October 1, 2023, Garrison, New York

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This past week, I turned seventy. Seventy years. I guess I have been asked to speak because age is meant to confer wisdom, or at least perspective. Or just a trove of words to say, perhaps.

But I will confess to having little new to add about the human condition that hasn’t been said before, so I will borrow some thoughts in the pursuit of what might pass as understanding and guidance.

Here’s my start then, from Simone De Beauvoir:

In old age we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us turning in on ourselves. One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion.

That perhaps explains why I am so happy to have Conrad and Lydia living across the street from Sarah and me. And now Keenan, too. These young people make my life more valuable, in De Beauvoir’s sense, and keep me younger, too.

In exchange, I try to make them older and gain value from De Beauvoir’s compassion, love, friendship, and yes, indignation. There are many reasons to be indignant, in our time.

Also in the past week, Sarah and I celebrated 39 years of marriage. One thing I learned from our time together is this: as Emily Berry wrote,

Relationships don’t succeed because you like holding hands, but because you like looking in the same direction.

I know that Lydia and Conrad are like that, looking in the same direction. And, yes, some hand-holding, too.

And after 40 years together with Sarah, I would cast our thoughts 40 years ahead. Imagine Conrad catching sight of Lydia out of the corner of his eye, then, just as Wendell Berry captures in this poem, The Wild Rose:

The Wild Rose | Wendell Berry

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,

suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,

and once more I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before

So, Conrad and Lydia, I can wish you no better than that, my beloved children.