"Matheus, how many days are in a year?" Sennen asked.
"There are 365 days, Sennen"
"Daddy, can a person live for more or less than a million days?"
"Less, Sennen. How many years do you think is normal for a person to live?"
"90 or 93." (the ostensible age of his great grandfather when he died two years ago)
"Ok, so if we multiply 93 years times 365 days, that's 33,945 days – which is a lot less than a million."
"Well, I want to live a million days."
"So far, no person has done that. It's not possible at this time. Maybe it will change as medicine and science change. But so far, no one has done it."
"Well, I hope they change because I want to live a long, long time."
"I want you to live a long life too. But you know, Sennen – a lot of times as people get old, their bodies don't do so well. They start hurting, having health problems, maybe they can't walk or drive, maybe their friends and family have already died, and then they don't have such happy lives anymore. That's why sometimes as people get very old, they decide they don't want to live anymore, they are ready to die."
"I will exercise – especially when I'm 80 – and do lots of yoga so my body has energy, stays young and doesn't hurt. And then if I can live a million days, I'll have a good life."
For whatever reason, Sennen has been thinking a lot about aging in the past few weeks – which interestingly is a topic that I have often considered when traveling. One question comes up over and over – I think because the answer feels unacceptable to him:
"Why in Greece when a woman's husband dies does she have to wear black the rest of her life, but if a man's wife dies, he doesn't have to wear black?"
We've answered repeatedly that it's a double standard and that it's not a very fair social norm, but it's one they have had for a long time. But because he sees it as unjust, he resists the question – which I like to think is a statement that the model he's growing up with is very far for that kind of double standard.
The year Emily and I traveled, I was able to observe the way people aged across a variety of locations and societies from often timeless Thais to oxidized Nepalis. But Greece has always been the society in which I find aging the most confusing because of what I consider the Attire Line. Until a certain age, Greek people dress youthfully – wearing t-shirts, shorts, jeans, attractive pants, beautiful dresses, sharp button-downs. They have a fair amount of flair and style, especially on vacation where women have cover-ups whose prices and styles drop Emily's jaw. But somewhere in their 60's, many Greeks seem to trade-in their attractive attire for "old people garb" – stiff slacks and plaid button-downs for men; blocky (sometimes black) dresses and clod-hopper shoes for women. They become picture postcards of an older Greece – dressed no differently than they might have 100 years ago. For women, makeup, perfume, hairstyles go away. Plain and simple is the order of the day. And I can't imagine they aren't all boiling in the summer sun under all that clothing.
It's surprising for this generation where people our own parents age are now donning the wardrobe of age. These are people who were young in the 60's and 70's – who saw social and political revolutions and turmoil. They are the generation who as young people and students protested against the military junta in the 70's and were part of the Athens Polytechnic Uprising. They listened to Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin. Many went to Turkey and smoked hashish. They were not fuddy-duddies.
So what is the marker that tells someone to put away the jeans and pull out the slacks or the baggy dress? What is the morning they wake up and say, "Well, all of this has been nice, but it's time to hand-down my wardrobe for the next generation and go to the Old People Shop to get my new clothes?"
I find it especially puzzling since Greeks do not age particularly badly. In fact, given how much they smoke, I think they tend to age fairly well – certainly not with the incredible grace of the French, but perhaps on average better than Americans. Moreover, Americans our parents age seem to generally embrace a youthful look. Most of the people I know in my parents generation choose attire that is not terribly dissimilar to my generation, only at times might be a little more forgiving or elegant in compensation for the fact that they have aged. But the message they send is that they are youthful, vital and very much a part of the general fashion and spirit of the world in which they live. This is the scaled-down of the French approach which seems to be to generally look as age-appropriately fabulous as you can be. In the French view, there's fashion and a look for every age and it is just as important to look your best at 90 as it is at 19.
I never know what to make of the Greek approach to getting older – because it might be extremely liberated. Maybe there's an age after which you don't have to care anymore? Maybe it's a phenomenon where people get back to their roots – they see the values and traditions in which they were raised as providing more meaning and guidance in the alter chapters of their lives? My maternal grandfather (the only one I knew) who was raised with a very strict, distant, difficult and possibly verbally abusive immigrant, religious father claimed to be agnostic most of his adult life. My grandmother was the heart of their Jewish home which he accepted, but ritualistically disclaimed Passover seders and generally avoided going to services. When she died at the age of 67, he turned back to his Judaism to guide him through his grief and came to temple with us to say the Mourner's Kaddish and yartzheits. He was excited about my Bar Mitzvah, my sister's Bat Mitzvah and began to value holidays. My father always says the amazing thing about my grandfather's life is that in the end, he died a Jew. Perhaps it is similar for so many Greeks as their church services are certainly better attended by the older generation.
Age is challenging because it's something no one really imagines for themselves. If anything, it seems to sneak up on people and then they feel a dissonance between their bodies and their minds and spirits. I watch as both my parents and Emily's try to minimize their aches, pains and health issues – not wanting to be stopped from living their lives. I think it's very common for their generation to do this. With the aid of modern medicine and better information about health than any generation has ever possessed – people are living longer than ever – with the opportunity to keep their ailments at bay, quietly putting up with many discomforts, inconveniences and hardships. There has never been more of a spectrum of life quality.
But what to do about it? Do you take the pills, do the procedures, go to the gym, keep the young clothes and continue to live the life you have always known to the best of your ability? Do you announce a new place in life, put on the "old people garb", smoke, drink ouzo, play cards and go to church? There's no right answer.
For me, I have decided that wherever I am is my opportunity to live my life the best it has yet been lived. My 20's were not some golden time of freedom and joy. They had those things and sometimes they were very scary and I didn't know what to do as I learned to walk the world on my own. My 30's had new frontiers of love, commitment, fatherhood, home ownership – I became more assured and life became more stable, although with much greater responsibility. I can't say which trade-offs I'll experience in the future – more or less power, freedom, joy, love, fun, sorrow, respect, minimization. I just hope that I can continue to make each age the best time of my life yet to come.
Recently, I noticed the lines near my eyes that I had seen develop in some of my friends that I had somehow escaped for longer than them (perhaps as compensation for my balding and premature graying). When Conlan and I told stories of our past journeys and adventures, numbers like 18, 15 and 10 years ago get thrown about. We even have memories we share from 30 years ago. I wonder how it happened, because that Hong Kong trip where he took the brilliant photos and the time in Bali where we wandered the streets of Ubud and watched from the front of the house as the rain came down in torrents seem like just a heartbeat ago. Yet, we are also so far from the 24 year-olds who were aghast to find a street vendor in Bangkok selling bowls of pig's blood stew. Now, the beds in Greece feel harder and less comfortable than 9 years ago, even though I know they aren't. I take turmeric which keeps my muscles and joints a little more limber. I am not exempt from time.
Maybe Sennen will be. With advances in biotechnology, through genetic manipulations and nanotechnology, there is real talk of being able to create an amortal human being – one who through periodic treatments can maintain their genetic and cellular integrity indefinitely. Maybe Sennen will get his million days – and if he does, I hope they will be wonderful and that time will leave his beautiful heart and soul in tact. He will undoubtedly face many challenges and choices along the way that I cannot imagine and among them will be what the attire of a 2,739 year-old should be (which he would love to decide) and if at any age, you trade-out the jeans or whatever the fashion will be for the shamatas – or whatever they'll call them.
