The Calm of the Cruise
In the Fall of 1963, when the world was reeling from the assassination of John F. Kennedy, a little girl in kindergarten in the Miami Elementary School in Wabash, Indiana was scheduled for afternoon nap time. When her teacher wondered why she had not come back to her mat after her excused visit to the Girls’ Room, she went to the bathroom to find her. When she opened the door, she was surprised to see little Kimberly Grogg singing and dancing in the peace of the green tiled room. Kim was a happy little girl with a lightness of heart and a kindness of spirit that made her a favorite of the teachers. Were it not for her slightly chubby body, she would have been a favorite of the other students as well, but as childhood would have it, her chubbiness slightly put off some of the boys and a few of the girls. Kim was oblivious to all of this mild cultural prejudice and just knew she loved to sing and dance. It freed her soul and made her think kind thoughts. Kindness and love were her guiding lights.
This is the story of one couple’s easing into retirement and of Kim Grogg, as told by the person who thanks all the powers of heaven and earth, that he had the good fortune to meet her on a blind date forty-two years after the kindergarten recital. It was a June Saturday in Duchess County New York. It had been a mild and sunny day and where the round of golf had been somewhat agonizing given the abject lack of skill and practice among the three friends, the day was ending well in the warm pool on the grassy hillside. The friends were talking about the challenges of mid-life dating in this day of cyber-social networking. Rich was regaling the others about working the match.com system to his advantage. Being a writer and storyteller, he prided himself in being able to capture the imagination of online middle-aged women, longing for a relationship. While his writing skills were his medium, his secret weapon was seeking out women of his own age, something most men his age were loathe to do. Imagine the possibilities of a reasonably articulate and observant single man who wanted a relationship with a woman his own age. This had to be a winning strategy. So he told some stories about miscellaneous women and their quirks, much to the delight of his lazy friends bobbing at the shallow end of the pool. He ended with the clincher that he actually had a tentative date for that very night with a woman he had met in an unusual exchange online.
Rich had gone on match.com once before for about 36 hours. It had ended with him meeting a young lady who proudly declared, “I am below your target age range, but you are right in my target age range.” It seemed that the forces of nature were conspiring to make sure that Rich went the mistaken route of all other wayward middle-aged men and dated someone younger. That fling had lasted for six months, mostly because Rich was too kind to cut things off quickly when the cracks appeared. The reasons for the parting were somewhat due to age and mostly due to that craziness of different sorts not comprehending the others needs…in the least.
This time on match.com, Rich was determined to vette the candidates more carefully and stick to his +/- five year age range. As he scoured the match.com website for likely candidates and noted their distinct biographies, he suddenly got a note from a woman who said she had seen his profile and was interested in meeting him. Rich had not been asked in by a match.com woman before and it put him to wondering about the woman. Unfortunately, there was no online profile of her, which she quickly explained as being due to her having lapsed her match.com membership. It seems match.com had sent her a teaser on Rich thinking they might lure her back into the site. She had taken the bait. It is strange to be the worm on the hook, but is even stranger (for Rich, anyway) to be someone for whom a woman would part with good money in order to meet. That alone qualified this woman for serious consideration. When Rich explained this to her, she quickly retorted that it had only cost her $9.95 to re-register on match.com. Rich would hear none of it, a woman paying money to meet him was a rare and attractive quality which deserved his attention.
So Rich got out of the Duchess County pool and added an exclamation point to his afternoon cyber-dating storytelling by waving adieu to his friends, leaving them to ponder his evening with the mysterious and wanton woman of match.com. For his part, Rich donned his traditional khakis and button-down shirt (He was no preppy, even though he had attended prep school, he was simply a gentleman of ease who found this attire unthinkingly easy and most often at least marginally appropriate). He drove into the city to find the address of this Kimberly Grogg, an address in Hell’s Kitchen, a part of the city he knew of, but knew not of as to its essence.
He rang the brownstone doorbell and got the usual crackling reply that she would be right down since she lived in a sixth-floor walk-up. What appeared before Rich was a buxom and smiling blonde wearing a bright fuscia knit top and black jeans. He and Kim jumped into his car as he sped down the West Side Highway to the restaurant on lower 10th Street, called quite simply and elegantly, Park. On the way, Rich pulled one of his favorite unintentional tricks of stopping at a green light. This often happened when Rich spoke. Luckily is never happened in reverse where he would drive through a red light. But stopping for a green light certainly raises mental competency issues on a first date. Kim kept her thoughts to herself, figuring she could probably still make it alive through dinner.
During dinner, Rich was charmed beyond belief by Kim. Her open and honest dialogue was engaging. She laughed easily and described her world in the sort of detail that a storyteller appreciates. She had been in NYC for two decades and had done the traditional job approach (teaching drama in a private girls school), but was now doing odd jobs while she auditioned for countless stage and screen rolls to modest success. Rich’s favorite odd job was when she worked as a receptionist for a gentleman’s massage service. Her sweet phone voice made her an ideal interface for nervous clients who often asked to meet her, but were told she was not on the menu. Rich was totally absorbed by this exotic tale of the life of the stage. It was so different than his own life on Wall Street that it seemed enchanting. So he was being enchanted by an enchanting woman about enchanting life paths.
