I am a slightly worn 81, and I can’t stop thinking both about my body gradually falling apart and how and when I’ll die. I often fantasize about just going on my daily morning walk for coffee, and suddenly collapsing with a massive heart attack. That seems the least painful way to die, but that’s rarely what happens to most of us.
I watch friends’ hearing and eyesight decline, and others suffering from cancer. And the simple act of walking for many of us who enter their 80s becomes much more difficult. I know that only too well, as I hobble on my walker 20 blocks a day, pushing myself, and trying without success to forget my stiffness and lack of balance from stenosis and neuropathy. But, though I often clumsily spill and drop things and stumble about in the apartment, I am still able to move around alone, without needing anyone to assist me.
In addition, I have watched a number of friends die. And most of the rest of us who are left worry about each other’s ailments, and exchange detailed health reports, as we never thought of doing a decade ago. Obviously, there is nothing golden about aging, and I am working hard not to become a mere passive observer of the life I am living. Or turn into a crotchety old man who irritatingly complains about the state of the world and his bodily aches and pains. (My wife is supportive, and often pays caring attention to my repetitive whining.)
So, I don’t give in, and I try to get beyond my own physical limitations and the constrictions of my world, and write almost every day. I write without hope that my words will begin to soar, or my prose will become richly lyrical and metaphoric. But I know I am able to write cogently and clearly, and I still can conjure up perceptive insights about cities, politics, films, literature, and existence itself.
It’s good to know that there are some people who appreciate what I write, though I have no illusion that I will ever be able to write the kind of complex or stylish prose that George Packer, Hilton Als, or my friend Phil Lopate produce.
I also have been reading with pleasure a variety of novels during the pandemic year, ranging from Turgenev and Moravia to more contemporary novelists like Ann Tyler and A.B Yehoshua. And I screen many films — foreign and domestic — on my computer and television. It’s not the way films should be seen. And though I review some of the films, I am sure I have missed key formal elements and even snatches of dialogue — that to me sometimes limits the nature of my criticism.
And there are the long city walks that the pandemic and my stenosis have prevented me from taking for over a year. But one cool, sunny morning, my wife and I set out to the Union Square Market. It’s one of our favorite neighborhood places, but I have been there only once this year. I love outdoor markets and their variety of stands and produce. It always brings back powerful childhood memories of the noisy, sloppy outdoor Bronx markets that my mother and I shopped at during the ’40s, pushing a cart a mile or two to our apartment.
The Union Square Market is more middle class, controlled, and less ethnic and immigrant-based than its old Bronx versions. But the past is still resurrected when I walk there, and I am exhilarated by looking at fresh produce for sale, laid out in their different shapes and colors.
The walk has taken on greater significance for me. It’s become one step in demonstrating that I am able to wander about the city more freely. Back and forth to the market is about a mile and three quarters. Getting there turned out to be relatively easy, but the return walk is harder and we needed to stop a few times to rest. I proved to myself that I still could do it, but was weary and my legs hurt after reaching home. However, despite the successful walk, I fear there will be a time not so far in the future that my capacity to walk that distance will become impossible.
But until then, I will continue to walk as much as I can, and live as full a life as possible. I know time will erode these aspirations, still, for the moment — there is another walk to take and a museum to attend.
