Miscellaneous Thoughts of an Aging Man

5:30 in the morning is a good time for reflection. Its quiet and the cares of the day have not made themselves known. You drink your coffee and slowly come to life. You think. You question. In a couple of hours there won’t be time for such thoughts. Here are just a few that I have pondered this morning.

1. Why are so many of our leaders so old? Our President shuffles along with an unsteady gate, mouth agape and slow witted at the microphone. Yesterday, the Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell froze during a press conference for the second time in two months, staring eerily into space, silent as the grave for several minutes while his aides came along side to whisper in his ear. A US Senator from California clings to power despite deterioration of her mental and physical health. Although the United States is by far the youngest major power in the world as a nation, our leaders look like escapees from a Nursing Home.

2. The Front Runner for the Republican Party Presidential nomination and a former President of the United States has 97 pending felony charges against him, and is himself 77 years old. The previous sentence is one that I never thought I would write at any point during my life.

3. There is a professional baseball player out there who turned down a contract offer that would have paid him 400 million dollars over the next ten years, every dime of it guaranteed. Who does that? Juan Soto better hope he doesn’t slip on the stairs at his house and blow out his knee.

4. Aging has not at all been what I expected it to be. When I was a much younger man I would look at people in their 60’s and think, “Why are old people so grumpy, mean and set in their ways?” But over the last couple of years the aging process has manifested itself differently for me. The physical part sucks. When stuff starts breaking down, its no fun. Your body tries to warn you but you don’t listen. The other day the kid next door wanted to play some one on one. I took him on and although I managed to win, when it was over the kid went on about his day like nothing had happened. Me, on the other hand, spent twenty minutes in the jacuzzi to regain feeling in my extremities! But the physical is one thing, what has happened to my thinking and attitudes is what has been a whole other story. Instead of getting more set in my ways, I have begun to question my ways more than I ever have. I’m always thinking, “Why do I do this? Why do I think this way? Why have I always done things this way?” Its not that I am rejecting my earlier ideas or habits necessarily, but I am inspecting them more closely. Its difficult to explain. Some old habits and preferences haven’t changed at all, but others have. There are publications I used to read without much scrutiny or criticism which now I find myself questioning…wait a minute, that’s not true! At one time in my life I could be very unyielding about certain things. Now I find myself much more willing to listen. I’m growing much more contrarian with age. I’m much more suspicious of conventional wisdom. Groupthink still repulses me but as I get older I am much more likely to notice that groupthink in my own views. And there’s another thing…

The other day I was meeting with a client and was telling her a story about something her deceased husband had done for me many years ago. Right in the middle of the telling I suddenly choked up—in front of a client!!!—to the point where I had to pause the story to gather myself. Its not even the first time this has happened recently. This NEVER would have happened when I was 40. I have never been overly sentimental…until I turned 60 or so. Now, sentimentality rears its strange head at the oddest times and for the oddest reasons.

Don’t misunderstand. I still have my “get off my lawn” moments. I’m still stubborn about certain things. But there has also been a slow transformation in the way I think. Its as if the more I know, the less I think I know. Maybe thats not the best way to say it. Perhaps its closer to this—the more I know, the more I realize I don’t now.

Pete’s Preaching Today

Pete is preaching today. At my church you never know who will be in the pulpit from one week to the next. Most of the time its David Dwight, but there are three or four other guys who take turns. Today it will be Pete Bowell. I know this because it was my turn to prepare the discussion questions for the sermon this week, so I received his notes on Monday. I had seriously considered calling Tera Fleming, the coordinator of this project, and telling her that I couldn’t do it this week. I didn’t feel up to it honestly. But then I started to feel guilty for disappointing Tera by shirking my responsibility, so I opened the email and read through Pete’s sermon notes.

