Onwards and Upwards

In Friday’s blog post I wrote that I’d like to visit the Egyptian and Mexican pyramids and sail down the Nile. But then I awoke before dawn with second thoughts. I wondered if I'm nuts. I’d be 80 years old when embarking on these excursions. Both in Mexico and Egypt, I’d be far from metropolitan centers much of the time. What if my illness became acute? Doesn’t my present stage of development preclude more globe-trotting? Isn’t that part of my life over? Shouldn’t it be over? You know how it is at four in the morning.

But later that day, fully awake, I read about an 81-year-old widow who spends ten months a year traveling to exotic locations. She travels light, with only one pair of shoes, the barest minimum of clothing, and miniature cars to give to children en route. She’s not letting her age stand in her way of living the way she wants.

Neither is Diana Nyad. Last Tuesday, the Times reported on her mission to swim from Cuba to Key West. A long-distance swimmer, she’s swum from Bimini in the Bahamas to Jupiter, Florida, a distance of 102 miles. But a year before that, in 1978, she was forced to abandon her attempt to swim the 103-mile route from Cuba to Key West after swimming 50 miles, when tumultuous seas pushed her far off course. Now, at the age of 61, she’s trying again. She’s trained for a year and a half, enlisted a support team of 22 people, and has raised most of the half million dollars required for the venture. She hopes her exploit will help people say “‘I want to live life like that at this age.’ I want the candle to burn bright.”

I too want the candle to burn bright. I couldn’t engage in long-distance swimming at any age, but there are more candles to burn than one. At 60 I traveled around the world by surface transportation, by means of ferries, railroads, freighters, and automobiles, never once boarding an airplane. This was pretty tame compared to swimming in the ocean for 103 miles without a shark cage, but for me it was what Ms. Nyad, the marathon swimmer, calls “energizing.” During that journey I felt fully alive, completely immersed in the moment, a feeling I'd like to capture again.

The examples of these two women, one 81 the other 61, made me laugh at my fears about setting forth again at 80 on what after all would not be a very hazardous or adventurous journey. So the other day, after discussing the matter with my wife, we signed up for a two-week educational tour of Egypt, a Road Scholar (formerly Elder Hostel) program. This will include, of course, visits to the pyramids and a cruise down the Nile, covering two of the items on my wish list. We’re scheduled to fly to Cairo a few days after my 80^th birthday. Onwards and upwards.

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