The dinner came to an end and the ride home made Rich very sad. He was saddened to see a lovely evening end, but mostly he was saddened with Kim’s story that she had never been given flowers by a man. How could a beautiful woman of forty-seven never have been flower-worthy over the years? There is no justice in romantic life. Rich, determined to right this wrong, resolved to send Kim roses the next day to both alter that misguided record and curry her favor for another date.
Fast forward through eighteen months of blissful cohabitation in lower Manhattan, a wedding at City Hall, and a wedding party on the top of the Puck Building in SoHo. This was the same venue where Harry Met Sally spent New Years Eve. Kim and Rich may not be Harry and Sally, but their circumstances offer as great a love story as any movie. One has travelled through life with abundant love in her heart, but no one to properly bestow love on her. The other has travelled through life with an open heart, married twice before with ease and not found the partnership of love that his open heart desired. With this joining, Kim has found the loving and caring she dreamed and prayed for. Rich found the missing element that had eluded him in his view that one could be happy with anyone. As it turns out, perhaps there really is the perfect one for everyone for certainly Kim and Rich would argue that their partnership is that special.
Rich wandered onto Wall Street after five years of educational wandering. He found professional happiness and success in his chosen field, not because of its focus on money, but despite it. He craved the elements of creativity and innovation and found it at a time and in a place that nurtured and valued both. Strangely, he had once wanted to be an architect and instead found himself at a bank that adopted the catchphrase “Architects of Value.” People regularly said he was “too nice for Wall Street.” He felt that treating people with respect was the most effective form of leadership. It worked, and in combination with his penchant for innovation mixed with enthusiasm, he built a diverse and interesting career that he looks back on with a sense of accomplishment. It afforded him, and now three wives, a life of affluence and eventually a life of options that made him happy.
Kim was still singing and dancing when she left her drama studies at Indiana University. She started to drive her ubiquitous blue Volkswagen Beetle to Los Angeles to seek her fame and fortune, but a breakdown in Illinois forced a rethinking and rejiggering of travel plans . When neither fame nor fortune came easily in LaLaLand, and her summer stock theater work earned her friends living the stage-seeking life in New York, she moved her act to the Upper West Side of Manhattan. There, part-time work as a drama teacher turned into a decade of school-marming. Creative yearning caused Kim to sneak back into the bathroom to sing and dance. Teaching was nap time. Chasing the tail of the theater dragon is hard. It is even harder in New York City, where the costs are high and the competition is intense. The path for most aspiring musical theater artists consists of multiple and endless survival jobs highlighted by roles in regional theater and road-touring dinner-theater. Your coterie are like-minded and pocketbook-constrained actors, singers and dancers. Funny thing…they all have dreams and many have the talent to match. But few get the breaks needed to break through to a true life in the arts. Most hang on to varying degrees and most eventually face the grim reality that love, life and financial viability are only available to those that abandon their dreams and pursue a more traditional lifestyle. Kim was in this realm when match.com sent her Rich’s profile.
Some give up the dream for a desirable job they happen into. Some give up the dream for any old job that offers a better paycheck, benefits and fixed vacation. Some give up the dream and run away to the country and try to forget that the dream ever existed. Some try to salvage the dream by working in non-performing areas of the theater. And, of course, a few hearty souls never give up the dream and go from ingenue to supporting actor to character actor, striving for the eight weeks a year of Actors Equity stage work to qualify for Equity benefits for a year. Fall short and just hope for good health until you can cobble together eight weeks of work next year. Get on a list for an artist-supported residence so that your rent can fluctuate while your income wobbles. While you wait, you get the opportunity to advance your roommate selection and tolerance skills. Sooner or later they all have to give up the dream, even on Sunset Boulevard. Kim didn’t need to make the choice, the choice was thrust upon her by Rich’s adamance that she offer herself up to his financial and emotional care.
Kim has shifted her artistry to focus on cabaret. No traveling and no pressure or schedule (other than shows she schedules), and yet a creative outlet that still allows for performing and creativity. Cabaret is the province of the singers who need the singing, but can live without the success, fame and fortune. There is none of that to be had in cabaret. But there is lots of artistic camaraderie. Kim has wound her way into the inner circle of the New York cabaret community. How did that happen? It began with lots of classes and many joint and solo cabaret shows. Get close to your director/instructor and the musical directors of note. The doors to cabaret swing open to the dedicated and worthy and so Kim found herself on various boards and then sitting at the head tables at the annual galas. Make no mistake, Kim works her craft as hard as that little girl singing and dancing in the bathroom. She goes to others’ cabaret shows (often at inconvenient times), she does all the organizational duties others eschew, but mostly she remains true to the art. She never sings casually on demand, but is quick to offer her time to put on charitable events.
