by Dorien Grey
Nothing speaks more clearly to the naivety of the human spirit than the assumption that life should be far more simple and trouble free than it actually is. We’re constantly being tossed about from the crest of one wave of problems and inconveniences to the next, yet always considering the relatively brief periods of calm between the waves as the norm, and the way it should always be.
My little teapot, because it is mine and I can only guess what goes on in anyone else’s, seems particularly prone to storms of biblical proportions, and I do not handle stress well. Patience is a great help in getting us through these storms, but I have never had an ounce of it. I am very easily flustered under the best of circumstances, and when several things come at me at once, I rapidly become a basket case.
Trying to work with my new computer has been a source of frustration and fury for me since the day I bought it, and I seem to be making very little progress on that front. Because I was spending all my time fretting over getting files transferred from one computer to the other, I didn’t realize until the last moment that I had not prepared a blog which had to be posted the next morning. That of course set me off on a new round of unhappiness and resulted in my feeling that I somehow cheated those kind enough to read my blog regularly.
My friend of 51 years, and my partner for the first six of those years, Norm, has been in and out of the hospital several times in the past two years with acute emphysema/COPD and returned to the hospital last week. I received a call from a social worker at the hospital yesterday afternoon saying that he was being transferred to another nursing home (his second in two years), and that the doctors had said he will never be able to live alone again. This, of course, presents a mountain of problems and questions which must be addressed—and because he will be unable to do much for himself, and I have his Power of Attorney, I will do them for him. He is my friend: how could I not?
And yet I always have the ability to make everything about me. The most difficult part about dealing with Norm is that every time I see him I am, melodrama aside, sincerely shocked and heartsick with the realization that this is not August 10, 1958, and that the old man in the hospital bed is not the 25-year-old, vibrant young man who waited for me outside the Antlers Bar in Chicago that night so long ago. And to see him now is to be confronted by the cruel and utterly unacceptable reality that I, too am no longer the same young man he waited for.
In the world outside my teapot, none of this is of any import whatsoever. There are an infinite number of other teapots, and each has its own storms and tempests and moments of calm, not one of which, again in the overall scheme of things, is any less…or any more…important than my own.
So am I saying, in effect, “Why bother? Life has no real meaning or value”? On the contrary. In all of eternity, among the billions and billions of other teapots, we are given our very own. It is unique (the only word I can think of that cannot be modified) and an unimaginably valuable gift. We should appreciate every moment, both the calms and the storms, for we won’t have it all that long, and once it is taken from us, it and we are gone forever.
* * *
FRIENDS AND SHIPS
It is truly sad to watch your dearest friend, the person with whom you have shared an entire lifetime of joy and sadness, begin a steady, inexorable, albeit inevitable decline. To watch, helpless, as day by day the cruel nature of time takes its toll. And it is doubly hard when the observer and the observed are the same person.
Dorien watches with sorrow often tinged with embarrassment, as Roger is gradually denied those things which have served him so well for so very many…though never enough…years. Neither Dorien nor Roger can understand why this is happening. It is simply not fair (an observation behind which, if you listen closely, you can hear Fate chuckling). And while Dorien is totally free from Roger’s physical changes, both realize that the two are inexorably linked. When Roger comes to the end of his tenure of existence, Dorien also must leave. Roger is noble enough to wish with all his heart that this were not the case, but of course it is. Dorien looks at a bit more stoically, rather like the analogy of the captain going down with his ship. Which is not to say he is not selfish enough to wish it were different.
This particular blog was prompted by the fact that today was one of my drooling days, which embarrasses both my Roger and my Dorien sides tremendously. For someone with no salivary glands, I somehow manage to produce copious quantities of liquid from somewhere within my mouth, over which I no longer exert the same control I once did. The result is that when I open it to speak, the liquid rushes out. Dorien teases him that he should wear a bib. Roger is not amused.
The reason for this preoccupation with what the Roger half of me is no longer able to do is primarily because the realization still shocks me. To go through the vast bulk of one’s life taking the simplest things for granted (opening one’s mouth wide enough to eat a sandwich, being able to tilt one’s head back far enough to drain a can of cola, standing with one’s shoulders against a wall and leaning one’s head back far enough to also touch the wall, being able to swallow anything without having to wash it down with milk, water, coffee, etc.) and then suddenly NOT being able to do any of these things was—and still, to a large degree, is—as incomprehensible to me as it must be to you. Dorien tries to be empathetic, and to understand, just as you do, but the fact is that no one who has not experienced these changes can possibly understand.
The more I think of the analogy of ship and captain, the more I relate to it. Every human being is, in effect, a ship on the sea of life, and every ship must eventually sink or go to the scrap heap. The Good Ship Roger is far from floundering just yet, but with each wave that washes over the bow, it is taking on water, and more and more time must be devoted to manning the pumps. To forestall the likelihood that the Roger, like most ships, will simply sink unnoticed beneath the surface of the sea, Dorien has taken on the task of preserving in detail as much of the ship’s log as possible. Books, blogs, letters; each is put into a bottle, and tossed into the sea; in hopes that someone, somewhere, sometime will find them and be aware that the Roger, while not the grandest of ships, was a proud and worthy vessel which once sailed the sea, and did not go down willingly.
