Returning to Jerusalem

Montefiore Hotel,

Jerusalem

We’re staying diagonally across the street from the apartment in which we lived for 32 years.  The eucalyptus trees in the garden of the Bezalel Academy, which we saw from our old apartment and which we can now see from our hotel window, look the same, although I suppose they've grown taller in the four years we’ve been away. 

On the surface little has changed.  I walk down the same streets, pass the same buildings, and unfailingly bump into someone I know.  It’s as if we had never left.  Yet I feel very different from the time when we lived here.  All the time we’ve been here, I’ve felt like a ghost, insubstantial, unable to effect change.  Once an actor strutting on the stage, I’m now relegated to the audience.  A guest in our hotel asked if I’m a tourist and I didn’t know how to answer.  How can a man who’s lived in a city for 36 years consider himself a tourist?  Yet I’m clearly not a resident.  “A visitor” is closest to my status now, but that doesn’t seem quite right either.  So far – and we haven’t yet been here a week – if I haven’t felt like a ghost or an actor banished from the stage, I feel as if I’m in a dream, like the dreams I used to have for a year or two after we moved back to America, when would dream I was walking down its streets.  Now I’m actually doing so.

Last Friday, our third full day in Jerusalem, I walked to the florist where I used to buy Shabbat flowers.  Avi, the young man who always served me, greeted me effusively.  I asked about his children.  There were two, a boy and a girl, ages 4 and 2, when we left Jerusalem in 2008.  In the meantime they've been joined by three siblings.  Avi looked the same, but now he is the father of five.

As always, I pointed out the combination of flowers I wanted, and he cut, trimmed, and arranged them, interspersing them with greens, and as always the arrangement was beautiful, elegant and understated.  I could never obtain that in Brooklyn without paying a fortune for it.  Avi charged me 30 shekels, about eight dollars, for the flowers, but the pleasure of buying them from him was free.  As I left his shop I felt both happy at having seen him at last and sad that I can no longer do so as a matter of course.  

My interaction with Avi illustrates the joy and melancholy I've felt ever since we arrived.  I'm joyful when we meet our old friends, but I'm sad when I consider that the beauty and romance of living here are gone forever, except in memory and in dreams.

Coveting a Jaguar

When traveling by train from Xi’an to Beijing in 1992, I struck up a conversation with an elderly gentleman, who turned out to be the vice president of a university in Beijing.   “When I was young,” he said,” I had the time to travel but not the money.  Now that I have the money, I don’t have the time.” 

A similar irony envelops my love affair with the Jaguar XK120, manufactured in the late ‘40s and early 50s.  Sleek, sumptuous, voluptuous, the two-seater forever holds first place in that section of my heart devoted to automobiles.  When I first rode in one, I could easily fold myself up to enter it and unfold myself to exit - I didn't even think about it - but I couldn’t afford even to fill up its tank.  Now that I can afford to buy the car itself, I’d need someone to help me in and to help me out, which would scarcely enhance my image as a sportsman. 

Even though I’d have difficulty entering the vehicle and later escaping from its embrace, I’ve often thought of buying one.   There are many reasons not to, aside from the difficulty of maintaining a sports car, notorious for mechanical problems, not to mention maintaining an antique sports car.  First of all, I no longer am licensed to drive, not having renewed my last license.  I had driven so rarely, that I became nervous while at the wheel, and a near accident convinced me that it was time to hang up the keys.  Second, New York gives drivers little opportunity and less need to practice their driving skills.  Its excellent public transportation system coupled with the difficulty in finding parking spaces – a substantial portion of traffic in New York is composed of drivers looking for a place to park – has made New York the only city in the country in which the majority of residents own no car.  Even so, I fantasize about owning a Jaguar XK120. 

There are fantasies and fantasies.  Another is living aboard a yacht and inviting my friends to join me from time to time for segments, as long or short as they please, as I sail around the world.  This fantasy is so completely impossible – my wife would never agree to it – that when it pops into my head I slowly shake it and smile sadly.  But buying a Jaguar XK120 is within the realm of possibility.  It would be so impractical and ridiculous, though, that I know I’d never do it.

But now, thanks to my daughter, who is always looking out for my welfare, I have a substitute.  It’s as black, sleek, and elegant as the Jaguar.  Like the Jaguar it stands by itself.  In addition, you can fold it up and adjust its height.  Furthermore, it has three points of contact with the ground (unlike the Jaguar’s four), and a pivot above those three points gives it added stability.  It is, in short, a cane, the Hurrycane, “the all terrain cane.”   I took it out for a spin, the other day, and was completely delighted.   

