We Spread

by Iain Reid

As we grew older, we spent more time apart, even when we were both home in the apartment. He despised aging and didn’t trust his crumbling body. The love I’d felt for him faded and detached. There was nothing to hold it in place. No more mystery. Nothing to learn. Wonder was replaced with awareness. By the end, it wasn’t just familiarity. I had a total and complete understanding of him.

He said when you’re so close to death, when it’s right there, the depth of fear is enormous.

At one time, it wasn’t just stuff. It all meant so much to me. All of it. Marrow that has turned to fat.

The finish line always, eventually, arrives. It has to. That’s life. It’s the tragedy of life: the end comes for us all. People on the sidewalk pass me by, stepping around me, without eye contact or acknowledgment.

Arshile Gorky, Meret Oppenheim, Leonora Carrington.

There was a time when seeing the names of these artists thrilled me. It didn’t even have to be their work, just seeing their names.

I’m very old and soon I’ll forget. I’ll forgot all these things that excite me, thrill me. All the things I adore. I’ll forget the feelings I felt. Then it will be too late to try to remember.

I wish I had done more. There’s not enough time for me now. I had years and years’ worth of time. It went so fast. It went too fast.

I’m starting to lose the intimacy of my memories. Most of my memories have stopped feeling like my own. I don’t believe them wholeheartedly the way I used to, and they don’t carry the same heft they once did.

Isn’t clarity supposed to come with age and experience? If I had more time, I could make changes.

“The idea of infinity makes me anxious. And uncomfortable. It always has. I’m a worrier, and anything to do with forever scares me.”

“No one talks to the old folks,” he says. “We’re invisible,” I say.

“For the last few years at my apartment, I felt like I’d missed my chance. That everything was done. No more experiences. No more challenges. No new relationships. It’s a scary feeling when it’s all over. Especially when you’re alone.”

But what would the work mean if it was endless? What would a relationship mean if it kept going forever? What would a day be if it didn’t end?

“What if time was all you had?” I say. “Maybe if we had all the time in the world, life would start to feel meaningless. Or worse.”

I have a hard time remembering more than that. We did fall in love. We did have fun, for a while. It’s so strange. All that time together and I’m left with only a vague feeling about facts and details.

When you’re so similar to a partner, there’s that risk of it feeling more like cooperation than true appreciation. There needs to be that unending, renewing affection.

“I suppose living as we do, it makes the current moment the most important. Each one, until the next.”

The Little Owl doesn’t affect me the way it once did. It leaves no mark, no lasting impression. We can’t hold on to feelings forever.

I never thought about what he was going to be like in middle age, in late middle age, as an old man. I never thought about how his desires would wane over time while his traits and mannerisms would intensify. As passions decrease, character is revealed.

“This lie is one about life, that we need more of it, that we need to be more productive, produce more, that it has to be longer, that death is the enemy. It’s not true. Infinity is a breathtaking mystery, or so I used to believe. Now I know it’s not. Infinity is stagnant. It doesn’t expand. It can’t. It’s just immeasurable. It’s not a mystery, it’s simply endless.”

the early-morning light, almost blue in color, not full sun yet. This has always been my favorite time of day because it doesn’t last. I would go to the park just for this magical hour. It’s so easy to miss. Everyone takes it for granted every single day they wake up. It’s only a moment. It’s magical, it’s beautiful.

She yelled it at me. ‘You’re going to hell!’ That seemed so scary in that moment, when I was a young woman, to hear someone say when you die. To think about your own death, dying, how close it is for everyone. But now I know that’s not the horrifying part.”

The tragedy of life isn’t that the end comes. That’s the gift. Without an end, there’s nothing. There’s no meaning. Do you see? A moment isn’t a moment. A moment is an eternity. A moment should mean something. It should be everything.”

What I’ve done is enough. It’s beautiful only because there’s an end. There are so many things we can just let go. Tant de choses à laisser aller.

We do not all blend together. We are not ruined, helpless, a burden. We are not the elderly. We are not old people. Now, still, we’re unique. Distinct. Regardless of what we’ve produced or what happens to our bodies. We each have our own memories and experiences, even if they’ve been lost and forgotten.