Twenty-Six Cents

A few days ago, as I was walking, I noticed a pair of coins on the ground. They were dull and partially covered in dirt, and I suppose it says something about me that I bothered to bend over and pick them up. They were a quarter and a penny, twenty-six cents, and I dusted them off and tucked them in my pocket, not even sure why. Then I started to think about how rich I would have felt in possession of a sum like that when I was a child on Coney Island Avenue. Imagine finding such a bounty on the sidewalk? I would have been drunk with wealth! I would have gone straight to the corner store to spend like a tycoon, procuring some blissful combination of candy and comics. Happiness was easy.

I continued my walk along the road that skirts the golf course. It always feels surreal…everything so green and groomed and luminous. I found a few errant golf balls and flung them onto the course, which is always fun, and I asked myself the usual question: How did I end up here? It’s like the grounds of a very exclusive sanitarium. Then there's the procession of dog walkers, and the women in their yoga pants, and I'm startled by the middle school boys speeding back and forth, up and down the hills on their fancy e-bikes, which, Old Biddy that I am, annoys me. (I mean, seriously, you’re 12 years old…use your muscles, develop some strength and technique, those aren’t even bicycles!)

Old dead trees have been cleared from our yard now, and we can see the mountains in full glory. Monte has put blue tape on the floor to show where walls will come down and counters put up, and in March we will get permits to begin remodeling, but in the meantime, I have gotten used to being in a weird state of uncertainty and unfinished-ness which mirrors my state of mind (or maybe has helped create my state of mind). There's no solid ground. It’s good practice, walking where there is no solidity or certitude, leaning back sometimes and letting circumstances catch me, supported by beams of light. I planted crocus bulbs outside the door, and tiny yellow flowers have erupted like smiles. I could be happy here. In fact, I am happy here. It’s the hellscape beyond that is breaking my heart.

I just finished reading a book called The Correspondent about a woman who writes letters, written in the form of letters. It has me thinking about the importance of letters and words, something I have always intuitively known. I do sometimes miss the pages and pages of handwritten letters stuffed into plump stamped envelopes I used to exchange with some friends back in the 70s, and I cherish the pages I still have from my father in his familiar cursive; I parse his words like scripture.. And it occurs to me that this “blog” (unfortunate term) is a form of letter-writing too.

See? It’s the old familiar pleasures and habits that bring comfort. Walks and books and letters and the bright little burst of a crocus.

I grow old, as J. Alfred Prufrock said. I grow old ... I grow old ...I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. (But I actually don’t, because my legs are so banged up and sun-damaged, they are best left unseen.) Sometimes I wake up at night in pain from my arthritic hip, which there has been talk of replacing. In the interim, I have been working on strength, flexibility, and balance at a gym, where my last visit involved, among other things, crawling across the floor, apparently a useful skill, and where with every session I learn new reasons not to take myself too seriously.

I think about my 94-year-old friend who assures me that whatever I am feeling now, if I live to be his age, I will wish I felt that good. Sometimes he just seems tired of living. On the other hand, he looks out at the ocean at Point Conception every day and a shimmering meadow of wind-rippled grass, and he has a room filled with books, and he dons his 1970s trench coat and gets behind the wheel of his little Mercedes and drives a bit fast, and he gave me a calendar called "In Love with Earth 2026".

We are all such contradictions. Being alive is an unlikely gift, but it is also incredibly confusing and challenging. I try to find the balance between masochistic doomscrolling and staying informed. The difference lately blurs. And I mostly feel compassion for humanity, but I am unable to find forgiveness for the ones who are destroying our world and desecrating all that matters, and now, starting a new war—or for those who are complicit.

Meanwhile, as E.B. White famously said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

My friend Kappy and I often talk about the lens through which we choose to see, and that’s an essential trick.

Anyway, I have 26 cents in my pocket.