* * *
A SEAT ON THE BUS
Returning home one evening last week, I boarded a crowded bus and was just standing there, wedged in among the other standing passengers, when a young lady seated in front of me got up and offered me her seat. I was at once touched by her totally gratuitous kindness, and at the same time heartsick and humiliated to think how I must appear to other people. I thanked her sincerely, but declined her offer, explaining that I am only old on the outside. That I could even speak the word “old” in any sentence referring to myself was a milestone in my life, and not a pleasant one.
But, thanks to increasing evidence presented by young ladies on busses, I am, to my horror, turning into J. Alfred Prufrock. I am also increasingly and painfully aware of how aging changes not so much the way I look at the world, but the way the world looks at me. I am no longer indistinguishable from those around me, and those who have not yet reached that stage of existence cannot comprehend how devastating that knowledge is. In any given group of people, I am increasingly the oldest; sometimes by far, and am subtly but definitely being pushed to the outside of the circle.
In the gay community, of which I have been a card-carrying member for literally all my life, if you are a gay male, once you pass 40 you are less and less welcome as a player in that comforting and exhilarating game of sexual tag you’ve been part of for so long. By the time you are 50, the pool of potential partners has all but dried up. By the time you are 60, you are invisible to anyone under 30—or at best only a shadowy presence easily ignored. Your circle of gay friends tends to narrow to others your same age or older: no one younger wishes to join the circle.
And the terrible irony is that the young simply cannot comprehend that those invisible old men sitting in a co
ffee shop were once exactly like them, and that if they are very very lucky to live long enough, they too will one day be sitting with their peers at a similar table.
Some time ago, I wrote a short poem on this subject:
Whenever I hear a young gay man
scorning an older man,
I hear the future laughing.
Although I use the gay community as an example only because I have absolutely no knowledge of how it is for older heterosexuals, I suspect it’s pretty much the same for older, unmarried straights. We are all human, after all (and please, do write that down somewhere to remember when you have doubts).
Age is the price we must pay for the gift of living long enough. It very often is not pleasant, especially for those like myself who cling so tightly to the past and to memories of who we always were until now. So, much as I hate not being who I was, and resent being made to feel unwanted and unworthy, I’ll readily take it over the only viable alternative.
My one word of advice to you, no matter what your age: truly appreciate and be grateful for everything and whatever you have this very moment. I may not always show it myself, but I assure you I am.
* * *
BACKWARD, TURN BACKWARD
Though I couldn’t find it, I distinctly remember a poem beginning “Backwards, turn backwards, oh time in thy flight….” (Some credit it to a woman named Elizabeth Akers Allen, of whom I’d otherwise not heard.)
I had a dream the other night where time had begun running backwards. I emerged backwards from sleep one evening and began moving backward through the day. And with each moment I moved backward, my memory of what then became the future disappeared. I had full memory of the past, of course, and was aware of what was happening.
Dreams being what they are, I accepted this as perfectly natural. I knew that I would eventually move backward through my cancer recovery, treatment, and symptoms until I emerged from that period able to eat again: to actually eat and chew and taste and swallow and take a huge bite out of a Big Mac, and look up at a passing airplane, and be totally oblivious to what lie ahead. I would continue to move backwards from Pence to Los Angeles, to my mom’s dying in the hospital to her cancer disappearing to my dad’s being alive again, to my original years in Chicago, to graduating from college, go back into the navy, enlist in the NavCads, graduate from high school…well, you get the idea.
It was really a most interesting dream, but it reminded me that, as much time as I spend dwelling on the past in these blogs and elsewhere, for all the wonderful things I would re-experience while moving back through time, there would also be an incredible amount of pain. The fact that it would be experienced backward would be of some comfort (if I were still aware what was happening) since whatever heartache or physical pain I was going through would always get better and eventually disappear completely. But pain is pain no matter in which direction you’re moving through it.
Things would get easier and easier as time regressed. Fewer and fewer major problems. More and more reliance on the love and protection of parents and family. And eventually, in moving backward in time, would come to the point of reentering that place where babies go before they are born. It is exactly the same place, I believe with all my heart, that we go when, moving forward through time, we however reluctantly reach the end of our allotted time on earth. And I think that I have never really been afraid of death. We came from nothing, we return to nothing. And how can one fear nothing?
I’m not quite sure why I seem to take so much pleasure—which I must or I wouldn’t be doing it—in speculating on the impossible. But I find “what if?” to be among the most fascinating of phrases. I suppose it is another reflection of the fact that I really have never been satisfied with the way things are, and always want…and often truly ache for…what I cannot have.
So I spend endless hours in the attic of my mind, sitting cross-legged on the dusty floor, opening boxes of long-sealed memories and watching tiny spiders in the rafters spin dreams. Each provide me with an endless supply of “never was” and “never could be” to contemplate and play with. But while I fully realize that I can never have all those things that I so desperately want, it certainly doesn’t stand in the way of my wanting them.
