Ocean is 22 years old today. To me, what's remarkable is not that I have posted a story from my life every day for the past 22 years (with only a couple of exceptions early on, when WiFi access was simply not to be had), but that I was just 50 years old when I started. 50! That's so... young. Middle-aged. I was married then. One of my girls had just started college. Yeah, the one who now has two kids, the older of which is almost eight. I did not know anything about my future. None of us do, of course, but I was especially riddled with uncertainty. I knew what I had then was about to change. But how? And here's a big one: I could not imagine what it would be like to be past the age of 70. That's for old people. I was, after all, freshly out of the 40s.
If I were to be really into reflection, I might think about how my writing and story telling have changed. I might notice that I talk about age a lot more now. That I've narrowed my circle of close people, and write more about grandkids and Henry than dinner parties and wine makers in France.
Yesterday, I asked Ed if I'm likely to recognize it if I develop dementia and start writing nonsensical posts describing people whose names escape me and events that happened years ago, if they happened at all. Or, maybe in ten years if I'm still kicking around, I'll talk about my day thus: "Today, I picked up the phone when Henry came to my bedside and started to pull off my quilt. I called the dog walker and she came right away. Once they were back and she fed my old boy, he went back to sleep -- after all, he is ten years old already! I went back to sleep as well. We both woke up at noon. I took a shower. That was a long process because just getting myself to the seat in the shower stall took a whole bunch of energy that I didn't really have. I called one of those food services that sends a drone with your food. It bumped into another drone that was delivering my mail. Can you believe they still deliver mail once a week?!..." and so on. I mean, who knows, right?
It is a cold morning.
But sunny! Stunning, brilliant sunshine.
Breakfast -- very cozy and hygge!
(my sleepy boy... if he can't have my lap, he'll take a pillow...)
And then? Henry goes to his doggie world of daycare. And me? It is fair to say that I wasted most of the day trying to convince my flying team of AirFrance/KLM that their website has not been working properly for three days now. Yes, I've cleared cookies. Yes, I restarted my computer. Many times. All other airlines are functioning just fine. But you, you my trusted partners in flying -- you're just spinning in circles, getting me nowhere at all.
Why do I stay with them? Why this loyalty when in fact oftentimes their prices are slightly higher than the cheapest fare? Well, it made sense until this year. I'd been gunning for their "for life" level in their frequent flyer program, which does help you a lot when your connections are falling apart for whatever reason. Ten years of of loyalty finally got me to become a "for lifer." Starting this January 1st. The funny thing is that now, at 72, I'm cutting back on travel. So I worked hard for all these years, and will probably rarely use this benefit. But now I do not need to stay loyal. I can choose other airlines. So why do I come back to them anyway?
Ah, capitalism! You dont even realize when you have been sucked into their hungry corporate jaws until it's too late. I've grown accustomed to their transfer airports. Detroit, my favorite. Minneapolis, a close second. On the other side of the ocean -- Paris Charles de Gaul. You may groan at that airport, sure, it's not easy to navigate its French jungle of gates, terminals, horrid passport lines, but I know now how to do it and besides, it's all in French, so I feel my efforts at speaking their language are being rewarded at every turn. The thought of switching to, say, British Airways (fly through London! Yikes!) or worse, Lufthansa (German at every turn! Eek!), or Icelandic (you stop in Reykjavik and still have hours of travel left! Ugh!) is revolting.
So I kept struggling today even though I know that ultimately I will abandon my loyalties and go with whatever is the cheapest elsewhere. Oh, the irony of doing that, just at the point where I am a "for lifer!"
I pick up my sweet Henry Bean. My mellow fellow. My dog with the eyes that once were filled with fear and pain and now are on me with far greater loyalty than I could possibly deserve.
I love you, Henry.
You too, my Ocean friends of long and short duration.
