Escape from the Masculine Mystique

The other day I came across a letter I wrote to our son in February of 2000, in which I related two incidents that served “to remind me that I’m getting on.” I had asked a cab driver in Jerusalem to let me off in front of our apartment house, which would have required him to take a circuitous route back to the main road on which he had been driving. He asked me if he could drop me off a bit before having to make that detour. “I really didn’t have time to pick you up,” he explained, “but I did you a favor because you’re elderly.” And only a few days later, after I had bought a ski cap, the proprietor called out to me as I was leaving his shop, “I don’t suppose you’re going to the Hermon [a ski resort].” While I thought of myself as "getting on," I didn’t think of myself as old. It was beginning to be clear, however, that strangers thought otherwise.

There had been an earlier indication of how I appeared to others. Seven years before, when my wife and I were touring New Zealand, a young waiter at our hotel asked us where we were going next. Queenstown, we told him, and then asked what there was to do there besides walking amidst the spectacular scenery. “Bungee jumping,” he said without hesitation. He then looked at me and said, “but I guess you’re beyond that now.” I was indeed beyond it. On the other hand, I had probably always been beyond it. I laughed and told myself that no doubt he considered anyone over 40 as old.

The signs of how we appear to others are usually abundant, but we often ignore or deny them, as I did with the waiter, the hat shop proprietor, and the taxi driver. Though it’s clear that for many years I’ve appeared to others as elderly, it’s only recently that I’ve finally acknowledged the fact that people look at me as an old man, and that I can no longer kid myself that I’m in “late middle age” or even in the stage known as “the young-old.”

I’m glad that people see me as old because I sometimes need their help. These days, because a broken bone in my foot has hobbled me, I wear a soft cast and get about with the aid of a walker, which helps me to keep pressure off the injured foot. This means I must travel by taxi to go any distance. I’ve been impressed by the alacrity with which most cabbies leap out of their cars to take my walker, fold it up, and put it into the car’s trunk, and then help me into the car. They offer the same assistance when we reach our destination. I’ve also been impressed, during the past two months of using a walker, by how many total strangers go out of their way to help me on the street. They steady me over snowdrifts and hold doors open for me. Had I broken my leg at twenty and been walking with crutches, I don’t believe I would have received as much consideration. My benefactors clearly view me not only as disabled but as an elderly person who needs a great deal of help. They’re right and I ‘m grateful for that view of me.

So I’ve escaped at last from the masculine mystique. People no longer expect me to be strong and self-reliant, and I no longer feel ashamed to ask for help. This is a liberation, an unexpected gift of old age.