Seize the Space
Not so oddly, I seem to be thinking about diminishment and death a lot these days. A friend of mine just began taking beta-blockers. Another friend had to quit work she loves due to the long-term effects of Covid. Yet another friend is accompanying her mother in the end stages of life. And, unsurprisingly, death looms large in the news every day.
The elderhood phase of life is filled with memento mori, an artistic or symbolic trope acting as a reminder of the inevitability of death. As we grow older, this inevitability looms large. We are reminded, ad nauseum, to eat well, exercise, limit alcohol consumption, quit smoking and stay socially active.
Margaret Atwood weighs into this discussion. At 84 she knows a bit about growing older, having written numerous works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry since she was 16. Her memento mori, written in her concise, direct style:
Sooner or later, I hate to break it to you, you’re gonna die, so how do you fill in the space between here and there? It’s yours. Seize your space.
You’ll notice, she doesn’t talk about time, as in the familiar “Seize the day”. She talks about space. We don’t know how much time we have—A moment? A day? A year? We do know how much space we have. We sit at the dinner table with friends. We sit on committees. We sit sipping cappuccinos. We sit in meditation, possibly on a chair rather than the floor these days. We stand, shoulder to shoulder, in prayer. We stand in the queue at the market. We stand (or perhaps sit) chopping vegetables. We walk our 10,000 steps.
This is our space to fill between “here and there”. This is our space to fill between this breath and the next breath. What do we insert in those fleeting spaces? What do we put into each day between now and the inevitable end of our days? Atwood tells us this space is ours, ours alone. Not someone else’s to direct or command. We have choice in every moment to live fully, to our capacity.
The choices we make in each moment are part of our legacy, part of what we leave behind. They are the traces of our energy. They may be material—something we have created—or they may be immaterial—something we’ve said or done that leaves no trace in the physical world. This is how we fill our space.
Can we seize it with passion and excitement and love? Can this space be filled with power and determination? Can it be filled with serenity and peace of mind? Can each of our spaces be filled with authenticity, with our deepest emotions, with our tears? Can we seize this space with our elderhood?