Dentists and Amulets

My dentist saw a small chip on my front tooth and offered to fix it without charge.  I can’t explain his generosity in this matter, but of course I was happy to accept.  I asked him if the chip resulted from my osteoporosis.  "No," he said, and then paused, trying to think of a polite way to tell me that the tooth was extremely old and what did I expect.  “You’ve used the tooth since the age of 10,” he said, which put it nicely.  He warned me that his repair might only last a few years.  I replied that I hoped I’d live that long, which made him laugh uneasily.  “You will,” he said.  I hope he’s right but how can he possibly know?

My response – that I wasn’t at all sure I’d live another few years – contrasts with my reaction to a story that my former dentist in Jerusalem told me about 10 years ago.  We were discussing the material to be used for a repair on one of my teeth. “You know,“ I said, “it doesn’t have to last a long time.”  This prompted him to tell me about his 92-year-old grandfather, who was worried about outliving his money.  He asked my dentist’s father to review his finances.  “Pop,” the son said, after looking over his father’s records, “your money will last another 15 years without your making any changes in your lifestyle.”  The old man replied, “yes, but then what?”

I was seventy then.  It didn’t occur to me that in only ten years I would measure the time remaining to me in demi-tasse spoons, rather than in the cups used by my dentist’s grandfather, who thought that he might live beyond 107.  If I thought about the matter at all, death seemed indefinitely far away, even though I had told the dentist that the repair didn't have to last a long time.

Now, at the age of 80, I told my current dentist, “let’s see which lasts longer, the repair or me.”  I now view the years ahead as likely to be few, which is why I’m trying to do as much as I can while I’m still vertical.  Having returned from Juneau a few weeks ago, we’re now in Jerusalem for a two-week stay.  My grandson and I are going to Boston at the end of August, and my wife and I plan to fly to Mexico in September.   And now I'm planning the celebration for our 50^th anniversary, even though the anniversary doesn’t come until May and the celebration won’t be held before the end of July.  If you think I regard these plans as virtual amulets, magical protections from harm through next summer, you’re right.  How can anything happen to us if we have reservations?  That’s ridiculous, I know, but how can it hurt?

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Sandwiches and Champagne

Philip Pearle, a distinguished physicist,  who has survived being related to me since 1959 when he married my sister and has since become the best of friends, sent me an essay by Nora Ephron, who died in June at the age of 71.  He received it from a good friend of his, a recent widow, which gave the piece an extra poignancy.  In the essay that Phil sent me, Ephron faces her own death.  She wrote it when she was 64, perhaps before whatever it was that would kill her had arrived.

She wrote about a dying friend who returned to their authors the love letters he had received, each with a gracious note.  I wish I could do that but I don’t have any love letters to return.  In fact, I can’t remember ever receiving a single one.  (I don’t count the sweet notes my wife writes me on my birthday and on our anniversary.)  Ephron’s friend maintained what he called an “exit” file, which contained instructions to be carried out after his death, including the music to be played at his funeral.  She couldn’t think of anything she’d like at her own funeral reception beyond champagne and the nice sandwiches sold at a shop on Lexington Avenue.

Naturally I thought of my own memorial service.  I won’t have a funeral since I’ve asked that my body be donated to a medical school, but I imagine that my wife and children will want to organize a reception in which people will cross their fingers while telling each other what a great guy I was.  And they should be rewarded for their mendacity by, at the very least, sandwiches and champagne.  Good champagne, please.  You only die once.

But I am making light of her essay.  Although it’s written in an amusing way, her topic is a serious one, the inevitability of death and her feelings about it.  Her feelings were not even mixed.  Death was awful and aging presented no advantages whatsoever.  I agree that death is a bummer, to use slang that is probably out of date, but I see no point in raging against it.  I hope to put it off as long as possible, but the idea of living forever is horrible.  

I strongly disagree with her that age gives us no advantages.  Unlike Ephron who was most unhappy at the prospect of reaching 65, her next birthday at the time, I was delighted to reach 80.  The seats offered to me on the subway are the most minor of the pleasures of old age, which include the ability to strike up conversations with pretty young women, an excuse to avoid unpleasant tasks, and a longer view, a larger perspective, a calmness, not enjoyed when I was younger, that allows me to smell the lilacs (most roses have little scent). 

