Sam, the Man

8.11.06

I am sitting in the shade of an umbrella at the Y, enjoying the warm, sunny day after a workout when a smiling man asks if the other chair at the table is free. I invite him to join me. He looks like John Glenn (the astronaut, if I have the name right) and to be about 60 or so and we start talking; he has a friendly ease about him and a wonderful bright face when he smiles. He talks about how he used to spend hours out in the sun, playing volleyball at the beach, how no one thought about the dangers of too much sun back in the 30's when he was a youth. He's actually in his 80's with great grandchildren and I marvel at his fitness and his lovely openess.

We chat about this and that, about the rampant anonymous sex kids are having, how when he was a kid his father told him he'd die if he masturbated, how back when he got married, he and his wife had to buy a book to know what to do. She's still with him and I asked the secret to his 60 year old marriage. He beamed at me and said, "Well, we're just good friends and care about each other, and have these kids together. There's no passion now, because your bodies change, and I did have to go out once and be foolish, but we hashed it out one night, got all ugly and in the morning, decided it was worth it to keep it together."

He said this all with a returning smile and I just marveled at his honesty with a complete stranger and his matter of factness. No couples therapy, or drawn out guilt trips, just one night of dealing with the issue and solving it, moving on. Perhaps that's how it was done 50 years ago, before therapists were a dime a dozen and Dr. Phil a fixture in our lives. His good nature I'm sure made things smoother or maybe I'm romanticizing the situation. It was just lovely to spend time with someone who's been around, through wars, and women's lib and all the heaving and hoe-ing of this culture, and to be present in his sunny demeanor.

What makes a life nearing the end, one of smiles rather than frowns? I don't know this person, but as his buddies picked him up for their ritual lunch, I thought ahead to that time of life when going to the gym and eating with the guys can take up most of your day and how, in the end, what is really more important than taking care of yourself and your relationships? I feel so rushed to accomplish many things in this last half of my own life and I wonder, do I take care of the important things as well as I should? As a mom, family comes first, then the pursuit of some meaningful purpose, then creativity, then friends. I had noted earlier a young woman on he rcell phone gushing to her friend about some guy and something said and another thing bought and this thing overheard and when she was ready to hang up she made plans to call back her friend later in the day and told her she loved her to death baby. I marveled at this unbridled enthusasim at every thing she had to say and wondered if she went on all day like that. It reminded me of my 7 year old and I thought, some people just have this eternal "on" button. I feel mine has only recently been flipped and sometimes am not sure where to put all the energy.

So Sam gets up, a little creaky, but finds his saunter as he takes off with the guys and I thought, this octagenarian has more joy, more aliveness than many people half his age. I wonder what his secret is. Did he figure out early on how to live life fully, or is this the ease you reach as you wind down, if your genes are wired to a grin and not a grimace? I hope I live long enough to find out.