Have you ever had one of those grey if not dark days?

Have you ever had one of those grey if not dark days? You know the ones were you feel that you need more than a shovel to dig yourself out of the pit your in. Well Friday last was just one of those peachy days - as this picture conveys.

After fifty years of immaculate care for my teeth the evil genie was let out of the bottle, or rather in this case the evil gene was let out of the pool and reached up and took my front two teeth. I had earlier went into my dentist, who told me that because of excessive bone loss I had to have my front teeth removed in order to save the rest. Fighting back tears, my own foolish pride and suffering from the sin of vanity I had the extractions done on Friday. Sadly, it wasn’t quite that easy as I had gone in a few weeks earlier for the same procedure, when I arrived I was told my that the partial denture which I insisted we have before the damn teeth were yanked had come back with only one tooth on it rather than the two which were to be removed. You can imagine how dark but comically funny that day was. I had insisted on the denture right away, as I didn’t want to look like a country bumpkin who had just fell of the back of a turnip truck. The thought of placing a one tooth partial into a hole for two teeth was too mind numbingly preposterous – but I have a sense of humour and this wasn’t wasted on me as painful as it was to have to wait again going through the same stress fretting the day they, my teeth, would be jerked out of my head.

All of this probably makes me sound like a preschooler because damn all I want for Christmas, Easter or any other holiday is my two front teeth back. Yes, I’m having a bridge put in once my mouth has healed from the trauma, even if my mind may never be the same.
What I learned was another lesson in understanding the “human condition” and like much of my life I’ve learned it existentially, through experience. I’m getting old and frail and all the notorious self-abuse of my youth is starting to catch up with me even if it’s as simple as loosing your front teeth. I also learned that my damn vision of myself is not unlike most but I never visualized myself looking like I do above.

Take a close look because I’m vain-glorious enough to not normally post such a flattering picture of myself. I felt it was very telling picture and I think this experience helped realize that there is only so much time for us to accomplish the things we want from our lives as it life, comes to an end. I would like to say I feel no guilt for all that I haven’t yet produced because in my minds view I’ve already produced more than many and it isn’t many who have had the success I’ve had with my work. In the end I guess the notion of where you store your treasures comes into play – do we store them on this perishable earth or somewhere that has eternal safe keeping? That said: invariably things start to decay and our bodies surge forward into deterioration. I seem to being doing just that, deteriorating right on schedule then. I’ll save the details until another time but here’s a picture which shows me under more humble circumstance and trust me when I say that I am humbled when I look.

By the way, the image I’m seated in front of is a drawing I’ve been labouring over this last little while. I will post it on my website when I’m finished it very shortly.