In Search of the Puer Aeturnus

Something inside reads like a want-ad: Seeking, youth and vitality amidst daily responsibility, maturity. Fighting off stagnation. How can we find and internally balance the puer (youth) and the senex (aged) within us all?

This may or may not be a thought geared more towards women. I was watching a program about the Eagles today (deduce that yes, I shouldn't drown my brain in television, but that I really do)and I noticed a certain sparkle about them, a certain youth. Something carefree. It seems that within themselves, aside from the responsibilities of daily life, drives them to exhibit a picture of ease. Sometimes I wonder why I am drawn to older men, but today I think I found the answer to that question: older men embody the puer senex; the fountain of youth within the aged. How is it that an older man may view his life? Perhaps as, (best put by Ol' Blue Eyes) "Vintage wine from fine old kegs"?

Vintage wine it may be, but never sour grapes. What is in in the male collective psyche that allows the senex to be "Peter Pan"? Men (though not all men--some have dried up and caved to miserly life-partners or become slaves to their professions) have always remembered to play. Men have played throughout their lives--they played cops and robbers as children; they played sports as teenagers; they played at chasing women. Men played in bars and in exotic dance clubs; they played poker and foosball and pool. Men played on palm-pilots; men played with dogs at home and children and then played with crossword puzzles until their eyelids grew weary. Men dabbled in playing with musical instruments. Men played with ideas. Men always, no matter what they were doing, took the time to play. They did not regret that they spent the time playing.

And what did we do? We did not play. We worked at work and we worked at home. We did the laundry when we should have been reading or singing or lying on the beach burning to a crisp. We worked when we needed money; we worked when we didn't need a thing. We worked when we should have been at home. Most of all--we worked when we should have been playing. We didn't throw Frisbees to dogs; we didn't ride our bikes; we didn't read books. We didn't walk in the park. We worried. We worried about the rains drenching our blown-out hair and grabbed newspapers to cover our heads. But we didn't read the newspapers. God, we didn't even do the crosswords.

Instead, we watched the ink from the papers pool on to the kitchen floor. We watched the words and the articles and the funnies slip away. And then we scrubbed the floors. And we complained. And when we were done, we didn't put our feet up. When the paper came the next day, we didn't stop to read a thing. And we still didn't do the crosswords.

Senseless rambling on my part, perhaps, but where is the youth of today's modern woman? So pressured to be all that we can be, we forget to take that vacation or even to take that five-minute chocolate-bar break. When we so carelessly gloss over the screaming child inside, we harden ourselves. Our puer is crushed. And how do we flourish when we are constantly shutting ourselves down?