoever I am. The intersection seems to have at least 2 possible roads leading off into the distance and I have allowed myself to arrive here because my mind has been elsewhere, I have missed my usual train station, the one that’s just a few minutes walk from ‘home’ and now it appears as though this bloody train has become an express service. There are no more stops until it reaches its destination and some bloody graffiti artist has painted of the line map in this cabin with the words “It’s all about the journey not the destination’. I hate those clichés at the best of times but I particularly hate them when they’re right.
Speaking of clichés I want to end this post with the poem by Robert Frost. He has plenty of poems of course but it should not be a mystery which poem I mean when I the The poem. It’s the one everybody knows even if they don’t know they know. It must surely be one of the most quoted and the one whose title is almost always said incorrectly. That’s probably because most people haven’t taken the time to read it because if they did they might notice the that title, the incorrect one, doesn’t even appear in the lines of the poem let alone in the actual title.
I speak of course of “The Road Not Taken’ first published in August 1915. That’s 106 years ago and it’s still being taught in various educational institutions as well as appearing on social media memes which, to me, trivialises the depth of the poem. Naturally I too have posted the meme more than once on social media. I’ve never met a mistake I wasn’t willing to fully embrace!
It seems there are two metaphorical roads we will come across when we out walking in the ‘woods’. (The term ‘woods’ alone is worth pondering for a few years. At the moment I understand it to indicate that being in the woods in the first place is different to walking through a city or town and for me me it evokes imagery of being alone and perhaps even ever so slightly lost. In fact he points out that he’s alone when coming across these two roads:
And sorry I could not travel both
Robert Frost ‘The Road Not Taken’
And be one traveler, long I stood
Poetry as in most art is open to anyones interpretation and it’s certainly true that this one is very often explained in very different ways. Where I currently sit or what it currently teaches me is that I experience life as a Traveller rather than a Settler and as such it is perfectly normal for me to feel a little alone though mostly not lonely. I can see the choices, the roads ahead, and I can see the one that has the most wear and tear, the most traffic or the road most taken. I used to think that meant it was the road most taken by others and as a traveller I am now facing the choice of following in the footsteps of the many or, if I’m ready for an adventure I could choose the road less travelled. Now however I realise that these are my woods I’m traveling through and the two roads that diverge ahead are the roads I have taken before and while I’ve taken both those roads it is clear that one of them is ‘wanting wear’. It would surely take a small book to unpack all the meaning that is possible to take from Frosts poem and even then the book would likely need updated editions.
So for now I realise I am not Lost in the traditional meaning of being lost. I am actually travelling though familiar terrain and I while I am in one sense travelling alone I am also not alone because I see that we are all in our own woods and we are all approaching diverging roads and while they are our own woods, or to put it plainly we are all travelling through our own life and are faced with our own roads to choose from I am, in a very real sense Not Alone. I have travel companions and while we have our own woods and our own choices many of us are nonetheless Travellers unable to find a comfortable clearing in the woods to to build a cabin and stay put. Obviously many do find their clearing and build their cabin and over the decades build beautiful gardens that through the years give the impression of change. Maybe that change is really only seasons coming and going while the occupant of the cabin remains anchored to that one place. I wonder if they are now a Settler.
I cannot say for sure that one is better that the other, that to travel is better than to settle or visa versa. I do not know, not yet anyway.
What I do know is as much as my very weary ‘Self’ desperately wants to settle and enjoy the seasons coming and going I cannot. I can pause and rest a awhile, perhaps for a season or two and even as I am now for a number of seasons but as sure as morning follows night I will find myself ready to return to the journey and will once again find myself approaching those diverging roads up ahead.
On the Upside I am hoping that as I travel, rather than simply Ageing I might at last begin to Grow Up and Mature.
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost August 1915
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.