Last week I wrote about people I've known who lived to extreme old age more or less independently in their own homes. How did they become so old and age so successfully? Jane Brody, in a recent article on centenarians in the Times, looked at some of the answers.
Hazel Miller, who was interviewed for Brody's article along with six other centenarians and a 99-year-old, had one answer: "There's no secret about it, really. You just don't die, and you get to be 100." That's a good answer, because although we know that genes, life style, and personality all play a role, their individual contributions can only be estimated. One reason for our limited predictive ability is the role of chance or luck, which is by definition unpredictable.
The contribution of heredity, while important, is surprisingly small. Brody cited a Swedish study, based on a sample of identical twins separated at birth and raised apart. It found that heredity explained only twenty to thirty per cent of variation in longevity. Lifestyle, according to the Swedish study, seems to be the most important factor. But lifestyle, of course, is comprised of many components. Which are the most important?
A U. S. Government study that was reported in a separate article in the same issue of the Times, explored the "Hispanic Paradox." Although Hispanics in America are more likely to be poor and less likely to be covered by health insurance, they outlive African-Americans and non-Hispanic whites. On the average, Hispanics in America live eight years longer than African-Americans and two and a half years longer than non-Hispanic whites. Elizabeth Arias, who compiled the statistics, suggested that two factors explain the discrepancies, a lower rate of smoking and "close social and family ties."
Indeed, Brody reported that a study of centenarians in Sardinia found that in addition to being physically active, they tended to maintain strong ties with family and friends. They were also less likely to be depressed than the typical 60-year-old. As for personality, a study of almost 100,000 American women found that the optimists were healthier and significantly less likely to die of heart disease than pessimists, who were also less likely to exercise and more likely to be overweight and to smoke.
Many of the interviewees quoted in Brody's article mentioned strong social ties, exercise, and an optimistic outlook on life. Centenarian Travilla Demming reported that "I always put anything disagreeable or bad out of the way...Just get rid of it or rise above it." Esther Tuttle, 99 years old, said "I am blessed and I have worked on it. You've got to work, be cheerful, and look for something fun to do. It's a whole attitude." She also advised people to follow their doctors' advice. And Mae Anderson, 103 years old, said that she tries to live in the present and not dwell on past mistakes. Thinking about "what you should have done or could have done is not going to help you."
Still, not all the interviewees for Brody's article appeared to be positive thinkers. Otto Seidel, 101, complained about his loss of memory. "And it's a stinker, because it makes you feel miserable at times." And Gladys D'Less, 100, said that she feels useless and "not doing any good to anybody."
Centenarian Phil Damsky, who lived independently until a year ago, when his family insisted that he move into an assisted living facility, reminded us that no one lives forever, and so it's important to "enjoy every minute that you're living. I think that's good advice."
So, if you hope to live to be 100, stop smoking, keep your weight down, exercise regularly, maintain your friendships and your family ties, work at something you like to do, follow your doctor's advice, try to look at the bright side of things, and hope that a bus won't knock you down on your way to the gym. And while you're at it, follow Phil Damsky's advice: enjoy every minute that you're alive. That's good advice even if you're not aiming to reach 100.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Two Weeks with a Goddess
Some of my readers have asked me about my namesake, Anchises. He was a prince from a territory near Troy. He was so beautiful as a young man that Aphrodite fell in love with him. Disguised as a princess, she spent about two weeks with him, but he didn't realize that she was a goddess until nine months later, when she presented him with their infant offspring, Aeneas, and revealed her identity. Later, when he was drinking with some buddies, Anchises bragged about his affair with the goddess. This so enraged Zeus - the telling not the kissing - that he hurled a thunderbolt at him, laming him for life. That's the reason that Aeneas had to carry Anchises on his back as they fled the burning city of Troy.
Anchises accompanied his son on his adventure-laden travels before his death and burial in Sicily. And his story doesn't end there, because Aeneas visited him in the underworld, where Anchises explained what his son was seeing. But I'll omit Anchises's post-Trojan history, since what I really want to write about are, of course, those two weeks he spent with Aphrodite. Perhaps my opinion would be different were I in my twenties, but from the vantage point of old age, two weeks with a goddess seems rather trying. As the old joke goes, first prize is a week with [supply your own film star here], and second prize is two weeks.
Aphrodite and Anchises couldn't have made love 24-7 for two weeks could they? Maybe it would have been possible for a goddess, but not for a mortal. They have had to come up for air from time to time. Then what did they do? I suppose they ate and drank something, although from our point of view the comestibles and potables of the time would have been pretty unappetizing. The variety of strawberry that grew wild in the ancient world was pretty meager, not at all like its American cousin, which was introduced into Europe a couple of thousand years later. The French did not yet exist so there was no champagne. And of course ambrosia and nectar were unavailable to mortals.
And what could they have talked about? Not literature, since there wasn't any literature, even though Anchises and Aphrodite were to become the subjects of literature. In any case, they were both probably illiterate. And since Aphrodite didn't reveal her divinity until nine months later, she couldn't talk about life on Mount Olympus, and what in the world could he have told her that she would have found interesting? Hadn't she seen everything already? So I suppose that they looked into each other's eyes, where they saw what they imagined to be their soul mates. But how long can you do that without blinking?
It was probably Aphrodite who became bored first. In any case, she left her lover behind. After all, she had had plenty of other affairs and could look forward to an eternity of new ones. But Anchises did not get the worst of their relationship. After all, Aphrodite gave him Aeneas, who saved him from the sack of Troy and made his name immortal. Two weeks with a goddess, I guess, would be worth that.
Anchises accompanied his son on his adventure-laden travels before his death and burial in Sicily. And his story doesn't end there, because Aeneas visited him in the underworld, where Anchises explained what his son was seeing. But I'll omit Anchises's post-Trojan history, since what I really want to write about are, of course, those two weeks he spent with Aphrodite. Perhaps my opinion would be different were I in my twenties, but from the vantage point of old age, two weeks with a goddess seems rather trying. As the old joke goes, first prize is a week with [supply your own film star here], and second prize is two weeks.
Aphrodite and Anchises couldn't have made love 24-7 for two weeks could they? Maybe it would have been possible for a goddess, but not for a mortal. They have had to come up for air from time to time. Then what did they do? I suppose they ate and drank something, although from our point of view the comestibles and potables of the time would have been pretty unappetizing. The variety of strawberry that grew wild in the ancient world was pretty meager, not at all like its American cousin, which was introduced into Europe a couple of thousand years later. The French did not yet exist so there was no champagne. And of course ambrosia and nectar were unavailable to mortals.
And what could they have talked about? Not literature, since there wasn't any literature, even though Anchises and Aphrodite were to become the subjects of literature. In any case, they were both probably illiterate. And since Aphrodite didn't reveal her divinity until nine months later, she couldn't talk about life on Mount Olympus, and what in the world could he have told her that she would have found interesting? Hadn't she seen everything already? So I suppose that they looked into each other's eyes, where they saw what they imagined to be their soul mates. But how long can you do that without blinking?
It was probably Aphrodite who became bored first. In any case, she left her lover behind. After all, she had had plenty of other affairs and could look forward to an eternity of new ones. But Anchises did not get the worst of their relationship. After all, Aphrodite gave him Aeneas, who saved him from the sack of Troy and made his name immortal. Two weeks with a goddess, I guess, would be worth that.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Until 120
Last week I wrote a letter of condolence to friends who had lost their mother. She had been living in her own home, fully ambulatory and compos mentis. During her last illness, surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, she managed to say goodbye to each of them as she drifted in and out of consciousness. She was 100 years old. She had lived a good life and, if death can ever be said to be good, she experienced a good death too.
