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| Roger Angell and Andy ~ Central Park, January 2014 Photo by Brigitte Lacombe |
In this week's issue, he writes elegiacally about getting old: This Old Man - Life in the 90s.
"Getting old is the second-biggest surprise of my life, but the first, by a mile, is our unceasing need for deep attachment and intimate love. We oldies yearn daily and hourly for conversation and renewed domesticity, for company at the movies or while visiting a museum, for someone close by in the car when coming home at night. Rowing in Eden (in Emily Dickenson's words: 'Rowing in Eden - Ah - the sea') isn't reserved for the lithe and young, the dating or the hooked up or the just lavishly married, or even for couples in the middle aged mixed-doubles semifinals, thank God. No personal confession or revelation impends here, but these feelings in old folks are widely treated like a raunchy secret. The invisibility factor - you've had your turn - is back at it again. But I believe that everyone in the world wants to be with someone else tonight, together in the dark, with the warmth of a hip or a foot or a bare expanse of shoulder within reach. Those of us who have lost that, whatever our age, never lose the longing: just look at our faces. If it returns, we seize upon it avidly, stunned and altered again."He also poignantly quotes Laurence Olivier on aging: "Inside, we're all 17, with red lips."
1 comment:
Love this post Will. I was thinking instead of fancy we should go to Westport Pizzeria but my friend Jimmy Izzo just posted on facebook that it's moving from Main Street this month, sadly.
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