Twenty nine years ago my alarm rang at 4:30AM and I jumped from bed and seated myself before the TV to watched Charles and Diana perform the royal wedding waltz.
I was in the first decade of my own marriage to an indulgent man who was unsure of why I would want to get up at 4:30AM to watch these people I did not know but he was supportive as long as I closed the bedroom door and did not disturb him. I made myself English Breakfast Tea and celebrated this special day by drinking it from a fine English bone china cup, complete with saucer, forgoing my usual crass colonial pottery mug.
I had a lovely morning enthralled with the pomp and circumstance, loving the carriage ride and the balcony kiss. I sighed over the yards of silk and puffy sleeves but was a little unsure about the hairdo. I still claim the urge to criticize the “do” of a fellow female as almost forgivable.
I was working on an operating system which was informed by young romantic optimism and I believed this marriage, like my own would last two lifetimes. It turned out I was incorrect, both about the future of the royals, and my own future.

I remember at one point I was so immersed in the lives of this other couple that I found myself merging our futures and imaging the day that I would watch the weddings of their children.
So that part came true. This week I did watch the wedding of William the eldest son of Charles and Diana.

Once again I rose to the alarm at 4:30AM leaving behind in the bed my second husband who was as bemused at my interest and as tolerant. This time I was in a hotel room in New York City so the only request was that I watch the event on my computer with headphones so as not to disturb his sleep.
The tea 30 years later was herbal as caffeine has necessarily left my life to save my digestion. It was made in a hotel coffee pot and sipped from a complementary mug, lost elegance but found practicality.
I reveled in the pomp and circumstance as before. I thrilled at the carriage, I sighed at the sweet stolen looks between the obvious lovers. I judged the dress as tasteful and elegantly timeless with the same matured sense of style which forced me to admit that Di’s dress was a frilly, cake like confection that was not my favorite.

So pretty much the morning progressed as the one almost 30 years before had, OK, new husband, new technology, and new stomach but those are the circumstances external to the actual experience of watching the wedding.
Eventually my mind jumped ahead again to the future and I speculated on the wedding(s) of Kate and William’s children and how I would enjoy watching those too …when suddenly it hit me…given my current age, the average age of marriage and some other statistical variables…I will most likely not live to see the weddings of the next generation of Windsors. I was sad at first; sad to think I would miss something I had just assumed I would experience. Then the wheels started to turn in my head and I calculated what else I would “miss”, for example, my grandchildren’s weddings.

My own mortality, which quite frankly on an average day, other than when I am negotiating the freeways of LA, I don’t give much thought to, was presented in such strange circumstances for my consideration. There it was before me… The End.

Perhaps on that day in July 1981 the newly married Princess Diana also fast forwarded to her children’s weddings and imagined herself at the events. As it turned out this was not to be and I can’t imagine that possibility occurred to the young bride. She was only just twenty years old.
I will be sixty in a few weeks and so our respective view on events some thirty years hence are understandably very different.
Mine includes the possibility that I will not be in the picture while the young Princess like my younger self, most likely focused only on what she might be like when she was present in that future scene. Both are fantasies, unknown, unknowable speculations but somehow our minds are able to contend with the scope of potential in the unknowns of our presence but not with the infinite unknowns of our absence. The former is fun, a form of entertainment while the later is frightening or at least saddens us.

I realize that I simply cannot get my mind around the vastness of my absence… where will I be, what I will be, the questions and possibilities are endless. So if not my mind, with what do I cope with this thought which, it seems, will likely come again and again if I continue to do this speculative math over my remaining years?

Dr Lars Tornstam in his work on Gerotranscendence describes how the boundaries and rules of logical conforming thought can break down as we age and the mind can expand with comfort into the realm of mystical thought.
I have faith that in the misty fields of such new horizons I will find the ability to accept my eventual absence as inevitable and natural. I will find new tools with which to view my life just as I moved from viewing the images through the big bulky box of my 1980’s TV set to my slim notebook computer in 2011.

The changing perspective of our mind is the gift of aging which I believe can enhance our ability to accept the changing circumstances of age. A gift available only when we fully inhabit our current age and give up our resistance towards it. Even as I write this and remind myself that my perspective will evolve as my body declines I am comforted by the naturalness, the seamlessly perfect design of this.

So no pressure from me, your wonderful, young, royal highnesses, have your children if and when you wish and if I can tune in to share their special day with you, so be it and if not… so be it too.

Your loyal and grateful subject,
Jaki Scarcello
P.S. Duchess Catherine, you looked FABULOUS!