I never had the privilege of meeting her. But writing that letter prompted me to think about some of the people I have known who reached a great age living more or less independently in their own homes. Two of my aunts lived to be 99. I can't vouch for the mental acuity of one of them towards the end of her life - the last time I saw her, at her granddaughter's wedding, she smiled sweetly but said very little. The other aunt, on the other hand, my mother's twin, never lost her tart sense of humor nor her willingness to fence with those who called on her.
My wife's cousin, who lived to 101, complained two years before she died that she could no longer both swim and take a walk, as she had long done, if she also had a luncheon engagement on the same day. She was forced to choose one or the other. At her 100th birthday party, she commented that when people told her she hadn't changed, she knew they were lying. My brother then said that she was still one of the sexiest women he had ever met. Her immediate response was, "I never said I wasn't sexy."
A friend of my wife's parents continues as chairman of the Wall Street investment advisory and brokerage house he founded. He's now 104. Although one of his sons now runs the firm on a day-to-day basis, the old man, who goes to the office every day, still provides valuable counsel.
A good friend, who died last year, lived to be 97. At 95, he complained that when he got out of bed in the morning, he found himself "walking like an old man." I told him that he was entitled, at 95, to walk like an old man and what else did he expect? Stupid me, that was the wrong thing to say, and he was not amused. But this year I learned how he felt. The other day, I asked a friend how old her mother was when she died. Upon learning that she died at the age of 89, I said, "I used to think that 89 was old." My friend, still a comparatively young thing, laughed and said "but you are old!" I suppose she's right, but it doesn't seem that way to me except when I've reached the top of several long flights of subway stairs.
When my dentist wanted to crown one of my teeth a few years ago, I told him that the device didn't have to last for 40 years. In response, he told me about his grandfather, who, at the age of 92, worried that he'd outlive his money. His son, after examining the old man's finances, reassured him, telling him that he could live for the next fifteen years without making any changes in his expenditures. "Yes," replied the old man, "but then what?" Now I know how he felt too.
Judith Viorst, who published a slim volume of light verse on the occasions of her fiftieth and sixtieth birthdays, produced another on the occasion of her seventieth, I'm Too Young to be Seventy and Other Delusions (2005). She wrote that ninety is old, and maybe 80 is too, although she won't decide about that until she gets there. In the meantime, she said, let's drink wine, make love, and learn new things. Amen to that.
A common Hebrew toast, on the occasion of an elderly person's birthday, is "ad meyah ve'esreem," literally "until 120," the age at which Moses died on Mount Tabor, as he gazed upon the Promised Land below, in full possession of his faculties. When Judith Viorst reaches that age, may she be too young to be 120. So may we all.
I never had the privilege of meeting her. But writing that letter prompted me to think about some of the people I have known who reached a great age living more or less independently in their own homes. Two of my aunts lived to be 99. I can't vouch for the mental acuity of one of them towards the end of her life - the last time I saw her, at her granddaughter's wedding, she smiled sweetly but said very little. The other aunt, on the other hand, my mother's twin, never lost her tart sense of humor nor her willingness to fence with those who called on her.
My wife's cousin, who lived to 101, complained two years before she died that she could no longer both swim and take a walk, as she had long done, if she also had a luncheon engagement on the same day. She was forced to choose one or the other. At her 100th birthday party, she commented that when people told her she hadn't changed, she knew they were lying. My brother then said that she was still one of the sexiest women he had ever met. Her immediate response was, "I never said I wasn't sexy."
A friend of my wife's parents continues as chairman of the Wall Street investment advisory and brokerage house he founded. He's now 104. Although one of his sons now runs the firm on a day-to-day basis, the old man, who goes to the office every day, still provides valuable counsel.
A good friend, who died last year, lived to be 97. At 95, he complained that when he got out of bed in the morning, he found himself "walking like an old man." I told him that he was entitled, at 95, to walk like an old man and what else did he expect? Stupid me, that was the wrong thing to say, and he was not amused. But this year I learned how he felt. The other day, I asked a friend how old her mother was when she died. Upon learning that she died at the age of 89, I said, "I used to think that 89 was old." My friend, still a comparatively young thing, laughed and said "but you are old!" I suppose she's right, but it doesn't seem that way to me except when I've reached the top of several long flights of subway stairs.
When my dentist wanted to crown one of my teeth a few years ago, I told him that the device didn't have to last for 40 years. In response, he told me about his grandfather, who, at the age of 92, worried that he'd outlive his money. His son, after examining the old man's finances, reassured him, telling him that he could live for the next fifteen years without making any changes in his expenditures. "Yes," replied the old man, "but then what?" Now I know how he felt too.
Judith Viorst, who published a slim volume of light verse on the occasions of her fiftieth and sixtieth birthdays, produced another on the occasion of her seventieth, I'm Too Young to be Seventy and Other Delusions (2005). She wrote that ninety is old, and maybe 80 is too, although she won't decide about that until she gets there. In the meantime, she said, let's drink wine, make love, and learn new things. Amen to that.
A common Hebrew toast, on the occasion of an elderly person's birthday, is "ad meyah ve'esreem," literally "until 120," the age at which Moses died on Mount Tabor, as he gazed upon the Promised Land below, in full possession of his faculties. When Judith Viorst reaches that age, may she be too young to be 120. So may we all.
Monday, November 22, 2010
A Generous Heart
A few weeks ago we attended as guests the board meeting of a small charitable foundation in Boston. It was its last formal meeting, because under the terms of the founder's will and the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the trust must be disbanded by next June. At this meeting, the final disbursement of funds was decided.
One of the speakers was Donna Suskawicz, who had come to thank the foundation for its support of the Irving K. Zola Center for Persons with Disabilities at Brigham House, 20 Hartford Street, Newton Highlands, MA 02461. Indeed, although the foundation had been granting the center a relatively small sum each year, it had been the center's principal source of support.
Ms. Suskawicz is a woman with a disability whose personal journey made her painfully aware of the special needs of persons with disabilities, many of them very poor. (Her experiences with disability are included in the book Working Against Odds by Mary Grimley Mason.) She decided to take practical steps to help.
At first, she collected empty plastic bottles, redeemed them for pennies per bottle, and used the funds to buy pizza for those she knew were in need. Eventually, with help from the Gorin Foundation, small grants from local banks and groups and private donations, she leased a house in Newton, a Boston suburb, which she named in memory of Brandeis professor Irving K. Zola (1935-1994), who specialized in medical sociology and actively promoted the rights of persons with disabilities.
The Zola Center (Brigham House) is a drop-in community center open Saturday afternoons, a welcoming place where persons with disabilities can meet one another and socialize. (Saturday is Ms. Suskawicz's only free day, since she works full time at her job during the week and on Sundays drives to New Hampshire to assist her elderly parents.) The center offers computers with internet access, a large-screen TV with HD, DVD and CD players, a sewing machine, pool table, and meeting room. The center also operates a food pantry. Local bakeries, restaurants, and supermarkets, including the branches of national chains such as Whole Foods, donate food, which Ms. Suskawicz and other volunteers collect and distribute.