“Death is a sniper, she writes. “It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know, it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again you could be. And meanwhile, your friends die, and you’re left not just bereft, not just grieving, not just guilty, but utterly helpless. There is nothing you can do. Nothing.  Everybody dies.”   That being the case, it behooves us to squeeze as much from each day as we can.  Come to think of it, perhaps I should sample some of that champagne right now.






2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Becoming Buff

Now that I’ve broken three bones in my foot, not only must I take taxis everywhere but I’ve also had to join the local gym.   Normally I walk for forty minutes a day, mostly in Prospect Park.  But when any length of time elapses without my walking daily, my blood pressure rises.  It’s clear that it will be several months at least before I can dispense with my soft cast and walk again freely.  My podiatrist suggested that in the mean time I try using a stationary bicycle.  The other day I slowly hobbled to the gym around the corner and mounted one of its bikes. Yes!  I could operate it without pain.  It will be an effective if charmless substitute for walking.

While pedaling away, I noticed a row of machines that exercise both the arms and the legs seemingly without more pressure on your feet than required by a stationary bicycle.  I’ll try them next.  And then, once I dismounted, I saw the free weights.  Why not try those as well?  My wife, who swims there three times a week, suggested I call the gym’s trainer, who will introduce me to the various machines, show me how to work them, and recommend an exercise routine for me. 

Fantasies of a buff physique flit through my mind.  It’s never too late, is it?  Well, it probably is.  A friend recently chastised me for going on a zip line in Alaska.  I should remember my age, she said.  No doubt she’s right.  So I promise not to be a body builder or to transform myself from a 90-pound weakling to the muscular hero promised by Charles Atlas.   Still, there’s no harm in improving my strength and maintaining my cardiovascular fitness.  After six months, just try kicking sand in my face!

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man’s Journal All Rights Reserved

Drunk or Ill?

The other day, at about three-thirty in the afternoon, while my wife and I were traveling by taxi down Seventh Avenue in mid-town Manhattan, she pointed out the body of a man lying in a fetal position on the sidewalk.  We had stopped at a red light, which gave us an opportunity to view the scene.  In the minute or so that we waited for the light to change, we saw at least twenty people walk by the man without stopping or even pausing.  They probably assumed, as I did, that he had passed out from alcohol or drugs, but what if we were wrong?  Perhaps he had had a stroke or a seizure or had fainted from illness.

I remembered the male bodies that littered the main train station in Moscow, when I had the misfortune to spend a couple of days there in 1992.  They were clearly drunk, although I can’t tell you how I knew that.   But then I remembered a man lying on a low stone wall in Calcutta, who seemed to me and my wife to be dying.  How was I to know whether the man on Seventh Avenue was drunk or sick?

I asked my wife what she would do if she were a pedestrian had come across the man on the sidewalk.  She’d call 911, she said.  Why hadn’t any of the passersby done that?  He was poorly dressed, perhaps homeless.  I doubt he would have lain there long if he had been wearing a suit and tie and had been carrying a briefcase.   On the other hand, if he was in fact drunk, and the police arrived in response to a 911 call, he’d most likely be arrested for disorderly behavior. Would that have helped him?  It’s hard to know what’s the right thing to do. On the whole, though, I think that as usual my wife was right.  

As it happened, that morning I read in the Times about an exceedingly rich couple in London who were generous supporters of drug rehabilitation programs.  Recently the wife was found dead at home and at the same time her husband was stopped by the police for driving erratically.  It turns out that both were addicted to drugs.  Earlier, when a large amount of cocaine had been found in their home, they avoided penalties because of their status and their connections.  Had he been found on the street like that man on Seventh Avenue, he would probably have been brought to a hospital and discharged after sobering up.  This couple had "every virtue every grace," to steal from Walter Savage Landor, but in the end their advantages were to no avail.  Life is both unfair and cruel.    

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Anchises' Law

As all the world knows, Anchises’ Law states that you never know where it’s coming from.  The latest example of this imperishable truth occurred recently when my left foot began to hurt.  We were in Alaska then and I thought I’d give it a few days to see if the pain subsided.  But once in New York, when the pain became even worse, I suspected that I had fractured a bone, which I had done twice before.  In fact my foot doctor told me that this time I had broken not one, not two, but three bones.  Would you believe that the breakage resulted from my participation in a kick-boxing contest?  I didn't think so.  In fact I have no memory of bumping or spraining my foot, so the breakage, according to my doctor, is the consequence of osteoporosis.

