So how old am I?
Tony Blair was younger than me when he was elected Britain’s Prime Minister, Clinton was my age, Benjamin Zeev Herzl died at the age of 44. Is this constant striving to stay young my generation’s way of avoiding responsibility?
Right in the middle of the Danny Sanderson concert at the Zappa Club in Tel Aviv, I realized that I don’t know my real age. It happened around the fourth or fifth song, Danny the redhead played that rock and roll as only he knows how and I couldn’t sit still any longer. I climbed over a few people and got to the front of the crowd where I danced in front of the stage (if you can call my awkward way of throwing my arms and legs around as dancing).
Behind me, an older couple was seated, and he politely informed me that I was blocking his view. I moved aside a bit and threw him a pitying glance. Only later did I understand that the slightly graying gentleman politely clapping his hands to the music is about my age.
It’s just that I don’t know how old I am. I remember the dates but what they mean is unclear to me. I was born in November 1963 which makes me almost 44 years old. When my father was my age he was already wearing gray trousers and a white shirt that sort of folded over his paunch. He wore English-made Barker shoes which he shined himself and he carried a comb in his shirt pocket.
When he went to performances (he called them "concerts") he would put on a wine-colored tie and my mother carried a small clutch bag. They were adults, not old God forbid, simply middle- aged people who accepted the fact with grace that their youth had ended and it was being replaced by something as good which was taking its place.
And then there’s me: I’m wearing a black T-shirt and Levis, the same jeans I wore when I was 17 (well all right, maybe not the same size.) dancing in front of the electric guitar. Is this pathetic? Am I trying to hold on to something that no longer exists? Is there a moment when the colors fade all at once and I will have to admit to myself that I have been denying the inevitable?
I have not succeeded in deciding what constitutes a grown up in the 21st century. How old is he? Is it possible that we have skipped that part jumping from young to old without the experience of middle age?
I sometimes look at my friends and realize that they haven’t given in either. Ofer is training for his fourth marathon, Tuka is taking voice lessons, Nitzani is studying martial arts, Tamir is talking about spending a year in Brazil. Of course he’s been talking about it since ’85. It’s not that this struggle is easy. We are all dieting. None of us gets enough sleep.
We are all in the middle of our second or third career. We are all looking for something that isn’t there. There is no serenity in our situation because there is no serenity in anything that is not clearly defined. Forty, I am told, is the new 30. Interesting that I never heard anyone who is 30 say this.
Do we embarrass our children? Would they prefer it if we didn’t try to act their age? That we keep some distance, a little more parental? Is my eldest son really happy to find a note in his closet that I apologize for borrowing his Ronaldino shirt? Am I not taking something away from him in discovering the music of Synergy before him and having in my car, discs of Muki and Pink Floyd?
He acts as if it doesn’t bother him but is it possible that his father’s infantile behavior disturbs him deep down? I went to a bar after the concert of "Danny the Red" and I saw the son of friends of mine at the next table. He is 18 and he seemed happy to see me but if I was in his place and saw my parents in a Tel Aviv pub at two in the morning I would die of shame on the spot.
The body is the only thing that reminds me sometimes how old I really am. Wounds heal slower. Dental work is more expensive. By two in the afternoon my eyelids get really heavy. I am reconciled to it all but try not to think about it too much. It seems that the problem with me is that I don’t know what the next step should be. How exactly does one become a grown up?
In September, my wife, may she live a long life, and I want to get into a car in New York and drive all the way to the West Coast of the United States. We’ll take our CD collection of Springsteen, we’ll sleep in cheap motels, and we’ll make a little love. Is this grown up behavior? I have no idea. Someone stole the how-to manual.
Is it possible that this is just an anxiety attack? Tony Blair was younger than me when he was elected Britain’s Prime Minister, Clinton was my age, Benjamin Zeev Herzl died at the age of 44. Is this constant striving to stay young my generation’s way of avoiding responsibility?
It’s preferable to wear scruffy jeans than to admit to yourself that you haven’t accomplished much, that life has carried you along, that your biggest achievement is your mortgage.
One of the differences between 20 and 40 is that back then I believed I could be anything. They hadn’t yet sent back my application to be an astronaut, a guitar player, the founder of a high-tech company or chief of staff. Today at 40 I understand that I can be anything, except 20 years younger.
And yet I refuse to admit that my time has passed. I don’t know how old I am because I still don’t know how the story will end. Once I thought that there is a defined time that everything slows down. You arrive at peace and property and buy a living-room set.
Today that place seems idiotic. Whoever goes to a rock and roll concert in order to clap politely is totally missing out. I prefer being a pathetic 40-year-old who keeps on trying.