I can picture him delivering this message. This one is right in his wheelhouse. The topic is anxiety, precisely, why it is that we humans constantly worry about everything. The scripture is from the 6th chapter of Matthew’s gospel, right in the middle of the famous Sermon on the Mount. As fate would have it—if you believe in fate—crushing anxiety was the very thing that almost caused me to bail on this responsibility this week. Had I followed through on the bailing I would have missed my encounter with the words of Jesus in Matthew 6: 25-34. It was exactly what I needed to be confronted with this week. The worry and anxiety had become debilitating, it felt like I was wearing a thick and heavy winter coat in the midst of a heat wave. Reading this passage and Pete’s thoughts, along with a few encouraging and wise texts from Tera brought me back into a place of relative strength and peace.

So, there are many lessons to be taken from this experience. First, don’t shirk your responsibilities. It was my turn to do the discussion questions. My mood of the moment was irrelevant to that responsibility. Second, the scriptures are alive with the power to inform and correct, no matter how many times you have read them. They are new every morning.

So, I will listen closer than usual this morning to Pete’s words. He will make me laugh out loud at least once. He will add things that weren’t in his notes. But I will come away from it feeling more confidence and less fear. 

National Dog Day…what a racket!!

What a racket. Dogs, who already have the cushiest life on Earth, have somehow finagled a way to earn an exclusive day on the calendar. Like they actually needed an official day. Anyone who has a dog will tell you that every single day is Dog Day. No matter what bizarre, hair brained, cock-eyed stunt they pull they know that at the end of the day they will still get their dinner, a couple of treats, plenty of “good boy’s” and tummy scratches. And now they need more fawning devotion?

Dogs spend 14 hours a day asleep in a variety of shameful poses usually hogging an entire sofa in the process. When they are finally able to rouse themselves from repose they spend another hour searching the yard for the exact perfect spot to relieve themselves. Then there’s the endless growling and barking at the unfortunate man and women who had the nerve to walk their dog on the street in front of the house. Who could forget the ever vigilant warning woofs whenever any delivery man shows up with a box in hand—even though half the time the box contains yet another toy for her?!

Although it isn’t fair to accuse all dogs of the following behavior, our Lucy adds several more wacko traits to the list. First there is the strange meal time protocol that she established years ago whereby she insists upon complete stillness and silence from everyone in the house during her mealtime. You heard that right. When Lucy eats her morning and evening meal she refuses to begin until both of us are seated. It doesn’t matter where we are seated, just that we are not standing. This is non-negotiable. Then there is her psychotic relationship to the stairs in our house. 

Although neither of us can recall any bad stairway experience in Lucy’s entire existence, whenever she is upstairs and we want her to come downstairs, she insists upon an escort. The only exception to the Psycho Stair Rules is when a visitor arrives at the front door. Then its full speed ahead. The second exception is that none of the Psycho Stair Rules apply to any set of stairs in Maine, no matter if they are scary steep and into the darkest abyss, Lucy is convinced that all stairs in Maine lead to a lake. Lastly, there is her supernatural hearing that manifests itself whenever one of us begin eating a bowl of ice cream. No matter how quiet and stealthy I am and no matter where I hide in the house to eat the ice cream—as soon as I near the bottom of the bowl and my spoon makes that tinging sound when I begin scraping the bowl’s bottom, Lucy miraculously appears, as if by teleportation, at my feet with that irresistibly forlorn expression on her face:

Does she look like she needs a National Dog Day? She needs a psychiatrist, that’s what she needs!

But, like all dogs, Lucy is loved deeply and profoundly by everyone who knows her. Despite the considerable work and inconvenience that dogs bring to our lives, they bring something else that is almost impossible to find these days, let alone quantify—joy. 

A Wearisome Day

There are days in every life that feel wrong. From the moment you wake up something seems amiss. You stare longer into the mirror trying to identify the cause but you look the same, just a bit older. You complete your routine without incident. You drink your coffee and get out the door at the regular time. You tell yourself you should eat something but you have no appetite. You head to the office and don’t remember anything about the drive when you arrive. The air seems tepid as it stirs around you somewhere between humid and refreshing. The place is empty when you unlock the door.

