My New Adventure

Since retiring five years ago, I’ve often said to my beloved wife, What’s next? Our half-century together has been punctuated by regular adventures that have always revived our mojo and strengthened our bond: leaving New York City, buying a house, adopting children, performing together, traveling cross-country and overseas, creating books and artworks, learning music, helping refugees, and so on. These and other experiences, popping out from our hard-working lives every few years, gave us a sense of the extraordinary that permeated the everyday.

But what now, in our seventies? I’m not interested in the time and effort it would take to start a new professional career; we haven’t the money to do something monumental like buy a boat, take off in a fancy camper van, or start a business; we are anchored in place by close friendships and family; I’m too cynical and lazy to throw myself into all-out political/volunteer work. Hmm . . .

Start an old-codger hippie commune? Too late. Slip into a more sexually experimental lifestyle? Too old, too shy, too tender-hearted. Move to Europe? I have a sweet grandson in South Carolina . . .

Am I therefore slated to repeat my life year after year until I’m simply hanging on for dear life? It wouldn’t be a bad fate: I have excellent health so far, and a very cozy life. Still, the question nags at me: Where’s the next adventure?

My recent reading (James McBride’s The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store and Ron Chernow’s biography of George Washington), along with my emotional ups and downs during this past difficult summer, have begun to inspire an answer: My “new adventure” should be the completion of my own maturation.

What would that mean? Essentially, turning my attention away from gaining the admiration of others and towards my own evolution as a man equipped with the tools of emotional self-regulation.

That’s a mouthful, so let me try to break it out . . .

(Above is a classical hilarious Honeymooners in which Ralph attempts self-improvement by listing his good points and bad points . . . starting at about 11:25 and running for about six or seven minutes.)

It means stopping my mind from seeking out subjects to worry about.

It means permanently exiling envy to the hinterlands.

It means quieting my manner of speech so that it is not aggressive or arrogant.

It means gravitating towards “yes” instead of “no” whenever possible.

It boils down to what George Harrison wrote in his lovely song, “Blow Away,” which I’ve just begun to learn to play: “All I got to do is to love you/ All I got to be is be happy/ All it's got to take is some warmth to make it / Blow away, blow away, blow away . . .”

Becoming a mentsh — now there’s an adventure for an old man!