Limping is an appropriate problem for me, since my namesake, the first Anchises, was lame.  This was a result not of osteoporosis but of speaking out of turn.  He was so beautiful a young man that Aphrodite fell for him big time: she came to earth and seduced him.  It’s not written whether she had to work at this, but I suspect she did not.  Anchises, in a drunken moment, bragged to his friends about his affair with her, which so incensed Zeus that the king of the gods hurled a thunderbolt at him, which lamed him for life.  The fruit of his affair with Aphrodite was Aeneas, the legendary founder of Rome, who carried him on his back out of the burning city of Troy.  I know I've told you this story before but it's such a good story it deserves to be told at least once a year and besides, as an old man, I  have the license to repeat myself.

I’m thankful that New York isn’t burning and that even if it were I wouldn’t have to depend upon my son to carry me out.  I’m thankful that the laming is not permanent.  Most of all, I’m grateful that for the last 49 years, Aphrodite has seen fit to stay with me.  If this is bragging, I hope Zeus won’t throw a thunderbolt in my direction.  Three broken bones are enough for now.

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man’s Journal All Rights Reserved

Dying Well

Recently I heard an interview with Ira Byock on the occasion of his new book, The Best Care Possible.    Dr. Byock, a professor at the Dartmouth Medical School and the director of the Palliative Care Service at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, spoke of the distressing state of end-of-life care in America, where advances in medical technology often prolong life at the expense of its quality.

When our loved ones are terminally ill, we want the best care possible for them.  But the best care must take into account patients’ preferences and their quality of life.  Hospice care, stated Dr. Byock, helps people live longer and more comfortably than aggressive treatment at the end of life.

There’s something worse than death, he said, and that’s dying badly.   But alas, patients often do die badly, hooked up to machines or subjected to operations and procedures that offer no hope of recovery but only prolong suffering.  Although most people prefer to die at home, in New York City 20% die in an intensive care unit and half die in a hospital.  Dying badly results from our unwillingness to acknowledge our mortality, which leads to our not telling our loved ones our preferences for end of life care, and from the medical profession’s fixation on the disease rather than the patient.  We need a revolution in attitudes so that fewer people will die badly and more will die gently.

Unlike Dylan Thomas, I hope to go gentle into that good night and not to burn and rave at close of day.

Spending Time with People We Love

Fireworks bracketed our last day in Juneau.  We saw them at midnight, when the Fourth of July began, viewing them from the home of our hosts, on Douglas Island, high above the Gastenau Channel, and from the air we saw the annual Macy’s display on the East River a few minutes before we landed at ten that night.  Had there been fanfares along with the fireworks, it would have been entirely appropriate, for our two-week visit to Juneau was a spectacular success.

My wife and I tried to analyze the reasons for our enjoyment.   First of all, our hosts, the son and daughter-in-law of the couple celebrating their 60^th anniversary, were meticulous in their planning of the celebration, no mean feat considering that it took place over a two-week period for 21 people ranging in age from 14 to 82 in two successive venues, a rustic lodge on the mainland and a luxurious villa on the heights of Douglas Island. 

There was plenty to do: whale watching, where we saw several whales breaching, zip lining, a visit to a botanic garden, a visit to a nearby glacier, an all day sail down a fjord, where we saw the glacier at the head of the fjord calve several times, deep-sea fishing, and so forth.  And if we tired of these activities, we could simply gaze at the magnificent scenery right outside our windows.  And of course there was plenty of time for old-fashioned schmoozing, the best part of all, for it was the participants in the celebration as well as the couple, Ina and Allan Gartenberg, who were its object, that provided the greatest pleasure. 

It was a privilege to spend time with people who were so fond of each other.  The couple’s sons and their spouses clearly enjoyed being in each other’s company, and it’s no exaggeration to say that those friends of the couple who attended the celebration loved them – no surprise in view of the couple’s warmth, humor, and compassion for others. Those of their friends who attended the celebration have supported them in days of grief as well as joy and in the process have become attached to each other. They've become part of the Gartenbergs' extended family.

