Inquiring Minds Want to Know

I get the question at least once a week, “So, what’s he doing now? How’s he filling his time?”

I feel as if I should be answering in broad technicolor strokes — “Well, he went white water rafting yesterday and tomorrow he and a buddy are heading out to Key West to go fishing.”

But he neither rafts nor fishes. He’s never expressed the desire to learn how to [blank]. And despite knowing retirement was in the offing, he made no preparations, set no goals, had no plans to fill the formless void of the coming days. Instead of technicolor answers I respond in 8 millimeter black and white. “He goes to the gym. He spends a lot of time at the library. He’s taking a religion class once a week.” That last is something he has dearly wanted to do. I am glad he finally can.

It’s his life after all; the time is his to do as he pleases. And it’s only been three months.
After thirty-plus years he’s surely entitled to take life as slow as he wants. He says he’s happy. I’ve heard him tell people more than once, “I don’t know where the time goes but before I know it the day is gone.”

But he is young. A newly-minted sixty-something. How will I answer the curious next year? And the year after that? He doesn’t seem to be the least concerned. So why am I?

A New Year Up in the Air

What better way to ring out the old and ring in the new than to go see Up in the Air with a theaterful of other Michiganders? The protagonist’s job was bleak — and close, possibly too close, to the bone — he flies around the country laying people off. But the actor playing the protagonist was George Clooney. Need I say another word?  It was sad, it was thought-provoking, it was funny. And why was Detroit’s the only airport slushed in with snow and perpetually grey?

Detroit, and by extension Michigan, has come in for bashing for decades. Much of it deserved, much of it the gleeful schadenfreude of an ignorant populace. I got more than peeved listening to Michael Feldman on “What Do You Know?” the other day. “Detroit hasn’t produced anything the country has wanted for years,” he mocked in this supercilious tone. I wanted to put in a personal call to Clooney to pay Feldman a visit. The things Feldman doesn’t know about Detroit would fill a parking garage. I bet he doesn’t drive American, either.

Last night there was solidarity in the audience. Employed or not, retired or not, laid off or not, we’ve all been touched. We’re all scared, we’re all uncertain. And we’re all tough. The movie’s final frames featured cameo interviews with those laid off reflecting on what was getting them through. They articulated the same blessings that get us through any year, difficult or joyous: the love of family and friends, the devotion of children, the gumption to get up and face a new day.

When the final credits began to roll applause broke out. For the movie, surely. And also for ourselves. Every minute of every day, life itself is up in the air. Down here on the ground, all we can do is put one foot in front of the other. And so we do.