From Bridge Magazine’s newsletter, “Hospitalizations for COVID-19 rose to more than 700 patients statewide on Friday, a 23 percent increase in a week. Hospitals are now treating 714 patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19, up from 634 on Wednesday and 580 a week ago. The last time the patient count was over 700 was on March 14, when it was 729.” Now mind you we are nowhere near the level of what was occurring in January or February but the upward curve is very steep. Maybe the fact that 60% of the US population has antibodies to the disorder in their systems (as reported repeatedly in all the media this week) will make a difference. Maybe, but those antibodies putting the nail in Covid’s coffin is not anywhere near a certainty. Please be careful out there folks.
Secondly if you live near me two pharmacies can diagnose you for Covid AND give you antiviral medications. Those pharmacies are the Walgreens at 410 E. Jolly, Lansing, and the Redicare at 1881 W. Grand River, Okemos. This is just a public service announcement. Everyone just seems to assume the virus has by an act of magic gone away “poof” and that masks are no longer needed. But experts, including Dr. Fauci, indicate that if you are in you sixties with underlying health issues you probably should keep using a mask no matter what others do.
Okay so that is it for the actual Covid part of this. Now let us get into the life at large segment of our program, life and Portugal.
Three facts inform what I will say in the following paragraphs. First, I turned 66 a week and a half ago. It was a quiet but very lovely day. Many wonderful people sent me birthday greetings. Thank you all. Those greetings really warmed what my sons’ (and what 10,000 other people I saw in my last job) describe as my cold, cold heart. My wife’s torta rustica was a delight. She made this at my request, in that we are just not quite ready for in person dining here in Michigan, USA. This cross between a quiche and a pot pie was rich and filling and savory. Yum.
Second, in recent weeks I have started to read the obituaries section in my local paper. Hey, when you go from 65 to 66 you move from being technically old to being actually old, at least that it how it seems to me. On the day after my birthday there was a fairly long obit about a 65-year-old local woman who unexpectedly died in her sleep. According to the post there were no symptoms or indications that anything was wrong prior to her heading into bed that night. When morning came, she was just gone. Yeah, there are no guarantees that we will awaken tomorrow. Life makes no promises that we get to leave on our own terms. Kind of says you had better make today count, eh? Grab life’s chances by the mane and ride it for all that it is worth.
Third, I went to a dear friend’s retirement party last night. I was delighted to see all those people from the Elections Department of the Michigan Secretary of State again. What was interesting to me was that so many of the people I knew have now left for retirement. Nary a one of them seems to have regretted that decision. Their lack of regrets matches up with my experience. Instead of regret I have a bit of peace about deciding to go when I did. When I look at the person who expired in her sleep and I balance that against the “extra” money I would have made had I kept working, my decision was the right one for me. In two and a third years I have slept better and smiled more than I did in the two decades prior total.
So, what how do those three things inform what I am going to say now? Well, it comes down to this. First, I am assured that leaving when I did was the right thing to do for me. As I see the people I worked with coming to retirement age, or past it, and I talk to them I see clearly my choice to go was made sense. Now, the pandemic bollixed up my plans, well all of our plans, but I still found a way to make life livable during that time. Reading, writing and even travelling during that short window last year when travel made sense because the infection levels were down, filled my hours. These were the good things retirement gave me.
Second, time is short and as the world opens up, and as I have the freedom to move about again, I have got to make the most of it. Laying down for a night’s rest and not waking up is always possible. Better make sure that what I am doing up to that moment has substance, has value. I don’t need things that drag on life. I don’t need more stuff. In all actuality I have got to get rid of lots of stuff. Stuff is just a chain to the past. I need to break that chain and move on. Anyone want to buy a double bass or piano?
Third, at age 66 I can still ambulate. I am still in as much control of my mental faculties as I ever was. For the most part I can feed myself, bath myself and dress myself. All of these are subject to that caveat phrase, “as much as I ever could”. Despite some tentative knees I can walk for miles at a time. If I am going to walk, I want to walk new streets I want to travel new paths and this is the time when I should do it. No time is ever perfect for going or coming, for starting or stopping, but as my latter years approach, I can see now will be better than later. Old is coming to us all. As my financial planner says, “The earlier years of retirement are better than the later ones.” (Oh, if you are old enough to know it, you can hum that 'old is coming to us all' to the tune of CSN&Y’s Carry On).
These three factors explain why I have not been blogging as much. In the past four weeks I have set about to, and have actually rented a place in Lisbon, Portugal. A friend once told me there is nothing like Portuguese bureaucracy and I can now assure you he was right. The rental portion was a little convoluted but the visa portion of this is byzantine. The whole process is made so much more difficult in that I only have four hours of the day to actually conduct business, 8 AM to noon. These are the hours of the Michigan and Portuguese business days that overlap.
Gathering the documents, the notarizations and the apostilles take time. The time spent doing these things is not linear but is rather undefined and glacial in passing. Buying airline tickets online is no easy matter either. So many different issues arose during that process, not the least of which was how my credit card company had changed without notice to me, their process for validating large transactions. Took hours to get our tickets squared away and to get the itinerary in my hands.
Yeah, if you aren’t seeing much output from me understand it is because I am writing biographies of myself to be evaluated by government officials so as to allow them to decide if I am bringing something to their country that is worthwhile and not a threat. Lack of output is because I am trying to deal with international finance. Silence is because I am trying to quell the churning in my guts about the question of, “Am I nuts to do this?” Nota bene, I added the ‘to do this’ because I am pretty sure that if I had only used the first three words the polling would have come out about 50/50.
I close with this. Life is short. Make it count.
Oh, as to the title it came from this thought. In the summer of 1974 Vietnam had not yet ended, it was winding down, but the war raged on. Nixon was in the White House and Watergate was everywhere. Ms. Woods and the gap in the tape were front and center. We were dealing with so many traumatic things including the Arab Oil Embargo. Getting gas based on the last number of your license plate as to whether you could go on an even or odd numbered day to the filling station.
Back then I was working the boardwalk in Ocean City selling soft serve custard to the people strolling by the seaside. The two other people I worked with were constantly talking about getting out of the madness of the States by travelling to Canada or Europe so as to see what life would be like there. We wanted to know if they had come up with a better way to live their lives.
In 2022 we are dealing disease and inflation. We are dealing with trust issues, no trust in the press, no trust in our elected officials, no trust in each other. We are dealing with the aftermath of an insurrection and the rise of a populist movement that has many, many threads of authoritarianism woven into its fabric. When I talked to my friends in the elections unit, they were dreading the midterms, they seemed frightened.
When I talk to people about my plans, I hear comments that indicate jealousy. I hear comments about it being the right time to take a break from America. I hear things said like, “You are living your best life”. Really it almost seems as if I was standing there by the soft serve machines again listening to David Bowie ask, “Is there life on Mars?” and kicking around plans to drive to Montreal and take a flight to England with nothing more than a backpack, $200 and a passport. From hawks and doves amidst the generation gap to American exceptionalism and the lie of a stolen election, life and politics in this country have come full circle. And this time, unlike 1974, I am really going.