The center also offers computer lessons, meditation classes, reiki treatments, shows by artists with disabilities, concerts highlighting musicians with disabilities, lectures by authors with disabilities, a support group for women with disabilities, help in writing resumes, and an annual Christmas party, particularly welcomed by those without families nearby.
In addition, it encourages persons with disabilities to pursue ham radio operation for emergency communication and as a hobby, offering, in cooperation with the Boston Amateur Radio Club, a "License in a Weekend" workshop to prepare for obtaining an FCC radio license. Under a grant from Avon Products, the center offered full scholarships to women with disabilities to participate in the workshop and to purchase radio equipment, a program which Ms. Suskawicz presented at the United Nations International Forum on the Status of Women.
The foundation will make its final grant to the center in December. Thereafter, Ms. Suskawicz must secure other sources for its support. Rent for the house is the principal expense, since the center has no employees, with all the work performed by volunteers. The Irving K. Zola Center is a non-profit 501(c) corporation, contributions to which are eligible for a federal tax deduction. They may be made payable to Brigham Community House/Zola Center and sent to Brigham House, c/o Donna Suskawicz, 1860 Commonwealth Avenue, Brighton, MA 02135-6002 or to Donna Suskawicz, Zola Center, 20 Hartford Street, Newton Highlands, MA 02461.
Donna Suskawicz shows us that we don't have to have a personal fortune in order to help repair the world. She put into action the notion that the needs of others become our spiritual obligation. May we take her example to heart.
One of the speakers was Donna Suskawicz, who had come to thank the foundation for its support of the Irving K. Zola Center for Persons with Disabilities at Brigham House, 20 Hartford Street, Newton Highlands, MA 02461. Indeed, although the foundation had been granting the center a relatively small sum each year, it had been the center's principal source of support.
Ms. Suskawicz is a woman with a disability whose personal journey made her painfully aware of the special needs of persons with disabilities, many of them very poor. (Her experiences with disability are included in the book Working Against Odds by Mary Grimley Mason.) She decided to take practical steps to help.
At first, she collected empty plastic bottles, redeemed them for pennies per bottle, and used the funds to buy pizza for those she knew were in need. Eventually, with help from the Gorin Foundation, small grants from local banks and groups and private donations, she leased a house in Newton, a Boston suburb, which she named in memory of Brandeis professor Irving K. Zola (1935-1994), who specialized in medical sociology and actively promoted the rights of persons with disabilities.
The Zola Center (Brigham House) is a drop-in community center open Saturday afternoons, a welcoming place where persons with disabilities can meet one another and socialize. (Saturday is Ms. Suskawicz's only free day, since she works full time at her job during the week and on Sundays drives to New Hampshire to assist her elderly parents.) The center offers computers with internet access, a large-screen TV with HD, DVD and CD players, a sewing machine, pool table, and meeting room. The center also operates a food pantry. Local bakeries, restaurants, and supermarkets, including the branches of national chains such as Whole Foods, donate food, which Ms. Suskawicz and other volunteers collect and distribute.
The center also offers computer lessons, meditation classes, reiki treatments, shows by artists with disabilities, concerts highlighting musicians with disabilities, lectures by authors with disabilities, a support group for women with disabilities, help in writing resumes, and an annual Christmas party, particularly welcomed by those without families nearby.
In addition, it encourages persons with disabilities to pursue ham radio operation for emergency communication and as a hobby, offering, in cooperation with the Boston Amateur Radio Club, a "License in a Weekend" workshop to prepare for obtaining an FCC radio license. Under a grant from Avon Products, the center offered full scholarships to women with disabilities to participate in the workshop and to purchase radio equipment, a program which Ms. Suskawicz presented at the United Nations International Forum on the Status of Women.
The foundation will make its final grant to the center in December. Thereafter, Ms. Suskawicz must secure other sources for its support. Rent for the house is the principal expense, since the center has no employees, with all the work performed by volunteers. The Irving K. Zola Center is a non-profit 501(c) corporation, contributions to which are eligible for a federal tax deduction. They may be made payable to Brigham Community House/Zola Center and sent to Brigham House, c/o Donna Suskawicz, 1860 Commonwealth Avenue, Brighton, MA 02135-6002 or to Donna Suskawicz, Zola Center, 20 Hartford Street, Newton Highlands, MA 02461.
Donna Suskawicz shows us that we don't have to have a personal fortune in order to help repair the world. She put into action the notion that the needs of others become our spiritual obligation. May we take her example to heart.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Jock
The other day, as I was returning home from my morning walk in Prospect Park, I stopped at a corner to wait for a traffic light. Next to me stood a man about my age. He wore no hat over his shock of white hair. Instead he sported a wide black sweatband around his forehead. Completing his outfit were a dark red sweatshirt, shorts in a shade of lighter red, black tights, white crew socks, and the kind of sport shoes manufactured by Nike. He wore glasses, secured by a cord around his neck. His chin muscles had collapsed, forming a great wobbling wattle.
His back curved by osteoporosis, he had planted his feet firmly apart. Seeing that there was no oncoming traffic at the moment and not waiting for the light to change, he marched across the wide expanse of Eastern Parkway. He held his arms slightly away from his trunk, as if they were too muscular to be brought any closer to it, and he moved with a kind rolling, tough guy, don't mess with me gait. Perhaps he had once been an athlete, a linebacker maybe, but he now walked stiffly, with effort, and although he appeared to be trying to walk quickly - cars could materialize at any moment - he was even slower than I am.
Good for him, I thought, as I watched him make his laborious way across the street. He's not giving up but doing his best to retard his physical deterioration. Yet at the same time, I thought him slightly ridiculous. Here was a bent old man who dressed and carried himself like a 25-year-old athlete out for a run.
The incongruity between his physical appearance and his presentation of self struck me as both comical and poignant - funny because his manner and dress were at such variance with his physical condition and sad because they only emphasized his decay. Yet he wasn't giving up, but struggling against the erosion of age. If his appearance is any indication, he will rage against the dying of the light, if he's not doing so already.
The old man looked as if he wouldn't give a damn if he learned of the discrepancy between his vision of himself and the impression he makes on others. If I were in his Nikes, though, I'd be mortified. Still, who am I to criticize him? I probably have comforting illusions about myself too. So if you know what they are, keep them to yourself.
His back curved by osteoporosis, he had planted his feet firmly apart. Seeing that there was no oncoming traffic at the moment and not waiting for the light to change, he marched across the wide expanse of Eastern Parkway. He held his arms slightly away from his trunk, as if they were too muscular to be brought any closer to it, and he moved with a kind rolling, tough guy, don't mess with me gait. Perhaps he had once been an athlete, a linebacker maybe, but he now walked stiffly, with effort, and although he appeared to be trying to walk quickly - cars could materialize at any moment - he was even slower than I am.
Good for him, I thought, as I watched him make his laborious way across the street. He's not giving up but doing his best to retard his physical deterioration. Yet at the same time, I thought him slightly ridiculous. Here was a bent old man who dressed and carried himself like a 25-year-old athlete out for a run.
The incongruity between his physical appearance and his presentation of self struck me as both comical and poignant - funny because his manner and dress were at such variance with his physical condition and sad because they only emphasized his decay. Yet he wasn't giving up, but struggling against the erosion of age. If his appearance is any indication, he will rage against the dying of the light, if he's not doing so already.
