“You check out the people on the street and note the year when they stopped: this one with the death’s-head rictus 1973, that one in the Perfecto jacket 1977, her friend in the vinyl T-shirt 1979, those people looking like drunken ballroom dancers on an ocean liner 1980—and that’s when you realize you have a year written on your own forehead and it’s not the one that tops the current calendar.” — Luc Sante, “Maybe the People Would Be the Times,” Noisey (2017-11-07)
The barista notices my book. I had almost left it at home because I didn’t want to attract attention via the language. The reproduction of Tamara de Lempicka‘s Irene and Her Sisters inspires a question. “That’s an interesting drawing. What’s the book called?”
Attracting attention via the cover feels cool. That’s OK.
I admit that I can’t remember its name in English and then turn it around so she can read the title. The conversation stumbles along and we establish that I grew up here and live in France. I take the boundary setting question about children and geolocate them.
The looking-up of old friends is a harsh experience this time. I’m barely getting comfortable with the granddad thing and I learn that Shoeman had a stroke last December. It reminds me that he lost his father young, to a stroke. He’s got to be feeling very mortal; It makes me feel mortal.
I mentioned it to the newly minted mother. She asks if it is how her grandmother passed; I confirm. She wonders if it is hereditary; I say it is. My sense of fragility bleeds out; she senses it and apologizes; I slowly shrug it off.
A day later, the wannabe comic calls. I learn he’s retired. The age-slap stuns me; I am not making the right noises; he repeats it multiple times.
My childhood friends have old-folk’s lives; and I, granddad.
“Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older.” — Maya Angelou, The Art of Fiction No. 119, The Paris Review
It’s the day. The 20,000th. 54.79 years.
He’d put it in his calendar three years earlier, shortly after his son’s 28th birthday. He can remember telling him that he had missed the opportunity to celebrate 10,000 days. That only helps him place when he had first heard of the idea.
Was it from some internet personality talking about a 10,000 day anniversary? Or maybe it was the Nick Cave movie?
The story of the third-of-a-century celebration (the first time he celebrated a “birthday” after his 30th …) is 7,824 days old. He wants a new story to tell.
“Identity maintenance.” The mirror ignores him.
Last month he met up with one of his brothers at his father’s third wife’s home (are you following?). “Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I scare the shit out of myself.”
“We’re all getting old.”
“It’s not an age thing. I see my father.”
“You’re the least like your father. Your Swiss brother explodes at the drop of a dime. Your brother’s brother spent last Sunday brooding through the whole meal before bursting out in rant and storming off. And everyone knows you don’t cross your Canadian sister if you don’t want to feel the heat of her rage.”
His father wore his hair 50’s style, combed back.
He pulls his hair back. Eyes out, her head snaps back. He has made his point.
He parts his hair in the middle and fantasizes a wild party day. Age is a limiting factor — most of his cohort thinks that a couple of bottles of wine is letting your hair down.
He picks out a bottle of 12 year-old Bordeaux for the barbecue lunch with friends (acquaintances). He selects another couple of bottles for the dinner he has planned.
Bottle under his arm, he heads for the picnic. He’s fantasizing again, hoping his plans will change, hoping for an evening he can’t remember.
“As you get older, nostalgia becomes a problem. You start to think, ‘Oh, things were better back in my day. You should’ve been here in North Beach then.’ But it’s wonderful to be alive at 20 in any era.” — Herbert Gold, Driving The Beat Road, The Washington Post (2017-06-30)
“Growing old’s like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.” — Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time
“I can hardly think myself so old as I write to you — so much of cheerful spirit, ease and general health is left to me, and if my memory fails, why it causes that I forget troubles as well as pleasure and the end is, I am happy and content.” — Michael Faraday, Letter to Auguste de la Rive (1861)
“Anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.” — Douglas Adams, How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet
“One melancholy lesson of advancing years is the realization that you can’t make old friends.” — Christopher Hitchens, Harper’s magazine, 1999
They’re younger than I am.
We’re talking, creating new memories. Memories that remind.
A daughter, my son, a sibling. They recall a time together.
Good times, family time, quality time.
Some I don’t remember. Some happened when I was younger than they are today. Memories that remind.
I’m still getting used to having old stories to tell.
They’re younger than I am.
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