Last weekend, I saw four films. Two were documentaries, segments of “Race: The Power of an Illusion,” that were part of a daylong discussion of race. Two were movie house flicks, “Hope Springs” and “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” All were about folks living on the margins—for reasons of race, age, and poverty, in that order. There’s so much to think about here, I think I’ll tackle one at a time, starting with my own “out group,” old folks.
“Hope Springs,” in case you’ve missed the trailer and the ads, is about a 60-something, empty-nest couple (played by Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones). They sign up for week-long intensive marriage counseling in an attempt to re-ignite intimacy in their marriage. Actually, she signs them up; he is a very reluctant participant.
This film was featured on the cover of a recent issue of AARP, The Magazine, with the headline “Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones on Keeping Passion Alive.” The deeper message would be conveyed by leaving out the word passion: “Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones on Keeping Alive.” Now, it’s true that this movie focuses on passion—specifically, sexual passion. And it is remarkably (some folks might say uncomfortably) frank in talking about and portraying sexuality. But my feeling during the film, and certainly as I reflected on it afterward, was that it was about much more than sexual passion. Early in the movie, the wife says something like, “We don’t share anything except a house.” Later she says, “I think I would feel less lonely if I were just alone.” Beneath the sorrow at the absence of sexual intimacy was a far broader longing for something that's been lost, some passion that goes far beyond sex. Something more than the perfunctory expressions of affection, for sure. But also something more than the everyday in everything … something more than the usual, the predictable, the safe, the comfortable, the familiar, the habitual, the unthinking, the automatic. Figuratively, something more than the house.
This couple was portrayed as boredom walking. It wasn’t just sex that was missing. So was passion of any sort. His life looked like this: breakfast served by his wife … a dispassionate peck on her cheek as he heads out the door … work from 9 to 5 … dinner at 6 … fall asleep in front of TV … bed (in his own separate bedroom). Hers looked like this: cook his breakfast and clean up … get a peck on the cheek … work in a clothing store … cook his dinner and clean up … wake him for bed … retreat to her own bedroom. For their anniversary, they got each other an expanded cable subscription. Or maybe she made that up because when their kids asked her what they gave each other, the real answer was “nothing.” There’s more missing here than sex.
And this sense that something is missing doesn’t require a relationship that’s gone flat. The same longing is possible for someone living alone. Aging, with or without a primary relationship, is a challenge every day—the challenge of staying alive and engaged in a world that’s really set up to support the engagement of younger folks.
Back when I was studying developmental psychology, one of the main theories/descriptions of aging was called the “disengagement” model. (Granted, this was many years ago. But my point is that this is the model my generation grew up with.) In this view, the task of older folks is to disengage from the world they’ve participated in up to now. Retire from work, move the kids out of the nest, and gradually withdraw from social, educational, and cultural activities as they approach physical decline and death. The message overall is that old people should move quietly out to pasture. In fact, the interviewer in the AARP article revealed a version of this belief: “There is a bit of squeamishness on my part when I sit down with the actors to discuss sex after 60.” The unspoken but obvious message: Sex between old people seems odd, even embarrassing. It makes her uncomfortable. Sex is for young people. Certainly passion is.
There’s a line in the movie “Shawshank Redemption” where our hero is planning to break out of this awful prison. He says to a buddy, “It’s time to get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.” The culture we live in understands old people as engaged in the latter process, on their way to dyin’. For those of us who grew up in this culture, that’s how we’re likely to approach aging unless something inspires us to get busy livin’.
These days, happily, the old disengagement model vies with a new script for aging. In this version, old folks remain alive. I see people living this out all around me. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard retired people say (and said myself), “I don’t know how I ever had time to work!” or “I can’t always say exactly what I do, but I know I’m busy all day!” As Meryl framed it in the AARP interview, “I see bored 20-year-olds. I don’t see any bored 60-year olds. People may get crotchety, mean, but it’s because they hold life to a high standard. … The older I get, the more intense my appetite for living gets. I think I was heedless when I was younger. I thought it was endless. But I just lost two close friends in the last two years, and man, you realize you’ve just got seconds.”
It’s a great paradox: The possibility for passionate living as we age is rooted in the very fact of aging. It sprouts precisely from our awareness of how short life really is. “As I get older, my appetite for life gets more intense. … You realize you’ve just got seconds.” I’m reminded of Nora Ephron’s comment about how short life looks from this end. “The time I have left is finite. … We all know donuts aren’t healthy. But life is a crapshoot. I’m saying you should have the donut!”
It seems to me that we have a choice: we can bemoan life’s brevity, now that we see it so clearly, so close. Or we can fill it with aliveness because we know, in a way we didn’t when we were younger, that every day is precious. Not long ago, I wrote about “celebrating oldness,” about finding joy in all the positive things that come with aging. After thinking about this movie and reading the interview, I would add another item to that list: the heightened appetite for living that comes from the up-close realization of our own mortality.
Imagine: Every day is a donut!
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