The old man looked as if he wouldn't give a damn if he learned of the discrepancy between his vision of himself and the impression he makes on others. If I were in his Nikes, though, I'd be mortified. Still, who am I to criticize him? I probably have comforting illusions about myself too. So if you know what they are, keep them to yourself.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Fashion Icon
Fashionistas, you already know that Anna Dello Russo is the editor at large and creative consultant for Vogue Japan and that she writes an influential fashion blog. Until last week, I had never heard of her. If there is such a thing as a fashionisto, I'm not one of them. I continue to wear the kind of clothes I wore 60 years ago when I was a college student.
I learned about her in the Style section of last Thursday's Times. Until then, I had no idea that the editors of fashion magazines have become style icons, fashion celebrities whose clothes and blogs are eagerly followed by the female under-thirty set, who are abandoning these editors' glossy magazines in favor of the editors' blogs.
What caught my attention was the large photograph occupying the entire top quarter of the Style section's first page. It shows Anna Della Russo in Paris last month during Fashion Week. She's walking past four decidedly unfashionable white-haired old ladies who are seated on a park bench at the rim of an artificial pool, in which fountains play. Outside the park's greenery stands a block of beautiful 18th century buildings.
She's wearing a black coat, piped in gold braid and trimmed in white fur, with form-fitting sleeves. Her coat is very short, its hem in the stratosphere at least twelve inches above her knees. Her high-heeled platform shoes are colored gold, matching the piping on her coat and accentuating the curves of her legs. With her broad shoulders and slim build, she could have stepped off a runway were it not for her tousled hair, unless messy hair is the latest craze. If it is, then the old ladies are fashionable in at least that respect.
Ms. Della Russo's outfit is arresting, but even more so are the expressions of the old ladies who are watching her walk by. At their feet are four identical open straw baskets, banded by cloth flowers at the top. A caption for a second, smaller photo on an inner page, describes the women as visitors to the city. They probably have come into town together to go shopping and those pretty baskets are one of their trophies. The two ladies seated in the middle of the bench are looking at Ms. Dello Russo with slightly opened mouths. The other two ladies, one at each end of the bench, are smiling as she walks by. It's as if a giraffe had suddenly materialized. It would be expected at the zoo but not at this park in Paris. Astonishment and delight is what I see in their faces.
Is there also a touch of regret, a smidge of envy? Their youth has passed, they've gained 50 pounds, and they have never been nor will they ever be glamorous. No, these appear to be practical women who have worked hard all their lives and for whom following the dictates of fashion is as remote an ambition as learning to speak Swahili. They exhibit no regret, no envy, only pleasure at this unexpected apparition. The photographer has caught them during a moment of wonder, a moment that has lit up their day, a moment about which they will tell their families when they go home.
As for Anna Dello Russo, when she goes home she'll take off those dreadful shoes, which must be killing her feet, and heave a sigh of relief.
I learned about her in the Style section of last Thursday's Times. Until then, I had no idea that the editors of fashion magazines have become style icons, fashion celebrities whose clothes and blogs are eagerly followed by the female under-thirty set, who are abandoning these editors' glossy magazines in favor of the editors' blogs.
What caught my attention was the large photograph occupying the entire top quarter of the Style section's first page. It shows Anna Della Russo in Paris last month during Fashion Week. She's walking past four decidedly unfashionable white-haired old ladies who are seated on a park bench at the rim of an artificial pool, in which fountains play. Outside the park's greenery stands a block of beautiful 18th century buildings.
She's wearing a black coat, piped in gold braid and trimmed in white fur, with form-fitting sleeves. Her coat is very short, its hem in the stratosphere at least twelve inches above her knees. Her high-heeled platform shoes are colored gold, matching the piping on her coat and accentuating the curves of her legs. With her broad shoulders and slim build, she could have stepped off a runway were it not for her tousled hair, unless messy hair is the latest craze. If it is, then the old ladies are fashionable in at least that respect.
Ms. Della Russo's outfit is arresting, but even more so are the expressions of the old ladies who are watching her walk by. At their feet are four identical open straw baskets, banded by cloth flowers at the top. A caption for a second, smaller photo on an inner page, describes the women as visitors to the city. They probably have come into town together to go shopping and those pretty baskets are one of their trophies. The two ladies seated in the middle of the bench are looking at Ms. Dello Russo with slightly opened mouths. The other two ladies, one at each end of the bench, are smiling as she walks by. It's as if a giraffe had suddenly materialized. It would be expected at the zoo but not at this park in Paris. Astonishment and delight is what I see in their faces.
Is there also a touch of regret, a smidge of envy? Their youth has passed, they've gained 50 pounds, and they have never been nor will they ever be glamorous. No, these appear to be practical women who have worked hard all their lives and for whom following the dictates of fashion is as remote an ambition as learning to speak Swahili. They exhibit no regret, no envy, only pleasure at this unexpected apparition. The photographer has caught them during a moment of wonder, a moment that has lit up their day, a moment about which they will tell their families when they go home.
As for Anna Dello Russo, when she goes home she'll take off those dreadful shoes, which must be killing her feet, and heave a sigh of relief.
Monday, November 15, 2010
The Sex Life of Books
We were mystified for years. Let me explain. When we moved into our apartment in Brooklyn ten years ago, we brought with us a few books from Jerusalem, where we were living most of the time. These were the novels we were reading, some volumes about New York City in the early 19th century for a history I was writing, a detailed map of Israel, another of Jerusalem, and a Hebrew-English dictionary.
Even then we were too old fashioned to look on line for the meaning, spelling, derivation, and synonyms of words, so we bought the two-volume Oxford English Dictionary. and of course, we could not exist without a Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, so we acquired that too. After a few months we returned to Jerusalem.
Several months later still, we flew back to Brooklyn. Much to our surprise, the few books we had left behind seemed to have multiplied. We were puzzled, but in the end we shrugged. We bought a large bookcase in which we installed the books that been here before, including the ones we had evidently forgotten. The bookshelves looked very nice, but they were relatively empty, a far cry from our overflowing bookcases in Jerusalem.
We stayed in this apartment for a few months before returning once again to Jerusalem. How many books could we have bought during that time? How many books could we have received as gifts? Not many, right? But when we came back to Brooklyn, we found more books in the bookcase than we had remembered. Again we were puzzled. Again we shrugged.
We traveled back and forth between Brooklyn and Jerusalem until two years ago, when we sold our apartment in Jerusalem and moved to Brooklyn permanently. In the past, we returned to Brooklyn, we found more books in the bookcase than we had left behind. We could chalk that up to faulty memory. But now that we were here all year round, our books continued to multiply. You're not going to tell me that from one day to the next we can't remember what's in our bookcase, are you? It's not as if it's never happened before. Ecclesiastes, written probably in the third century before the current era, warned us that "of making of many books there is no end."
After searching for the simplest possible solution, we finally figured it out. After we turn out the lights and go to bed, the books make love to one another, producing still more books. Histories beget histories, novels multiply novels, dictionaries spawn dictionaries, and biographies breed biographies. Propinquity on the shelf seems to be the operating principle for coupling, providing, as Shaw described marriage, maximum temptation with maximum opportunity. True, there are some unexplained productions, new progeny left on the steps of an orphanage, so to speak. A historical novel, for example, can't be explained by the closeness on a shelf of a history and a novel. But if we've put a book in the wrong place, as often happens, that mystery is solved as well.
The books are very discreet. More than once I've tried to catch them in the act. I'd creep into the living room at night and turn on the lights, yet never have I caught a pair in flagrante delicto. I decided at last to let them alone and to let nature take its course. Books, after all, will be books.