In a recent article in the Times, Tim Krieder wrote about the obsession of so many of us with being madly busy, with scarcely any free time.  “My own resolute idleness has mostly been a luxury rather than a virtue,” he writes, “but I did make a conscious decision, a long time ago, to choose time over money, since I’ve always understood that the best investment of my limited time on earth was to spend it with people I love. “  His essay, which I read while flying back to New York, resonated with me, for we had just spent two weeks in the company of people we love.  Like Mr. Krieder, I can’t think of a better way to have spent my time, which for the young as well as for the old, is all the time that's left.

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

Zip Lining

Zip lining was among the optional activities planned for the guests at our friends’ birthday and 60^th anniversary party in Juneau, Alaska.  A dozen of us signed up, including the birthday girl.  Had she not done so, it’s doubtful that most of the rest of us would have agreed to go.  And had I known what was involved, I would probably not have had the nerve to participate.

Harnessed into a complicated set of straps and buckles, you ascend to a very tall platform that surrounds an even taller tree.  You are then buckled into a hook on the tree, and then – in our case -  a very pretty college student attaches your harness to two overhead wires, one above the other, which run from the platform on which you are standing to the next platform about several hundred yards away.   She then detaches you from the tree, asks you to sit down so that your harness supports your weight, and tells you to lift your feet, which propels you into space, over the trees in the forest below, over the streams and the waterfalls.  Your weight then carries you over the wires to the next platform, where a second college student catches you to prevent your colliding into the tree that stands in the middle of the platform.  You do this five times.

It’s perfectly safe, safer than crossing the street on a crosswalk when the light is in your favor.  The wires that support your weight can carry a load of thousands of pounds and you are hooked up to two overhead wires although one would be sufficient.  I knew it was safe.  Still, to lift up my feet, which I knew would propel me into the void, took more courage than I expected to have to summon.  I told myself that this was not a parachute jump nor was it a bungee jump.   Even so, I was far enough off the ground to be killed should I fall.  Yet I knew I wouldn’t fall, so my fear was entirely irrational.  But if Ina Gartenberg, the birthday girl, married for 60 years, could do it, and if my wife, only five years younger than I, could do it, so could I.  And so I did.  Five times.

It never became any easier.  I would have been glad to stop after the first one but once you’ve embarked on the circuit, there’s no way to confine yourself to one zip. Besides, chickening out would have required even more courage than lifting up my feet.  Zip lining is a bit like swimming in the Dead Sea, something that everyone should do once, but only once.  Just as I would not choose to swim again in the Dead Sea, I would not voluntarily go zip lining again.  Still, I’m glad I did it, glad for the spectacular views below of tree tops and waterfalls, and glad for the fact that at 80 I’m still able to dare.

2010-2012 Anchises-An Old Man's Journal All Rights Reserved

The Last Frontier

In my last post I wrote about the singularity of Alaska, or at least of that part of it that Juneau represents.  It’s a land apart, I wrote, and concluded my essay with the observation that it reminded me of old age.  You may view this as strange, since Alaska is a young state and prides itself on being “the last frontier,” the motto that appears on its license plates. 

This is not to say that old age approaches utopia to the extent that Alaska does, but like Alaska, old age is both familiar and strange, a land apart.  My emotions haven’t changed with age, but as an old man I feel outside the social system, unranked, powerless, much as I was viewed in Ethiopia, where doormen at the university would bow deeply to low-level clerks but would remain erect in my presence.   Like a baby, whom strangers feel free to address, I am the recipient of comments from strangers that they would keep to themselves were I twenty years younger, such as “you look great!”  Not that I mind the compliment, but it’s a reminder that I’m old, just as are the frequent offers of a seat on the subway.

Then of course are the physical betrayals.  What could be more familiar to me than by own body?  But it’s become strange, no longer obeying my commands, and protesting when asked to carry out familiar tasks, such as walking up a few flights of stairs.   Wrinkles and sagging flesh have made my body almost unrecognizable to me.  The mirror on the wall has become malign.  

Visits to doctors and testing facilities take increasing amounts of time, changing from an annual physical, when I was in my twenties, to today’s one to three visits per week.  My awareness of mortality is heightened now, pervading my consciousness.  This has the advantage of making me appreciate each day, grateful to see the sun rise, no longer taking it for granted that I when I lie down to sleep, I’ll wake up in the morning.   It has also made me calmer.  I now view with greater serenity the normal contretemps of daily life, problems that used to upset me.  It’s as though I now stand on a mountain top, which give me a wider perspective, reducing the problems of everyday life to relative unimportance.

Alaska prides itself on being the last frontier.   But if ever there was a last frontier, it's old age.