Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Getting Older

"Sunrise Assisted Living of Lincoln Park
with a community for the memory impaired"

These are the words on a sign that I frequently walk beneath when leaving my apartment. I look into the building attached to the sign as I walk past, and see soft yellow lighting and lots of browns and yellows and pastels. Flowers sit in vases, always fresh (or fake) and big thick drapes are held back in the day time to let light into the communal areas that I can see into on the ground floor.
If I walk past at dinnertime, I see many of the elderly gathered around tables in the dining area, silver ware and silver drink containers and silver wheelchairs and the people all moving so slowly, their faces like old weathered stone, mostly immobile. It's a rich neighborhood, and this must be an expensive home to live in. A place where the upper middle class come to die, when they can't remember what to do anymore.
When I walk past at night, there is often an ambulance parked outside. People that I see attending the ambulance and it's activities rarely look very worried. They do not move very quickly. They are not in a place of urgency, but a place to forget things.
A place to finally forget to live, after such a long time of remembering.

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