11.18.23

Hey friend,

            The killer question – How am I really?

            I put off answering because the answer keeps changing. Today’s differs from yesterday’s. And whatever we answer, a listener will extrapolate, misconstrue, so momentarily glum becomes inextricably sunk in gloom and “couldn’t be happier” relocates me permanently to Cloud Nine beaming like a Raphael cherub. So we may answer “Fine” or “OK all things considered,” slamming the door on further inquiry, even suggesting “It’s none of your business, leave me be!”

            Only it is our business to monitor our friends’ well-being, track their trajectories. That’s what friend means, isn’t it? – keeping you in mind? I tell my friends every day where my head “is at” but that truth is partial, not to raise alarms.

            Healthwise, marriage-wise, family-wise, I’m fine for sure; dog-wise finer than fine, puppy Henry having added a jolt of delight to our lives. He’s so funny, vivid, affectionate, playful. And the insights I read into his curious gaze! It’s as if he sees through me – to my core – and he does in a way – for he’s seeing with my eyes. So what that he’s cost us a rug or two and some unwelcome wee hour walks and loss of mobility and increase in drudgery, he’s worth every moment we’ve invested in him, more than I dared to hope.

            Cozy and hale in our woody aerie, no dire diagnoses, only age-appropriate wear and tear, I’m reading books by the presiding talents of my boyhood to see what I missed and listening to Dickens as Henry and I walk. Our condition is idyllic – really – and I’m grateful.

            But not calm. My spirit bangs like a sneaker in the drier. Never, I think, have I felt so on edge existentially, so uncertain who I am and what to do next.

            Partly it’s age. Turning 72 hit me hard. I never paid attention to birthdays, always too busy, but retirement gives me time to fret, of which I take full advantage. I am old – not ancient yet – but I can hear the clock monstrously tut-tutting – wondering if I’ve anything left in my tank. And my answer is hell yes, I’ve got plenty of wit and will left for some spacious attempt, but is that true? Age seldom accepts its own enfeeblement. Maybe I’m fooling myself about the works that await.

            More than by age, I’m worried by our historical moment. Humanity seems to be hurtling in the wrong direction. Two horrible wars, more perhaps in the offing, the rise of tyrants, the corruption of our atmosphere, the rancor of communal conversations, the repudiation of reason and civility not only in America but in most developed nations, cause me to dread the future. Might civilization, which I always took to be humanity’s great achievement, prove a two-millennium interlude in barbaric darkness, an eyeblink in historical time? And if so, what is my value here and now? Should we live it up like Boccaccio’s lovelies in the shadow of the Plague? Or should we do all we can to avert the apocalypse, however hopeless we feel about our chances?

            I’m pretty sure this sense of impending doom is qualitatively different than earlier generations’; I know it’s a huge change for me. The problem is not just Trump and his critters, though they’re symptomatic. What spooks me is the inadequacy of mankind to the challenge of our shared future. We’re so much crueler, stupider, crazier, less responsible, less decent than I’d supposed. These fears corrode my ideals and infest my sleep.

            So yeh, I’m really fine and really panicked. How’s with you?