This Is (Almost) 67: Brian Morton Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire
"I like to think about the past a lot, so I often feel like every age I've ever been, but mostly I feel like I'm turning 67 this summer."
From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older. I’m curious about what it means to others, of all ages, and so I invite them to take “The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.”
Here, author and Sarah Lawrence writing professor Brian Morton responds. - Sari Botton
How old are you?
Turning 67 this summer.
Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think?
I like to think about the past a lot, so I often feel like every age I've ever been, but mostly I feel like I'm turning 67 this summer.
I feel exactly right for my age. I feel in step with the peers I'm closest to, all of whom are still learning and trying to make whatever contributions they can.
Do you feel old for your age? Young for your age? Just right? Are you in step with your peers?
I feel exactly right for my age. I feel in step with the peers I'm closest to, all of whom are still learning and trying to make whatever contributions they can.
What do you like about being your age?
Almost everything! I feel extraordinarily lucky. I live with the love of my life, Heather Harpham; our children are in college and making new friends and learning a lot; all of us are in good health. I'm fortunate enough to have a tenured job on the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, so I've worked with a lot of remarkable young people, many of whom I'm still in touch with, some of whom have become friends.
Also, at this point I've published enough that I no longer have to ask crippling questions about whether I'm "really" a writer, and at this age I don't have to worry anymore about whether the well will run dry. Maybe the well will run dry! Maybe it already has! But it doesn't worry me anymore. Running dry at 40 or 50 would have felt like a tragedy, and would have made me feel like I'd failed. Running dry at 68 or any time after that would feel natural, and wouldn't be bothersome at all.
At least that's what I'm telling myself now. But I published a book just a month ago, so I might just be on a publication-period high. Two or three years from now, if I don't feel like I'm getting a new writing project off the ground, I might be considerably less Zen.
What is difficult about being your age?
The most difficult thing about being my age is the death of old friends. When someone you love dies, your life is diminished: there's no feel-good formula to make it seem less terrible than it is. I've lost a lot of people, and I'm still having conversations with all of them in my head. It's no substitute for the conversations we'd be having if they were still around.
Also, at this point I've published enough that I no longer have to ask crippling questions about whether I'm "really" a writer, and at this age I don't have to worry anymore about whether the well will run dry. Maybe the well will run dry! Maybe it already has! But it doesn't worry me anymore.
What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?
I think the main surprising thing is that it doesn't feel all that different. When I was in my forties, I wrote a novel, Starting Out in the Evening, whose protagonist was a 71-year-old man. I think I'd be embarrassed if I looked at it now. When I was writing it, I think I imagined old age as a foreign country. It isn't a foreign country.
I notice the same thing in the writing of my students when they try to imagine old age. When you're young, you imagine that every time old people look down at their hands, they think, "My God! All these wrinkles! How did this happen?! Where is my youth?"
How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?
I'm not sure this is about getting older per se, but I no longer think of myself as a writer first and and everything else second, as I did when I was young. My views on this started to change shortly after we had our first child, Emmett. I was reluctant to have children in the first place, because I feared it would distract me from my writing. And indeed it did. But that turned out to be a good thing. I remember one afternoon when Emmett was about nine months old, just starting to crawl, and I thought, "I could be writing right now…but I'm much more interested in watching him learn to crawl than I am in whatever I might write this afternoon."
As for negative ways in which it's affected my sense of myself—well, I still remember the first time I was given the senior discount at Dunkin' Donuts. I didn't ask for the senior discount! I didn't even know there was a senior discount! But the young woman working the cash register looked at me and thought, "Senior discount."
When I was in my forties, I wrote a novel, Starting Out in the Evening, whose protagonist was a 71-year-old man. I think I'd be embarrassed if I looked at it now. When I was writing it, I think I imagined old age as a foreign country. It isn't a foreign country.
What has been your favorite age so far, and why? Would you go back to this age if you could?
This is my favorite age, by far. When your kids are grown and doing well, it's a deep relief. And, as I said, it's a deep satisfaction to feel like I've spent my life doing the work I was meant to do. Whatever the merit or lack of merit of what I've written, I've given what I've had to give. And, more important than that, being with Heather has been, and continues to be, the great adventure of my life.
I miss discrete aspects of earlier times, though. When I was a kid, for example, from about fourth grade through high school, my friends and I would get together almost every day after school and play ball. In the fall and winter we'd play tackle football, without any equipment. You would get tossed around, tackled, thrown to the ground—and in all those years, none of us got hurt. I used to marvel at it even then, thinking that it was as if we were all made of rubber. So that I miss. Sometimes I think it might be fun to learn judo or aikido or something like that, and then I think, "Probably not." I'd like to feel like I was still made of rubber once in a while.
Is there someone who is older than you, who makes growing older inspiring to you? Who is your aging idol and why?
My friend Todd Gitlin, the author and activist, who died this past winter, just after his 79th birthday, played that kind of role for me, because he had the most extraordinary appetite for learning of anyone I've ever known. He was a critical thinker, but he was also an enthusiast. Every time you saw him, he would tell you about some new writer or filmmaker he'd discovered, or some young activist who was doing something that Todd was excited about. Todd will always be a touchstone and an inspiration for me, not only because of his beautiful decency, not only because of his moral and political balance, but because of the joy he took in learning, and because of his lifelong readiness to have his socks knocked off by encounters with art and ideas.
What aging-related adjustments have you recently made, style-wise, beauty-wise, health-wise?
I made an appointment not long ago with the Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill-Cornell Medical Center in New York. They're devoted to the idea of helping you do everything you can possibly do to maintain brain health as you age. I'd like to keep my mind alive as well as I can.
I'm supposed to be using a CPAP machine for a mild case of sleep apnea, and I just can't bring myself to do it. I put on the mask and turn on the machine, I fall asleep, and then I wake up an hour later because the air leaking out the side of the mask is making this obnoxious Bronx cheer sound, and I say, "To hell with this," and put the whole contraption back in the closet for another six months or so.
What’s an aging-related adjustment you refuse to make, and why?
It's not so much that I refuse as that I can't get my act together, but I'm supposed to be using a CPAP machine for a mild case of sleep apnea, and I just can't bring myself to do it. I put on the mask and turn on the machine, I fall asleep, and then I wake up an hour later because the air leaking out the side of the mask is making this obnoxious Bronx cheer sound, and I say, "To hell with this," and put the whole contraption back in the closet for another six months or so.
What’s your philosophy on celebrating birthdays as an adult? How do you celebrate yours?
Birthdays are funny when you're older, aren't they? On the one hand, there's the gloom of knowing there aren't that many of them left. On the other hand, one still feels the irrepressible glee that one felt as a kid about the idea of having a birthday. At least I do. It's my birthday! Yay! Usually it's just Heather and the kids—if the kids are around—and we have dinner somewhere nice and go to the movies. That's a perfect birthday for me.
Brian's fiction is so good that it is always worth rereading. He's excellent when he describes the details of everyday life, the routine parts of our days doing errands, drinking coffee, encountering a friend, etc. I think when "Starting Out in the Evening" or maybe "The Dylanist" came out, one reviewer said something like it's the kind of book that affirms why we read novels. He can also be very funny.