As most people who read this blog know, I am traveling in Europe at the moment, heading back to New York City tomorrow to spend a few days with the family in Midtown Manhattan to celebrate the holidays and then head back to our hilltop to dig in for the full holiday season. I have written often about the angst we have about traveling as the years pass by. I get regularly chided by friends for saying that we plan to travel less, only to keep traveling apace for one reason or another. Excuses seem to proliferate around the topic, as do some of my best rationalizations. What I have come to understand is that there is a version of this internal debate that everyone seems to conduct (perhaps not so openly as my squabble) and therefore I presume that many of the same underlying issues that cause this process to drag out are more universal than not. Not everyone is as conflicted in terms of the social consciousness of travel as we are (frivolous spending, generational obligation, political correctness, eco-friendliness, touristic obnoxiousness, etc., etc.), but almost everyone experiences some version of the other, more physical and emotional conflicts which we seem to suffer.
One of the things that I have learned and relearned by writing as much as I do, is that it is virtually impossible to share your thoughts and views, no matter how sanitized or bland you may think they are, without finding someone who takes offense. I have concluded that it is the nature of the beast and that the beast is still worth keeping as a pet regardless of its sometimes ferocious nature. I am forever asking Kim to read and opine on stories that involve others or even infer things about others. I believe writings is like secrets. No matter how well kept you think they are or how unlikely it is that they will find their way to the wrong ears or hearts, they always do…and far faster than you can ever imagine. No jokes are ever without victims. No commentary is ever without opposition. And no references are ever vague or anonymous enough to avoid detection…or even unintended extrapolation. There is simply risk in writing and you must take it if you are to write. That does not suggest that there is no need for caution or sound judgement…and sometimes even abstinence, but you do have to accept the inevitable and anticipate it as best you can. No writer likes having his work edited, abridged or, God-forbid, censored, but that too is part of the process unless you are seriously prepared to throw all caution and social accountability to the wind.
All that said, there are still some topics that haunt me enough that I feel the need to express my thoughts and that is especially so when I find that they are more universal than I may have suspected. The very best writing is sometimes a license to awaken existing thoughts or suspicions about a topic that the reader had considered, but had tucked away as either unmentionable or too difficult to confront. Some of my most commented on stories are the ones that touch those collective nerves and bring people together with the commonality of a shared experience realized or a suspected foible exposed.
My current travels have been with two other couples who are more or less of the same age. Truth be told, they are mostly a tad older, but at this age, chronological differences matter less than physical and mental status differences and those are subtle and difficult to define distinctions which are often subject to great swings in interpretation and judgement (biased, no doubt, by our own waning competencies). Our last big trip, earlier in the year, was also with two other couples who occupy the exact same “a tad older” chronological space. I have known all four of these couples for at least ten years and for as long as 40 years in one case. I now think I have a fair and representative sample from which to draw observations, if not conclusions. The average age of the ten of us is between 75 and 76. The exact number is less important than the general acknowledgment that this is the upper range of the traveling population. I am fairly certain of that since my medical travel insurance provider, Medjet, sets the final renewal age at 75, so the actuarial reality is the best evidence that this is the population where these travel contradictions and limitations are in full force. Let me also say that while both Kim and I are below that threshold (momentarily to be sure in my case), I, in no way, look at this universe as more problematic than ourselves, but rather as reflective of ourselves. They are we and we are they.
So, on to the issues. I want to focus on four observable contradictions that I sense we humans tend to devolve towards. They are all invoked or at least exposed during travel in a way that probably is more hidden in day-to-day life with the comforts and familiarity of home surroundings. The first is our thirst for knowledge and experience. While I know some people have this desire more than others, I feel all humans share this appetite for learning to some degree and travel is certainly a common way of tapping into it. We want to see new lands and learn new ways. We want to remind ourselves of long-forgotten history and learn new factoids, whether for our own satisfaction and betterment or to regale and impress our family and friends. But then again, we bore easily when older. How many churches or temples do we really want to visit and how much can we really appreciate the distinctions among them? History has many layers and our depth of interest in the specificity (and certainly in our retention capability) of what is a vast library of facts both varies and mostly erodes as we get older. So lets agree that we all want to learn, but only so much. My prescription…learn but don’t linger.
And then there is the issue of food. Travel is a great way to experience the vast diversity of foods that abound around the world. In fact, most of the best travel shows are shows about food. We are what we eat, right? We define ourselves as do most cultures, by what we eat. Setting aside the variations between the adventurous eaters and the uber-cautious and squeamish, we also have the tendency that older people both eat less involuntarily and purposefully. I, myself, am in the midst of both reductions and I sense that most of my fellow aged are as well to some degree. But despite that restraint, we all want to taste everything. That is, after all, a big reason why some of us travel. Yesterday we stopped at a market stall that was aromatically amazing and appealing, with large metal cooking bowls that looked like massive woks with ten different regional foods cooking and staying warm for sale and serving. Everyone’s first reaction was to say “no, no, I don’t want anything…”. I then broke the stalemate and said that I, for one, needed to try a specific dish that seemed too tasty and typical to ignore. I knew my newfound restraint would allow me to dip in and not overdo. Once that floodgate was opened, all hell broke loose and we ended up with ten 100 gram dishes of every offering they had. We also all ate more than we expected…but not too much…and decided it would be declared our impromptu lunch even though we ate it standing at a high-top table.
The easiest aged contradiction to identify is the one between wanting to be active and yet needing to regularly rest. We all make big plans for the day, go at it with vigor, and then fade in the afternoon to the necessity of a nap or at least a nice long sit. Being active in later life is important and desirable, but rest is mandatory.
But my favorite and the most humorous and yet serious contradiction is what I call the “help, but don’t” dichotomy. As we age, we all need more help with almost everything. It’s normal, but it is also both very variable and very sensitive. It revolves around our failing senses. Some see well and others go slowly blind. Some her every word, but many hear less and less…and less…and less. Smell and taste deteriorate as well, but largely go unnoticed. But our sense of touch is hard to ignore in either direction…its how we “fix’ things that go awry. Watching a friend take off his hat and have his wispy hair stand on end and watching his wife try (somewhat awkwardly) to help him put it back into some socially acceptable position, becomes a form of slapstick humor with lots of mutual slapping that is not mean-spirited, but very much about self-respect and autonomy. Help…don’t help…I need help, why aren’t you helping me…but leave me alone, I’m fine, go away, but not too far in case I need help again.
Traveling while aged is a complex affair and should not be taken lightly.
Say what???