Even then we were too old fashioned to look on line for the meaning, spelling, derivation, and synonyms of words, so we bought the two-volume Oxford English Dictionary. and of course, we could not exist without a Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, so we acquired that too. After a few months we returned to Jerusalem.
Several months later still, we flew back to Brooklyn. Much to our surprise, the few books we had left behind seemed to have multiplied. We were puzzled, but in the end we shrugged. We bought a large bookcase in which we installed the books that been here before, including the ones we had evidently forgotten. The bookshelves looked very nice, but they were relatively empty, a far cry from our overflowing bookcases in Jerusalem.
We stayed in this apartment for a few months before returning once again to Jerusalem. How many books could we have bought during that time? How many books could we have received as gifts? Not many, right? But when we came back to Brooklyn, we found more books in the bookcase than we had remembered. Again we were puzzled. Again we shrugged.
We traveled back and forth between Brooklyn and Jerusalem until two years ago, when we sold our apartment in Jerusalem and moved to Brooklyn permanently. In the past, we returned to Brooklyn, we found more books in the bookcase than we had left behind. We could chalk that up to faulty memory. But now that we were here all year round, our books continued to multiply. You're not going to tell me that from one day to the next we can't remember what's in our bookcase, are you? It's not as if it's never happened before. Ecclesiastes, written probably in the third century before the current era, warned us that "of making of many books there is no end."
After searching for the simplest possible solution, we finally figured it out. After we turn out the lights and go to bed, the books make love to one another, producing still more books. Histories beget histories, novels multiply novels, dictionaries spawn dictionaries, and biographies breed biographies. Propinquity on the shelf seems to be the operating principle for coupling, providing, as Shaw described marriage, maximum temptation with maximum opportunity. True, there are some unexplained productions, new progeny left on the steps of an orphanage, so to speak. A historical novel, for example, can't be explained by the closeness on a shelf of a history and a novel. But if we've put a book in the wrong place, as often happens, that mystery is solved as well.
The books are very discreet. More than once I've tried to catch them in the act. I'd creep into the living room at night and turn on the lights, yet never have I caught a pair in flagrante delicto. I decided at last to let them alone and to let nature take its course. Books, after all, will be books.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Dancing under the Gallows
"Dad, you MUST watch the trailer for "Alice Dancing under the Gallows," said my daughter, who had phoned me just to tell me that. "It's on You Tube." Since she's a sensible woman, not given to trivialities, I followed her advice. I'm glad I did, because as usual she was right.
The trailer is for a documentary film about Alice Sommer, who, 106 at the time of filming, is the world's oldest Holocaust survivor. In 1942 she was a well-known concert pianist living in Prague, when, at age 39, she was deported to Theresienstadt, along with her six-year-old son, Rafi. The Nazis employed that camp as a propaganda device, to show the world how well they were treating Europe's Jews. Thus, starving actors and musicians performed for the other starving prisoners. Under the constant threat of extermination, both performers and audiences were, in the words of one of Alice Sommer's friends, "dancing under the gallows."
For propaganda purposes, children were allowed to stay with their parents, the only concentration camp in which this was done. Alice Sommer remembers giving more than 100 performances - playing, for example, the complete Chopin Etudes by heart - while being unable either to feed her son or to explain to him the reason. He sang in the children's choir and, with his mother's support, also survived the war.
She now lives alone in a small flat in North London, where friends visit her in the afternoon and where she practices the piano for two and a half hours a day. People stop on the sidewalk outside the building to listen to her music. Her playing of Bach, Mozart, and Chopin serves as background to her interview. Music, she believes, saved her life. "Music is God."
"I never hate," she said, not even the Nazis, for hatred breeds hatred. Deeply interested in the lives of those she meets, she loves people, she tells the interviewer. "I love everyone." What strikes the viewer is her radiant happiness. "Every day, life is beautiful." She suffered unimaginably during the two years of her incarceration, yet she remains an optimistic, positive woman, who considers herself the luckiest person in the world. It's important, she said, not to complain but to look at the bright side of things and to be aware of the beauty of life.
I watched the video shortly after listening to Krista Tippett's "On Being" (formerly known as "Speaking of Faith"), an American Public Media program broadcast by NPR on October 28. She moderated a roundtable discussion on "pursuing happiness," in which the participants included His Holiness, the fourteenth Dali Lama and Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. As I listened to Alice Sommer, I was struck by the resonance of her words with the statements made by these men.
"The whole purpose of life is for happiness," said His Holiness, who, like Alice Sommer, radiates happiness. "The whole purpose of our existence is for happiness." Rabbi Sacks seemed to agree that we were made to be happy, for he cited the Jerusalem Talmud. This ancient commentary holds that in the World to Come each us will be held to account for all the legitimate pleasures we denied ourselves.
The Dali Lama has known exile and suffering but, he said, he always looks for the possibility of good inherent in tragedy. In turn, Rabbi Sacks cited the biblical report of Jacob's wrestling with the angel. "I will not let you go," Jacob told the angel, "until you bless me." Rabbi Sacks said that he will not let go of suffering until he finds the blessing it contains.
After surviving the hell of Theresienstadt, nothing again ever seemed worth complaining about, said Alice Sommer. That she remains optimistic and good humored, laughing frequently during her interview, is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and an inspiration for us all.
The trailer is for a documentary film about Alice Sommer, who, 106 at the time of filming, is the world's oldest Holocaust survivor. In 1942 she was a well-known concert pianist living in Prague, when, at age 39, she was deported to Theresienstadt, along with her six-year-old son, Rafi. The Nazis employed that camp as a propaganda device, to show the world how well they were treating Europe's Jews. Thus, starving actors and musicians performed for the other starving prisoners. Under the constant threat of extermination, both performers and audiences were, in the words of one of Alice Sommer's friends, "dancing under the gallows."
For propaganda purposes, children were allowed to stay with their parents, the only concentration camp in which this was done. Alice Sommer remembers giving more than 100 performances - playing, for example, the complete Chopin Etudes by heart - while being unable either to feed her son or to explain to him the reason. He sang in the children's choir and, with his mother's support, also survived the war.
She now lives alone in a small flat in North London, where friends visit her in the afternoon and where she practices the piano for two and a half hours a day. People stop on the sidewalk outside the building to listen to her music. Her playing of Bach, Mozart, and Chopin serves as background to her interview. Music, she believes, saved her life. "Music is God."
"I never hate," she said, not even the Nazis, for hatred breeds hatred. Deeply interested in the lives of those she meets, she loves people, she tells the interviewer. "I love everyone." What strikes the viewer is her radiant happiness. "Every day, life is beautiful." She suffered unimaginably during the two years of her incarceration, yet she remains an optimistic, positive woman, who considers herself the luckiest person in the world. It's important, she said, not to complain but to look at the bright side of things and to be aware of the beauty of life.
I watched the video shortly after listening to Krista Tippett's "On Being" (formerly known as "Speaking of Faith"), an American Public Media program broadcast by NPR on October 28. She moderated a roundtable discussion on "pursuing happiness," in which the participants included His Holiness, the fourteenth Dali Lama and Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. As I listened to Alice Sommer, I was struck by the resonance of her words with the statements made by these men.
