Howl

I've been invited to a Halloween party for adults. It is a costume party. Last year people were mad at me for not dressing up. I can barely get dressed for work. I don't want to dress up for Halloween. I think it is silly. I also find it ironic since I like costumes so much. I love the idea of the Medievals doing it in connection/rebellion with The Church, but of course they look dressed up in costumes to me on any given day. I like Halloween for kids. I remember what it felt like to go door to door on those nights, the sense of mystery and freedom. I don't know what I will do. I know that I am expected to do better. I will be compromising myself, though, if I go through with it. I keep asking myself, "What is wrong with people," but they are surely asking the same thing about me.

Somehow, I've let time best me. It is inevitable, I know, but I was determined not to let it happen voluntarily. I'm broken up pretty badly all over from trying not to allow it to happen, trying to keep a body that is twenty-something all my life. I hurt. And without my realizing it, I've let myself become less and less active. Part of that is the loss of athletic friends, not to death, but to the other thing. No one calls me up for basketball now. They don't play. The other part is that my lifetime gym closed down, the steroid gym full of criminals and miscreants, most of whom had committed horrible crimes against society or nature. It has been gone for several years, and I have been working out at the Y. Everyone is nice there. It is awful.

This month, I joined a kickboxing gym. I don't know how I am doing it, but I go twice a week and train with people almost half my age. There are some rough boys and girls there, and some of them don't like me much. I've gotten hurt a couple times, physically and emotionally. It is good for me. "The problem in this country," I am fond of saying, "is that most people don't worry about taking a beating. You act differently if you know that someone might knock you out." It is a horrible thing to say in most circles, I know. But it is true, I think. For my father's generation, it was different, and they acted with more caution in public than people do now. So did kids. In my neighborhood, anyone's father would assault you for bad behavior, and then you'd get a beating when you got home, too, so we didn't act up in front of adults.

The other night, a fellow who is boxing for the championship belt of some kickboxing association in an arena famous for its fights (oh, I'm not naming it, you'd look it up) in January made a remark about me at the gym. It was not right nor fair, and I wanted to complain since I am almost twice his age and don't think I'm doing badly in picking up the sport. But I didn't complain. I thought, "I'll take that one." Wisely. Again, I think it is good for me. It puts things in perspective.

But it also makes me realize what happens to us in time. And so sitting at home over dinner, I told the story to my friend who happily reminded me that when we first started going out, we would be sitting at dinner when suddenly I would say, "That fucker is giving me the stink-eye," and then I would say something that would escalate the situation. I laughed to remember it. Yes, it was true, but I don't think about those things any more. I got the feeling, though, that my friend would like to see me take a beating just for fun. Maybe not, but there was a little too much glee in my friend's voice.

It made me realize that I don't feel the same drive, the same strength and energy, the same something that I felt not so long ago. What to do?

But I've always loved Hemingway's dictum in "The Garden of Eden" when the protagonist's girlfriend is depressed because she realizes that one day she will die. He tells her the trick is not to let it happen until it happens. Best advice I've ever heard.

Some people lose their beauty. Some their virility. It is worse for those who had it in abundance, I think, less so for those long-lived octogenarians whose lives were never about any of that. I'm thinking of that horrible genius George Bernard Shaw. But he taught me something about The Life Force, and that is the thing, isn't it? To stay connected to that? There is a glory and a victory there, in connecting to that great fountain of life that runs through the cosmos.

I will continue going to the kickboxing gym through the end of the month at least. But they want members to sign a year's contract, and I am not willing to do that. As soon as I do, I will get hurt and not be able to continue, so Friday, I will have to try to negotiate a deal. I won't tell him any of this, of course. I will simply say I have some money in my pocket and it could be his if he is willing to deal. Maybe he wants my money enough to keep me around for more abuse.