Over the years I have found it fun, and sometimes rewarding, to try two exercises on my birthday: first dividing my age by some factor and imagining what it would be like to be that age again; second, living backward in time.
My current age is not one of those wretched prime numbers, allowing no factoring. In fact, I can divide my age by 2, 8, 11,22, and 44, with the same numbers (in inverse order) providing my fantasy ages. Which should I choose? Twi and 8 are too infantile, even for me, 44 is too boring. So it’s 11 or 22. Which would YOU choose?
I decided on dividing by four, in part so I could relish once again A.E. Housman’s poem:
When I Was One-and-Twenty
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
Part Two: Living Backward in Time
--
My other birthday fantasy is living backward in time, that is, subtracting my age from the date of birth, rather than adding it to reach 2022. This puts me back into 1846, a splendid year, at least here in Maine. It’s before famines and revolutions in Europe brought my ancestors to this continent, but that’s no problem for the imagination. It's also before the gold rush introduced the California fantasy, into our land, and before the Maine fishing industry started to go south, literally and figuratively, and depopulated this island. It's also before the War called away the young men who never returned.
It’s a big year for Edgar Allen Poe, for Charlotte Bronte, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Dostoevsky.
In music: Berlioz, Bruckner, Chopin and two Mendelsohns.
Match that, if you can, oh age of debased taste.
My current age is not one of those wretched prime numbers, allowing no factoring. In fact, I can divide my age by 2, 8, 11,22, and 44, with the same numbers (in inverse order) providing my fantasy ages. Which should I choose? Twi and 8 are too infantile, even for me, 44 is too boring. So it’s 11 or 22. Which would YOU choose?
I decided on dividing by four, in part so I could relish once again A.E. Housman’s poem:
When I Was One-and-Twenty
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
Part Two: Living Backward in Time
--
My other birthday fantasy is living backward in time, that is, subtracting my age from the date of birth, rather than adding it to reach 2022. This puts me back into 1846, a splendid year, at least here in Maine. It’s before famines and revolutions in Europe brought my ancestors to this continent, but that’s no problem for the imagination. It's also before the gold rush introduced the California fantasy, into our land, and before the Maine fishing industry started to go south, literally and figuratively, and depopulated this island. It's also before the War called away the young men who never returned.
It’s a big year for Edgar Allen Poe, for Charlotte Bronte, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Dostoevsky.
In music: Berlioz, Bruckner, Chopin and two Mendelsohns.
Match that, if you can, oh age of debased taste.