And so contemplating having time move backward is just another exercise in the game of “what if?” But it’s a fun game.
* * *
CONDESCENSION
Oh, dear Lord, how I hate condescension! Deliberate condescension is infuriating; unintentional condescension is just hurtful. But either way, it is dismissal…and I find myself increasingly on the receiving end of it as the years too-rapidly pass. Again, most of it is well-intentioned, but the fact is that the older we become, the more we are regarded the same way as we regard small children. (“Oh, that’s a very pretty picture, Bobby. Did you draw it all by yourself?”)
Yesterday in a store, a young woman dropped a plastic bottle of water, and I quickly bent over to pick it up for her. Rather than a simple “thank you” she went out of her way to let me know how very much she appreciated my kindness, and wished me a very nice day, which, in turn, was very nice of her. But would she have reacted the same way if a 30-year-old had done the same thing? Possible, but I somehow doubt it.
What happens to us as we grow older? Why do people begin treating us differently just because we have accumulated several more years than they have? And have not the slightest doubt, regardless of how young you now are, that if you are lucky enough to live long enough, your days of being on the receiving end of condescension will come.
Part of the problem, admittedly, belongs with the aging, who too often stop doing things for themselves when they see they can rely on other people to do it for them. Strong, dynamic people who once ran successful businesses and raised families and whose opinions were sought and valued on every subject slowly slide into timidity and hesitancy and insecurity. “Oh, I can’t do that anymore!” “I’m too old to do thus and so.” “No, thanks, I think I’ll just stay home and knit.”
When I lived in northern Wisconsin, my neighbor and good friend Louisa was nearing 80, living alone, keeping her house spotless, cooking wonderful things which she would make sure I would share. She tended a good sized garden, and was always on the go. Then one day she fell in her home and wasn’t found for a couple of hours. Her daughter Marge immediately came from Minneapolis to care for her and in the blink of an eye, it seemed, Louisa changed from “Let me get you a cup of coffee” to “Marge, could you get me a glass of water?” Marge, out of love and concern, insisted Louisa come to live with her and her family in Minneapolis, taking Louisa not only from her home but from everyone and everything she had known all her life. Within a year, she was dead. In a way, I can’t help but think she was a victim of a virulent strain of unintentional condescension.
The gap between what we were and what we, willingly or unwillingly, become grows with each act of condescension. “How are we today, Bob?” (The use of “We” is the epitome of condescension.) “Would you like some help with that?” If Bob looks like he needs “some help with that,” by all means offer it. If he looks too frail to stand by himself on a bus, by all means offer him a seat. But if he is just carrying a package or standing there minding his own business, give him the dignity of treating him like everyone else.
We should never stop being kind, or thoughtful of others of any age. But when it comes to those much older than you, just, please, adapt the level of kindness to the situation. Be careful that your kindness does not say, as condescension to the elderly too often says: “You are no longer one of us.”
THE REAR-VIEW MIRROR
IN, BUT NOT OF
When I was very young, having one day seen God looking down at me while I was watching clouds, I was utterly convinced that I was very, very special and that I would one day do great and marvelous things. To some degree, I still cling to that belief. (It is sometimes a blessing to be unfettered by reality.)
&nbs
p; My sense of being in but not of the world is a common theme for these blogs, mainly because I still retain the concept of “me” and “everybody else” being mutually exclusive. I have always lived in a state of extreme envy for what others can do…with such grace and ease…that I cannot. I watch clips of rock concerts where what I assume everyone else thinks is music causes everyone to rock and sway and thrust their arms over their heads, obviously having an absolutely wonderful time. Were I there, I would stand like Lot’s wife, totally immobile and excruciatingly embarrassed and furious with myself for not being able to “let go.”
I hate doing things which I feel call attention to myself, which is why I don’t dance. My assumption that anyone other than myself would notice me at all is an example of my perverse form of narcissism. And of course by not dancing while everyone else does, I…call attention to myself. I just can’t seem to win.
Of course the fact that I knew from age 5 that I was homosexual is perhaps the major factor in these feelings of not belonging. Well, they aren’t just feelings. I don’t belong. Surrounded by people with whom I could never really relate, never understanding what all these male-female interactions/courtships/rituals were all about…or caring…shaped my character and my life.
I’ve never wanted to be normal, and have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams on that one. I suppose a case may be made that normalcy, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder, and for as deeply as I hate and fear mirrors, I am constantly figuratively holding a mirror up to myself and never, never liking what I see.
Thank God that to balance all those things I want so desperately but do not have, I do have an exquisite sense of irony and the ability to keep my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. I almost never, even when I am ranting and raving and beating myself mercilessly about the head and shoulders with my perceived flaws, allow myself to take myself too seriously. It’s almost as if I were my own walking “in” joke. I have, and take full advantage of, the right to criticize myself mercilessly. But no one else has the right to do so. This has, throughout my life, caused innumerable problems.