There are a couple messages blinking at you from the phone on the credenza. You feel overwhelming dread at what awaits although you have no reason for such pessimism. The messages were both benign. You feel momentarily like a fool. You glance at your agenda for the day and there is nothing there which would justify the great unease that you have felt since 5:45 in the morning. You pour a second cup of coffee and settle in to the work.

You meet with your assistant and find it difficult to pay attention. You can’t afford a wasted day at this point. There is a lot to do, several appointments to plan for. You need to prepare a presentation. There are two clients with review documents that need to be assembled. Suddenly the tasks at hand feel leaden, too much for you. Its a ridiculous notion. You could do all of this in your sleep. You need something to eat. You pick over the offerings in the conference room but take nothing.

You begin returning calls and checking off agenda items. Nearly everything goes perfectly. You skim through the moderate number of business emails and find nothing of significance. You open up two news articles that are appropriate to your industry and skim through the first few paragraphs of each while nausea begins to build. Even though you should read each through to the end you can’t make yourself do it. 

You think of several volunteer tasks you have taken on later in the week and realize that one of them you will need to bow out of because of an unavoidable scheduling conflict. The other one you have plenty of time to do but the thought of it feels daunting even though its anything but. In fact, it happens to be something you love to do. You have to find a way to shake off this inexcusable and self-indulgent melancholy.

It is 2:45 in the afternoon and you are as unmotivated as it is possible to be. You find yourself at the Cadillac dealer having the battery replaced in your key fob. The attendant has to speak your name twice to get your attention. He hands it back to you as good as new and you can’t remember giving it to him. It occurs to you that your mind has been consumed with a minor health procedure that you are dealing with in less than a week. Yesterday you were at the doctor’s office for a preliminary checkup in preparation for the main event next week and from the second you arrived there the smell of the place has brought back twenty year old memories, none of them good. Its total nonsense to equate one with the other. Complete foolishness. But the mind has thoughts of its own and try as you might sometimes you are powerless against them.

Dinner will help. I will grill steaks. There will be tomato pie. Tomorrow will be a new day.

Free

It took a while. It was a rough transition, a difficult re-adjustment. But I am completely back in Short Pump mode, fully immersed in the life I have built here. Then, early this morning I stumbled across this photograph:

There was no identifying time or date. I recognize the dock and lake to be Loon Landing on Quantabacook. Could have been anytime in the last seven or eight years. It doesn’t matter really. It was a sunset and I thought to take a picture of Pam and Lucy admiring the beauty. But for some reason this morning it nearly brought me to tears. Its why we keep going back. Its why we spend so much money borrowing other people’s houses for insanely long stretches of time—for these transcendent moments of beauty that have the power to transform us, to make us better people for having witnessed them.

Of course, moments of beauty can be found everywhere, even Short Pump. But most of the time we are too preoccupied with our routines to notice them here. If I were better at living in the moment I would see them all around me. But I’m not, so I go to Maine where it is exceedingly difficult not to live in the moment. That’s where moments like this one come out of nowhere and stop you in your tracks.

How much would you pay for that sunset? There isn’t enough money in the world and besides—its free.

Welcome Back!

We were welcomed back into the Old Dominion yesterday afternoon at 2:00 by 95 degrees and stifling humidity. The rest of the day was taken up by the grinding slog of unpacking, laundry and reacquainting yourself with the place that has been your home for the past 27 years. Its surprising how quick you lose the rhythm.

Last night, my neighbors welcomed us back in town with the arrival of fire trucks next door and a warning text—“No worries. Its just that the smoke detectors all are going off and won’t shut off and since we left the kids at home by themselves for the second time in history we are being extra cautious and we had to cut our nine holes of golf short good thing for Stu since I was kicking ass and we called a friend from West Creek to check it out so he’s probably there by now and we are on our way home and should be there within ten minutes and how was Maine?” Nothing screams “welcome back” like the Henrico Fire Department.