"The whole purpose of life is for happiness," said His Holiness, who, like Alice Sommer, radiates happiness. "The whole purpose of our existence is for happiness." Rabbi Sacks seemed to agree that we were made to be happy, for he cited the Jerusalem Talmud. This ancient commentary holds that in the World to Come each us will be held to account for all the legitimate pleasures we denied ourselves.
The Dali Lama has known exile and suffering but, he said, he always looks for the possibility of good inherent in tragedy. In turn, Rabbi Sacks cited the biblical report of Jacob's wrestling with the angel. "I will not let you go," Jacob told the angel, "until you bless me." Rabbi Sacks said that he will not let go of suffering until he finds the blessing it contains.
After surviving the hell of Theresienstadt, nothing again ever seemed worth complaining about, said Alice Sommer. That she remains optimistic and good humored, laughing frequently during her interview, is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and an inspiration for us all.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
A Time Outside of Time
I sometimes dream I'm in Jerusalem, our home for 36 years. I walk the same streets, see the same cityscape, without any sense of homecoming, for Jerusalem is, in my dream, the grounds of everyday life, taken for granted. Only when I awaken do I realize where the dream had taken place.
Brooklyn is now our primary residence, indeed our only residence, for two years ago we sold our home in Jerusalem, with its high ceilings, light-filled rooms, and balcony flowers. We loved living there and we'd be there still had our children not done to us what we had done to our own parents and moved to another continent.
We changed in many ways during our stay in Jerusalem, although it's sometimes hard to know whether the change is a function of aging or of residence in the city. Is my heightened appreciation of friendship, for example, a function of the extraordinary closeness among friends that Jerusalem fosters? There, it sometimes seemed, almost all our friends knew one another. Because most of us had arrived in Jerusalem with no family other than our children, we served as each other's surrogate family - as the aunts, uncles, and grandparents who had been left behind. Or would my friendships have deepened even if I had never left America?
One fundamental change with which Jerusalem is indisputably responsible is that it was there we began to observe Shabbat. The city itself and our circle of friends were conducive to its observance. On Friday afternoons, from our apartment in the city center, we could hear the traffic noise gradually diminishing. Stores, offices, restaurants, and places of amusement closed, bosses stopped running, and by the time the municipal siren announced candle-lighting time, the city was quiet.
Our friends often invited us to share their Sabbath meals, where they introduced us to the Sabbath home rituals, the kiddushim and other ceremonies that set the Sabbath apart from the rest of the week. With the help of a tape that my boss kindly made for me, I learned these rituals, and it gave me much pleasure to enact them in the presence of friends, for it was the rare Sabbath meal without guests at our home or at those of our friends.
Neither my wife nor I is religiously observant, but we found in Shabbat a weekly oasis of sanctity and serenity, a time outside of time, a time amazingly restorative. Now that we're back in New York, we continue to observe Shabbat. Our daughter, her husband, and their son come to us every Friday evening for dinner, when our grandson, who is being raised as an observant Catholic, has an opportunity to absorb the songs, the ceremonies, and the atmosphere of the Jewish Sabbath. The tradition will continue, I hope, if not with him, then with the children of our son, who recites kiddush with my grandfather's kiddush cup.
Recently I dreamed that my wife and I were in Jerusalem, somewhere in the Maalot Dafna neighborhood, where we hailed a taxi. We asked the driver to take us home. He drove all over the city but no matter where he went he was unable to find it. That part of our lives is over. But Shabbat remains with us still.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Surprised by Joy
Recently, as I was walking to Prospect Park, I turned to the east to check for oncoming traffic. The sun had risen a few minutes before, and vivid, long pink clouds formed wide streaks along the entire visible sky. The unexpected sight was so lovely that I gasped, revivifying the hackneyed expression of "taking one's breath away." I was, in the words of Wordsworth's sonnet, "surprised by joy." The primary emotion that Wordsworth expressed, however, was not joy but grief tinged by guilt.
Wordsworth's poem doesn't specify the source of his unexpected joy. It tells us instead how impatient he was to share it with his beloved. He immediately turned to her to "share the transport," and then he remembered that she was dead, "deep buried in the silent tomb." He castigated himself for having forgotten, even for a moment, that she was gone.
When I recalled his sonnet, my astonished pleasure in the sunrise became muted. I'd tell my wife about the sunrise when I returned from my walk. She'd listen, understand, and enter into my pleasure. But before too long, one of us will be in Wordsworth's position, bereft, yet still wanting to tell the other something.
For years after my mother died, I caught myself wanting to phone her about something, before remembering that she was dead. She's been gone now for almost 60 years, and I no longer find myself wanting to phone her. My father, though, who died a little more than 30 years ago, is a different story. I occasionally find myself wanting to tell him my news. "I must tell Dad," I think to myself and then I remember that of course I cannot. But the impulse to talk to him has become less frequent with time, and were I to live long enough, it would probably die out completely, as it did with the urge to talk to my mother.
Neither my wife nor I is likely to live long enough, after the inevitable bereavement one of us will face, to stop wanting to tell the other something, before a sudden pained realization that the time for sharing is over. After that astonishing sunrise, my recollection of Wordsworth's sonnet made me promise myself to treasure the time we still have together.
Wordsworth's poem doesn't specify the source of his unexpected joy. It tells us instead how impatient he was to share it with his beloved. He immediately turned to her to "share the transport," and then he remembered that she was dead, "deep buried in the silent tomb." He castigated himself for having forgotten, even for a moment, that she was gone.
When I recalled his sonnet, my astonished pleasure in the sunrise became muted. I'd tell my wife about the sunrise when I returned from my walk. She'd listen, understand, and enter into my pleasure. But before too long, one of us will be in Wordsworth's position, bereft, yet still wanting to tell the other something.
For years after my mother died, I caught myself wanting to phone her about something, before remembering that she was dead. She's been gone now for almost 60 years, and I no longer find myself wanting to phone her. My father, though, who died a little more than 30 years ago, is a different story. I occasionally find myself wanting to tell him my news. "I must tell Dad," I think to myself and then I remember that of course I cannot. But the impulse to talk to him has become less frequent with time, and were I to live long enough, it would probably die out completely, as it did with the urge to talk to my mother.
Neither my wife nor I is likely to live long enough, after the inevitable bereavement one of us will face, to stop wanting to tell the other something, before a sudden pained realization that the time for sharing is over. After that astonishing sunrise, my recollection of Wordsworth's sonnet made me promise myself to treasure the time we still have together.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Stepping Outside the Box
Not the least of the pleasures afforded by The New York Times are its obituaries. No, reading the obituaries is not a morbid indulgence. Those of you who have read them - articles that summarize the lives of notable people who have recently died - know that they are often both witty and instructive and sometimes inspiring as well.
One of the most remarkable people who've had the distinction of a Times obituary was Richard T. Gill, who died recently at the age of 82. When he was almost forty and a tenured professor of economics at Harvard, he managed to break his two and a half pack addiction to cigarettes. In order to help himself stay clean, he took singing lessons. Without any prior formal training, he had nonetheless always liked to sing, but after a few years of lessons and rigorous practice, it became clear that he was a world-class basso profundo. "Mr. Gill soon forsook chalk and tweed for flowing robes and very large headgear."
The author of tomes such as Economics and the Private Interest: an introduction to microeconomics became a featured player, first at the New York City Opera and soon after at the Met, where he performed 42 times. His obituary, by Margalit Fox, quoted John Rockwell's review of Prof. Gill's 1975 performance as Pimen, in Boris Godunov. "He has one of the most beautiful, focused lyric bases around, mellow yet with a really black quality, and his shaping of this noble music was most persuasive."
