Tuesday - January 27, 2004
Waylaid.
When I turned 30, I wrote a two-page essay on -
what else? - turning 30.
Here's an excerpt:
I’m sure I’ll need it, especially this week, the last before I turn, irrevocably, thirty. Soon I shall be (if I am not already) a sucker for facial products whose ads show snuffed-out birthday candles, erasers, fortyish models whose faces, careers and face creams are truly age-defying. The world that once seemed overwhelmingly full of choice narrows to a dim corridor in a comfortable house, whose walls are familiar to my fingertips, every light switch felt inches before it is actually touched. The corridor has windows that move whenever I try to look out of them, windows that tantalize with slices of other lives lived from other choices – in one there is a husband and a dog and a Volkswagen Combi. In another there is a hand, withered and shaking. In yet another there is a tall building with no rails on the roof, just enough space to stand and sway on.
Here's an excerpt:
I’m sure I’ll need it, especially this week, the last before I turn, irrevocably, thirty. Soon I shall be (if I am not already) a sucker for facial products whose ads show snuffed-out birthday candles, erasers, fortyish models whose faces, careers and face creams are truly age-defying. The world that once seemed overwhelmingly full of choice narrows to a dim corridor in a comfortable house, whose walls are familiar to my fingertips, every light switch felt inches before it is actually touched. The corridor has windows that move whenever I try to look out of them, windows that tantalize with slices of other lives lived from other choices – in one there is a husband and a dog and a Volkswagen Combi. In another there is a hand, withered and shaking. In yet another there is a tall building with no rails on the roof, just enough space to stand and sway on.