Early this morning I set about doing my kitchen routine but was surprised by major lapses in my level of awareness. As is my custom I first turned my attention to the coffee maker and began going on muscle memory without thinking until…I looked at the carafe and wondered—Wait, how many cups of water do I use? In Maine, I had to use 6 cups and two heaping 2 tablespoon scoops of Coffee on the Porch to make it strong enough for my tastes. But, what did I use at home? I was momentarily flummoxed. Once it came to me I continued, only to ruin the first attempt by not pushing down on the filter hard enough to engage the dripping device—which produced a pot of coffee filled with grounds! I quickly poured it out and did a redo. The resulting cup of coffee was too weak. Eventually it will come to me.

Then I started to empty the dishwasher. There wasn’t much in it so that went smoothly and just a bit too quick. Something wasn’t right. Then it dawned on me that I had forgotten that our dishwasher has that slide out tray in the top for flat items. It was full of silverware and measuring spoons. I suppose I can be forgiven this lapse since the dishwasher at Loon landing—bless its heart—is only 15 inches wide!!

There are many things about this house that we both desperately missed, nothing more so than our large walk-in shower with the powerful hand held shower head. When I stepped in this morning it felt a little bit like I imagine heaven will be like. I was so pumped to be in such a large space that I went a little overboard with shampoo enthusiasm resulting in a pulled muscle in my neck. Small price to pay!

Then, my last chore of the morning before heading to church was a quick trip into the office to get a head start on Monday morning. When I arrived one of the first thing I noticed was this highly unusual sight…

I immediately texted one of the younger associates who I routinely harass a short message—“So, I come in for the first time in six weeks and discover that you have once again left your urine sample on the water fountain”

He promptly replied that it couldn’t have been him since he was at the beach all week. I will need independent confirmation of this convenient alibi. 

Thankfully, the sheriff is back in town!

Last Summer Post From Maine

Today is packing and cleaning day. Pam just took a kayak out for her morning paddle and I just took Lucy for her morning perambulation. After grabbing a bite to eat I might go out for one last fishing paddle this morning. But after that we will begin the process of attempting to leave Loon Landing better than we found it, which is hard to do since its always spotless when we arrive. I’ll cut the grass, rake the adorable little beach at the water’s edge and make sure that there is no evidence of Lucy’s existence anywhere on the property. Pam will be doing the same thing on the inside of the cabin, a much harder task what with Lucy’s fur bunnies everywhere. But by the time the sun sets tonight everything will be perfect. Friday morning early we will meander up Fire Lane 12 for the last time of 2023. I will be choked up and Pam will shed a few tears. It happens every time.

This particular four weeks was typical in many ways. We hosted Jon and Kaitlin for a week and Ron and Paula for another week. But it was different in one respect—all the lake house purchase drama. If it had worked out it would all have been worth it. Since it didn’t, we feel like we needed another week to replace the one that got devoured by all the anxiety! But, all is well. We will be back in another six weeks for our Fall adventure on Hobbs Pond, just about fifteen minutes from here.

Last night we had a fabulous dinner at Ports of Italy in Rockport. We heard from some friends of ours who spent all day out on Monhegan Island on our recommendation, and they loved it! That’s always a relief. You rave about a place that is magical to you and you hope that your friends agree and that it lives up to the hype. In this case it did which was wonderful to hear.

As sad as we always are to leave the lake, there are things we miss about home. We miss our friends, our church, even my office and the unique relationships I have with everyone there. We miss our neighbors, especially the three pups next door for whom we have presents from the finest toy stores in Camden. We miss our house, which upon our return always seems gigantic! I miss my yard and the yard work it requires. I’m weird that way. I miss my recliner since it fits me and no one else. I miss our well-tuned routines.

But, the minute we arrive home, we will begin counting down the days until our next trip north.