One could die happy after a review like that, but I'm glad to say that he waited another 35 years. His career as an opera singer spanned 14 years, a period in which he continued to publish books on economics. He then returned to academic life, but instead of continuing with economics, he ventured into demographics, writing Our Changing Population, with Nathan Glazer and Stephan A. Thernstrom, and Posterity Lost: progress, ideology, and the decline of the American family.
As if this versatility were not impressive enough, before embarking on his career in opera, Prof. Gill published short stories in The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly. Later he hosted a 28-part television series on economics. Most of us, who are pleased if we can succeed in even one field, read such an obituary in wonder and awe at what's humanly possible if so rarely attained. Prof. Gill might at least have had the good grace to be homely, but he didn't oblige us even in that. The two photographs published with his obituary, one of them in the role of Frere Laurent in Romeo et Juliette at the Met in 1974, show a handsome man. This was hardly fair.
Few can aspire to such distinction. Still, Prof. Gill showed us what's possible when we have the courage to step outside the boxes that we create for ourselves.
One of the most remarkable people who've had the distinction of a Times obituary was Richard T. Gill, who died recently at the age of 82. When he was almost forty and a tenured professor of economics at Harvard, he managed to break his two and a half pack addiction to cigarettes. In order to help himself stay clean, he took singing lessons. Without any prior formal training, he had nonetheless always liked to sing, but after a few years of lessons and rigorous practice, it became clear that he was a world-class basso profundo. "Mr. Gill soon forsook chalk and tweed for flowing robes and very large headgear."
The author of tomes such as Economics and the Private Interest: an introduction to microeconomics became a featured player, first at the New York City Opera and soon after at the Met, where he performed 42 times. His obituary, by Margalit Fox, quoted John Rockwell's review of Prof. Gill's 1975 performance as Pimen, in Boris Godunov. "He has one of the most beautiful, focused lyric bases around, mellow yet with a really black quality, and his shaping of this noble music was most persuasive."
One could die happy after a review like that, but I'm glad to say that he waited another 35 years. His career as an opera singer spanned 14 years, a period in which he continued to publish books on economics. He then returned to academic life, but instead of continuing with economics, he ventured into demographics, writing Our Changing Population, with Nathan Glazer and Stephan A. Thernstrom, and Posterity Lost: progress, ideology, and the decline of the American family.
As if this versatility were not impressive enough, before embarking on his career in opera, Prof. Gill published short stories in The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly. Later he hosted a 28-part television series on economics. Most of us, who are pleased if we can succeed in even one field, read such an obituary in wonder and awe at what's humanly possible if so rarely attained. Prof. Gill might at least have had the good grace to be homely, but he didn't oblige us even in that. The two photographs published with his obituary, one of them in the role of Frere Laurent in Romeo et Juliette at the Met in 1974, show a handsome man. This was hardly fair.
Few can aspire to such distinction. Still, Prof. Gill showed us what's possible when we have the courage to step outside the boxes that we create for ourselves.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Appearances
For the past three years I've participated in a longitudinal study at a New York hospital. Every few months I report to an office, where I'm given a blood test, an interview by a nurse-practitioner, and finally an exam by the doctor running the project.
Recently I returned to the hospital for this routine drill. The nurse-practitioner, a sturdy, balding, unsmiling man with a no-nonsense manner, who had interviewed me once before, asked me the same questions he had asked me the last time, the same questions I'd been asked for the past three years. But after asking the usual questions - about, for example, appetite, the frequency of bowel movements and urination, and the presence or absence of pain, he asked me a new question. "Can you take care of yourself?"
Bewildered, I asked him what he meant. "Can you dress yourself, bathe yourself, and eat without assistance?" Stunned, I answered, "so far." I had walked with him from the waiting room to the examination room. Hadn't he noticed my firm tread? Did he believe that it was even remotely possible that I could not perform any of those functions? True, I'm a bit bent now and I'm only a few weeks shy of my 79th birthday, but there are centenarians who can feed and bathe themselves and go to the bathroom without help.
Still, the nurse-practitioner was asking what he considered to be an appropriate question. During the past few months I must have crossed an invisible threshold. Will I have crossed another before my next visit? Will he want to know if I can tell him that day's date or name the president of the United States? After all, I'm just as likely to be no longer compos mentis as that someone will have to feed me, perhaps even more likely.
His question reminded me of the frequent lack of correspondence between our perception of ourselves and the impression we make on others. When I strode into the waiting room, dressed in a new tweed sports jacket and a snazzy bow tie, I had seen myself as a fine figure of a man. After the interview I saw what the nurse-practitioner had seen, an old man in danger of losing it.
From now on, I hope I remember that interview when I start to think disparagingly about people who dress or groom themselves in an unbecoming manner. Up until now, I would wonder if they understood how they looked. But now I realize that of course they don't. That heavy woman thinks that her tight jeans makes her look thinner. That old lady thinks that her bright lipstick, plunging neckline, and mini-skirt make her look younger. That man with the comb over thinks that no one will notice he's almost bald. That guy who's never changed the size of his belt and now wears it under a great bulge in his stomach thinks that people won't notice his girth. But what harm are these illusions? Isn't it better that these folks see themselves as looking good than to know the truth? I wish I could still think of myself as a fine figure of a man. But who would be fooled? As I came home, a middle-aged stranger, sitting on a packing crate in front of a convenience store, called out to me, "How y'doin', Pop?"
Recently I returned to the hospital for this routine drill. The nurse-practitioner, a sturdy, balding, unsmiling man with a no-nonsense manner, who had interviewed me once before, asked me the same questions he had asked me the last time, the same questions I'd been asked for the past three years. But after asking the usual questions - about, for example, appetite, the frequency of bowel movements and urination, and the presence or absence of pain, he asked me a new question. "Can you take care of yourself?"
Bewildered, I asked him what he meant. "Can you dress yourself, bathe yourself, and eat without assistance?" Stunned, I answered, "so far." I had walked with him from the waiting room to the examination room. Hadn't he noticed my firm tread? Did he believe that it was even remotely possible that I could not perform any of those functions? True, I'm a bit bent now and I'm only a few weeks shy of my 79th birthday, but there are centenarians who can feed and bathe themselves and go to the bathroom without help.
Still, the nurse-practitioner was asking what he considered to be an appropriate question. During the past few months I must have crossed an invisible threshold. Will I have crossed another before my next visit? Will he want to know if I can tell him that day's date or name the president of the United States? After all, I'm just as likely to be no longer compos mentis as that someone will have to feed me, perhaps even more likely.
His question reminded me of the frequent lack of correspondence between our perception of ourselves and the impression we make on others. When I strode into the waiting room, dressed in a new tweed sports jacket and a snazzy bow tie, I had seen myself as a fine figure of a man. After the interview I saw what the nurse-practitioner had seen, an old man in danger of losing it.
From now on, I hope I remember that interview when I start to think disparagingly about people who dress or groom themselves in an unbecoming manner. Up until now, I would wonder if they understood how they looked. But now I realize that of course they don't. That heavy woman thinks that her tight jeans makes her look thinner. That old lady thinks that her bright lipstick, plunging neckline, and mini-skirt make her look younger. That man with the comb over thinks that no one will notice he's almost bald. That guy who's never changed the size of his belt and now wears it under a great bulge in his stomach thinks that people won't notice his girth. But what harm are these illusions? Isn't it better that these folks see themselves as looking good than to know the truth? I wish I could still think of myself as a fine figure of a man. But who would be fooled? As I came home, a middle-aged stranger, sitting on a packing crate in front of a convenience store, called out to me, "How y'doin', Pop?"
