Marita

Marita,
Please find me.
I am almost 30.
--Leonard Cohen

I read sheer desperation in those lines. As the first third of his life comes to a close, the romantic anticipations that brought optimism to his listless adolescence remain familiarly dreamlike. What was hoped for has not yet come; much is expended on the question of whether it will.

TW said that life is a fairly well-written play except for the third act. Well, perhaps the first act seems well-written once time wedges itself between activity and memory. But TW’s nostalgia likely betrays our inability to recall our own lives with their full, naked unremarkability. Certainly, the hero dies in act three. Act one is now closing. As act two begins, age and its unique ambitions have spread to his once-blithe peers. Weekends are now characterized by boredom and fatigue. As the routines of daily life crawl predictably onwards, he is anxious to start running.