Rich, meanwhile, had never been exposed to cabaret. He now goes to all of Kim’s shows and many more. It has broadened his life in the most pleasant ways. Rich’s main contribution to cabaret is in sponsoring Kim’s interest and filling the seats at her performances with any and all of his friends and colleagues. He has joked on many occasions that if he manages to fill all the seats at all the shows, he stands a damn good chance of breaking even on the event.
On the issue of money, Rich has chosen a lucrative field and despite his abject disregard for wealth (particularly interesting since he ran a Global Wealth Management business for a decade), he has done well. Good thing, too. The combination of his spendthrift and generous ways would make it hard to get by if he hadn’t. He has always believed he can adjust his life to his circumstances as circumstances require. As it is, most people of means (and especially those in the finance field) focus a great deal of time on managing their money and their taxes. Rich does the opposite, almost as though he strives to make a point. He may be one of the few sophisticated investors who chooses to avoid tax-efficient second homes in Florida or Wyoming. He chooses to live in New York and California, perhaps the two most disadvantageous tax jurisdictions in the country. This is in part a case of extreme civil obedience, and in part his “I am unworthy” sense of social egalitarianism.
Rich and Kim live the life of people who live well, share their good fortune with family and friends and never worry about tomorrow. The majority of Rich’s money has come from earned income rather than investment income. That suits him. As the old E.F.Hutton ads suggest, he makes money the old fashioned way, he earns it. And then he spends it. Rich the storyteller has always suggested that the story of his financial life would need to be titled, “The Hole in My Pocket.” Rich and Kim joke that they are members of the Die Broke Club and that they plan their exit to be fashioned like Thelma and Louise…a flaming motorcycle over a high cliff. Rich keeps a drawerful of lottery tickets from initiatives gone by. Fortunately, every now and then, a lottery ticket hits its mark.
Speaking of motorcycles, they are Rich’s passion, like singing is Kim’s passion. Twenty-five years ago he started a motorcycle club with like-minded business friends. After more than fifty rides in the U.S. and overseas, the club is a central focus of the lives of Kim and Rich. It’s like that Alan Alda / Ellen Burstyn movie, “Same Time Next Year”, seeing these people for intense experiences twice a year has bread deep and lasting friendships and lasting memories of rides and places. They’ve only spent one hundred or less weeks with them, but these friends are the fabric of their lives. One domestic ride in May and one foreign ride in the Fall seems to be the program. Rich and Kim are the youngsters of the group, so the chances are that others will hang up their spurs (as is already starting to happen) long before Rich stops riding. Hence the Thelma and Louise reference.
The current travel plan that Kim and a Rich are following has those two motorcycle trips, a summer family/friends vacation usually at some rented villa, foreign or domestic, and a cruise. They are on a cruise right now to New Zealand and Australia, doing their best to adjust to the calmness and serenity of the cruising lifestyle. Days in port are always interesting and busy enough, but the sea days are the challenge. But cruising is a wonderful analogy for this stage in life for Kim and Rich. They have achieved what they have wanted to achieve. They have been where they want to go (other than a few bucket list items). There are few mountains to climb. So an annual cruise is a perfect training ground for retirement.
Retirement is such a double-edged word. It may sound peaceful, but the achievement thereof is anything but. I would argue that it defines a great existential crisis for everyone, even though for differing reasons. Take Kim and her coterie of performing artists. The giving up of the dream conundrum is both self-limiting and self-defining. What is a former artist? It is an artist who has given up on their past passion. That cannot be a good feeling and is the breeding ground for regret. Rich, by contrast, is in a very different club. His club is about investing one’s ego in one’s profession. Who are you if not for the professional you have been? In this “what have you done lately” world this club lives in, current pursuits and accomplishments, not to mention organizational status, are the stuff of self-worth. After that, you are just a couple of people of means who act as a drain on society and give away a few bucks to assuage that guilt.
But does that need to be true? Plenty of older people, either with or without means, spend their later years in worthwhile pursuits of service. A story in a recent AARP newsletter profiles an aged professor, who gave up his tenure rights when he felt he could no longer properly teach. He then, immediately took a position as the gymnasium janitor at the same school and lived out his days being of a different kind of service to his community. That may be the noblest path of all.
Kim and Rich contemplate all these issues ceaselessly. Others struggle to put together the wherewithal to enable retirement. Still others struggle with the loss of self and cling to the working world perhaps long after they should. Those with true sense of self and a modicum of inner peace find a useful place to be of service and recognize that the stages of life involve many adaptations and great flexibility. Kim and Rich are in the calm of the cruise, both literally and figuratively. They, like so many others, are searching for meaning and are grateful for both what they have and their self-awareness to recognize their not-so-unique state of being.
Life is meant to be a struggle. Its value is in the struggle and the striving. Achieving is good, but struggling is essential. For the moment, the struggle is between calm and boredom, satisfaction and angst, knowing and mostly not having a clue. Kim and Rich will stumble forward. Recently they learned during an audiobook recording session that Kim has a dysfunction in her ability to differentiate the words wandering and wondering. This is epic. Kim and Rich spend great blocks of time wondering as they wander forward. Such is life.