Monday, November 1, 2010
A Man from Yonkers
He was sitting across from me at the doctor's office. Perhaps 10 years younger than I, he looked as if he might be a retired banker, although he was reading the Post rather than the Times or the Wall Street Journal. A tall, trim, good-looking man, he boasted a full head of white hair, and his shoes, which were beautifully shined, looked expensive. We had to leave the office at the same time, and as walked together out onto the street and towards our respective subway stations at Columbus Circle we struck up a conversation.
We agreed in praising our doctor for his patience, kindness, and good humor. As my companion spoke I concluded that banking was an unlikely profession for someone with his accent, which seemed to me to be uneducated. He lives in Yonkers, he said, in the cooperative apartment that he and his mother had shared until her death. He wears no wedding band, so I guessed that he's probably a life-long bachelor. Indeed, although he's not at all effeminate, he exhibits the slight fussiness that's seen in many men who have never married.
Perhaps he's lonely. At any rate, he kept up an almost continuous stream of chatter, as I said very little, maintaining eye contact, nodding and inserting an occasional comment to show that I understood what he was saying. He seemed grateful for an attentive listener.
Among the facts I learned about him are that he avoids sodium, especially as found in processed foods, but that he makes one exception. He cannot eat corn on the cob without salt. We discussed healthy eating, ending that topic when he asserted that no matter what he ate, when the Lord was ready to take him, he'd have to go. He seems to be doing his best, however, to help the Lord postpone that invitation, since he doesn't smoke, avoids fatty meats and sodium (except for corn on the cob), and, judging from the absence of visible small veins on and around his nose, doesn't drink heavily.
He's an enthusiastic Yankees fan and used to attend lots of ball games with his friends. Nowadays, though, he wouldn't dream of attending a game because of what he views as the exorbitant cost of a ticket. That's bad enough, he said, but you can no longer bring food or drink into the stadium, leaving you at the mercy of ridiculous prices for a hot dog and beer. Seats used to be inexpensive enough that whole families would attend games together, he told me, and they'd bring a full picnic hamper with them. Now he only watches the games on television. He didn't seem optimistic that the Yankees would win the pennant, although if they managed to win the next two games, they'd have done it once again.
"Do you remember Phil Rizzuto?" he asked. "Sure," I said, not telling him that I knew only that he was an old-time baseball player, but that I had no idea what he team he'd played for. (Later, a Google search told me that he was an outstanding Yankee short stop in the '40s and '50s.) His salary was only $35,000, my friend told me. We agreed that $35,000 was not a shabby salary in the '40s and '50s, but that even if you multiplied it by 10, it would represent small change for today's millionaire major league players. We both thought this crazy.
We had been chatting as we walked up 59th Street and were now on the corner of Ninth Avenue, where we stopped. I knew he had to cross the avenue in order to reach his subway at Columbus Circle, but he made no move to do so. He continued to talk. Finally, eager to avoid the subway rush hour, I asked him if he was going to cross the street. We crossed together, but before I could say something to end the conversation in a way that would not hurt his feelings, he said that he wouldn't keep me much longer, but that he had to tell me a story.
When he was younger, he said, he had some friends who were Giants fans. Once these friends went to Ebbets Field to watch the Giants play the Dodgers. His friends were only a few blocks from the field, but they didn't know how to reach it. They approached a policeman and asked for directions. "Who are you rooting for?" he asked. Later they realized that it was a mistake to have told him, because he sent them in the wrong direction, taking them out of their way by one or two miles.
But even after telling me that story, he did not stop talking. He continued to touch on a miscellaneous array of topics for at least another five minutes. I could see that he was reluctant to lose a good listener, and I was curious how long he could keep up his stream of talk, but I didn't want to get home late, and so I told him (truthfully) how much I had enjoyed talking to him, and then we both said goodbye and wished each other good luck.
We agreed in praising our doctor for his patience, kindness, and good humor. As my companion spoke I concluded that banking was an unlikely profession for someone with his accent, which seemed to me to be uneducated. He lives in Yonkers, he said, in the cooperative apartment that he and his mother had shared until her death. He wears no wedding band, so I guessed that he's probably a life-long bachelor. Indeed, although he's not at all effeminate, he exhibits the slight fussiness that's seen in many men who have never married.
Perhaps he's lonely. At any rate, he kept up an almost continuous stream of chatter, as I said very little, maintaining eye contact, nodding and inserting an occasional comment to show that I understood what he was saying. He seemed grateful for an attentive listener.
Among the facts I learned about him are that he avoids sodium, especially as found in processed foods, but that he makes one exception. He cannot eat corn on the cob without salt. We discussed healthy eating, ending that topic when he asserted that no matter what he ate, when the Lord was ready to take him, he'd have to go. He seems to be doing his best, however, to help the Lord postpone that invitation, since he doesn't smoke, avoids fatty meats and sodium (except for corn on the cob), and, judging from the absence of visible small veins on and around his nose, doesn't drink heavily.
He's an enthusiastic Yankees fan and used to attend lots of ball games with his friends. Nowadays, though, he wouldn't dream of attending a game because of what he views as the exorbitant cost of a ticket. That's bad enough, he said, but you can no longer bring food or drink into the stadium, leaving you at the mercy of ridiculous prices for a hot dog and beer. Seats used to be inexpensive enough that whole families would attend games together, he told me, and they'd bring a full picnic hamper with them. Now he only watches the games on television. He didn't seem optimistic that the Yankees would win the pennant, although if they managed to win the next two games, they'd have done it once again.
"Do you remember Phil Rizzuto?" he asked. "Sure," I said, not telling him that I knew only that he was an old-time baseball player, but that I had no idea what he team he'd played for. (Later, a Google search told me that he was an outstanding Yankee short stop in the '40s and '50s.) His salary was only $35,000, my friend told me. We agreed that $35,000 was not a shabby salary in the '40s and '50s, but that even if you multiplied it by 10, it would represent small change for today's millionaire major league players. We both thought this crazy.
We had been chatting as we walked up 59th Street and were now on the corner of Ninth Avenue, where we stopped. I knew he had to cross the avenue in order to reach his subway at Columbus Circle, but he made no move to do so. He continued to talk. Finally, eager to avoid the subway rush hour, I asked him if he was going to cross the street. We crossed together, but before I could say something to end the conversation in a way that would not hurt his feelings, he said that he wouldn't keep me much longer, but that he had to tell me a story.
When he was younger, he said, he had some friends who were Giants fans. Once these friends went to Ebbets Field to watch the Giants play the Dodgers. His friends were only a few blocks from the field, but they didn't know how to reach it. They approached a policeman and asked for directions. "Who are you rooting for?" he asked. Later they realized that it was a mistake to have told him, because he sent them in the wrong direction, taking them out of their way by one or two miles.
But even after telling me that story, he did not stop talking. He continued to touch on a miscellaneous array of topics for at least another five minutes. I could see that he was reluctant to lose a good listener, and I was curious how long he could keep up his stream of talk, but I didn't want to get home late, and so I told him (truthfully) how much I had enjoyed talking to him, and then we both said goodbye and wished each other good luck.
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