OK, so you read the title of this blog, and you said, “Huh?”  With good reason. There is hardly anything iconic about the number 84. Maybe if I were celebrating the halfway-in-between-85 or the decade-marking-90. But 84?  Who gives a yippa-dee-do-da?.  It’s just a yawn-inducing, mostly-unnoticed, rough-hewn steppingstone to actually attention-capturing numbers.

Unless, of course, you own it! And unless it has become for you—for reasons both puzzling and surprising—that attention-capturing, introspection-inducing event that doesn’t give a damn that it’s just a “number-on-the-way-to-something-else!”  But wait—I could say, truthfully, that I have begun my 85^th year and, thereby, justify these ruminations. So it is and so shall it be.

And there you have it. For reasons I can’t explain, even to myself, this turn of a year has become a time of reflection for me—and entirely independently, I have learned, for my wife as well!

First, there has come over me a keen sense of gratitude—for many things but, primarily, just to be alive. In my subconscious, I think I never expected to live this long, although I don’t recall any particular sense of “impending doom” as, for instance, I approached and bypassed the ages of my Mom (78) and my Dad (82) when they died—nor do I now, having outlived them by 6 and 2 years. And although this has always been true with the passing of the years, with this birthday I have become more sharply conscious, for whatever reason, that my time in this life is shrinking. And I’ll return to that later.

This birthday has also made me more aware that I’m grateful for the ability to “get around”—to be relatively mobile, be able to drive, and be reasonably independent—in spite of the physical limitations that come with advancing years.

I’m also super conscious of my gratitude for having a fairly active brain, some memory lapses notwithstanding—my wife tells me not to worry about it, that I’ve always had a lousy memory!  I’ve been able, for example, to keep this blog going for over two years, posting a new entry every ten days or so, which amounts to some sixty posts on a variety of subjects.

Oddly enough, my recent struggle with a completely unexpected writer’s block has, paradoxically, made me even more grateful for this part of my life, as well as other things that keep my brain bubbling—e.g. serving on the Boards of several non-profit service organizations; recording for the blind; substantive conversations (some now in Zoom meetings) with a men’s group, with former theatre colleagues at the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre (SART), and with friends and family—especially with my wife, Cathy, my best friend. Sometimes our talks are just “how was your day,” but occasionally they are what we call “Old Fort Conversations,” reminiscent of discussions about significant, sometimes “heavy,” topics on the long climb up the highway from Old Fort to Asheville on the way back from visits with her family, and we always enjoy those.

That also leads me to my being, if possible, even more aware of my gratitude for friends.

• For example, like a lot of other people, I received over a hundred birthday greetings on FaceBook. Although my interaction with the vast majority of them is now limited to FB posts and responses, it’s also true, as I reviewed and responded to each of the greetings, that over 90% of them were from individuals with whom I have, over the years, had significant and, in some cases, lengthy relationships.
• The men’s group, mentioned above, is one of a number such groups, usually composed of from 8-10 men, that are sponsored by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and called Men’s Wisdom Works (MMW).  We meet regularly—by Zoom these days—to have frank, open, and confidential discussions about issues in life’s transitions that men seldom talk about and it has become the basis for some important friendships.
• But perhaps most important are, in addition to my wife, my three “oldest” friends, in the sense of having known them longer than any others.
  • Brooks, whom I’ve known for almost 63 years, lives in Tennessee. After becoming close friends in graduate school, our careers sent us in different directions. We haven’t been able to see each other often—sometimes 8-10 years between visits—but when we get together, it’s as though no time has passed. It is a true “brotherhood” relationship!
  • Jim, also known as “T,” has been my friend for almost 53 years.  We spent three decades as friends and as colleagues at Mars Hill College and, thanks to him, with SART. As he was approaching retirement, his wife’s career—Kimberly, also a dear friend—took them to Montana for several years and now for a decade to Pennsylvania.  But Cathy and I stay in touch with them—and I with him—on a regular basis.
  • The third of these friends, “another” Jim, whom I’ve known for almost 48 years, thankfully is local and lives nearby. We were also colleagues at Mars Hill and have become even closer in retirement. Before the pandemic, my wife and I visited with him and his wife, Pat, regularly—something we miss and hope for again. He and I have lunch together every week and always have substantive conversations.

While these three occupy a unique place in my heart and my life, with most of my friends there has been a shift in the nature, the quality, and the substance of our conversations that has been, for me, a fascinating discovery. Part of it is simply the recognition that however different our lives have been, however divergent the paths we have taken, there are histories we all share.

And I have become aware of how many of these friends share the same “wonderings”—whether we agree or not—about what I would call Ultimate Questions about life, about death and what does or does not lie “beyond,” about the existence and/or nature of a Supreme Being (and to all of these I will return).  I’ve also found that most of us tend to share a renewed interest in family, both immediate and past, about our own personal life history and what it has meant to us and, hopefully, to others. And I’ve been struck by how many of us continue to be interested in opportunities to learn more and to explore things that lie beyond the boundaries of those areas of knowledge that fed and supported us in whatever career(s) we pursued. 

There have been a number of other subjects, most of which are things I’ve thought about, struggled with—even written about—but that have, unbidden,  jumped back sharply in my mind as the “84^th” has passed me by.

            For example, as I observed a year and a half or so ago, it both flatters and embarrasses me when, the older I have become, people talk about my “wisdom,” when, to tell the truth, I’ve never thought that I had any. While I’ve had a lot of experience, we don’t learn from experience but rather, as John Dewey reminded me, from reflecting on experience—although that doesn’t guarantee wisdom either. When I am impressed by someone’s “wisdom,” it tends to be because they seem “insightful,”—able to understand and explain complicated matters— and can provide advice that arises from a breadth of knowledge. I’ve never thought I belonged in either category.

            And, speaking of knowledge, another matter that has pestered my mind with renewed awareness, is that the longer I live and learn—and the learning never stops—the more that “circle of what I know or think I know” touches the vast expanses of “the unknown” and the more my “certainties” have become overshadowed by all that remains beyond my grasp.  While that is, in itself, not new, at this point in my life, I have become sharply conscious of the importance of open-mindedness and intellectual humility and I hope that I possess and nurture them both.

            For some reason, this birthday has also brought to the front of my mind some of the major decisions I’ve made in my life.  I have to acknowledge that I’ve never confronted a major life decision, to say nothing of more trivial ones, when I’ve been absolutely certain that it was the right thing to do.  That understanding has always come, as I noted in an earlier blog, by looking back through “a rear-view mirror.” There were some decisions that were bad decisions that I now regret as they occasionally haunt the corridors of my heart. Even now I confess that I don’t “know” when I’ve made the best decision and will be content to trust the verdict of those reflections in the “rear view mirror” . . . . at least until I run out of time.

            And that brings me to a topic that I’ll call simply “shrinking time”—to be together with Cathy, my wife and best friend; shrinking time to be with my children and grandchildren; shrinking time to be with my three long-time friends as well as the other friends that I value; shrinking time simply to live–and that will evoke several sub-topics which have risen unbidden, but persistent, and which I will address . . . . in a second post.

I hope you’ll join me for the completion of these reflections.