What Is So Rare?

AN APPOINTMENT BOOK sits open on my desk, its two overview pages for the month of June staring back at me with pencilled appointments filling many of the squares. “Many,” in this case, being a vague term, as vague, in its way, as “most,” but my gut feeling is that the latter term might even more appropriately apply.

I’m pushing 70, “pushing,” in this case, being a vague term that nevertheless feels entirely apt, and because I’m also fat and sedentary, many of those appointment-book squares are filled with medical appointments. There turns out to be a fractal quality about elder health care, as each specialist I consult tends to send me to a sub-specialist to deal with an aspect of my condition I didn’t know was there yet which will demand a blood test and/or MRI and add yet another medication to the daily pile I swallow.

A handful of social events fill other squares; rarely now are there rehearsals and performances, but they do occur and even those can seem burdensome when nestled on those pages.

It’s only the start of June, yet the month already feels oppressive. I’m well familiar with the phenomenon that can make the anticipation of an event more annoying than the event itself – it’s the curse of many a nine-to-fiver – but even with that in mind, I can’t shake this sense of dread. Why?

Let’s try a little exercise. (This is me talking to myself. You don’t actually have to do this.) Imagine that all those appointment squares are blank. Is there a particular event you’d prefer to see listed?

Not really. The blankness is very appealing.

Noted. Where would you most like to be right now? What activity would you most enjoy doing?

Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere. I see water lapping at a beachside. I feel a cool beverage-glass at my hand. I see the sun roasting nubile sun-oiled bodies as I sit beneath a wide umbrella, my latest beach-read tenting over my thigh.

So you want to be on vacation! Well, who doesn’t? I mean, it’s not very realistic, is it?

You didn’t ask me to be realistic. Despite the verdant hints from the outside world, it was the act of turning the appointment book pages to June that told me that summer was here.

It’ll be here in three weeks.

You have your calendar, I have mine. Summer is a state of mind, best enjoyed by relaxing outside. Not that I have anything against doing so in a comfortable chair in a room in my house, but there’s an added bonus of feeling at one with nature when I’m swishing the bugs away from my face as I ease through my book.

Not today, however. Today there’s another medical appointment scheduled, this with my cardiologist (don’t you love the possessive nature of that usage?), who will run an EKG, look at my blood work, tell me I’m doing okay, and gently suggest that I should lose some weight. “Are you getting any exercise?” he’ll ask. “Yes,” I will answer. “It’s a nice day. I’m going to go outside.”