Foreseeable Futures
Though she doesn鈥檛 say so, doesn鈥檛 have to say so, my musician-wife savors life. Wakes up ready to make coffee, thinking, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 for breakfast?鈥 Later, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 for lunch?鈥 and then, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 for dinner?鈥 Among the many things that please her, there鈥檚 playing piano for hours at a time (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Debussy, a jazz version of Paul McCartney鈥檚 鈥淏lackbird鈥); Afro-Cuban dance classes; Tahitian dance classes; cooking; hiking with a friend. Also, shopping for clothes or gear at very low, bargain prices.
One recent dawn, as I paused in front of the Berkeley cottage about to start my slow morning walk, my wife jogged down the street wearing her new backpack. Off to San Francisco on BART for a hike and a run at Land鈥檚 End鈥攖raining for a half-marathon. Then a stop at the Museum of Modern Art. Planning to bring back lunch for us from the Ferry Building before getting ready to go teach.
One鈥檚 wife jogging down the street. Standing still, noting how fast the distance between us grew, I watched as she disappeared from view. Reflected for a moment or two on disappearings.
The process of my wife going down the street and out of sight transpired at a pace far faster than I can currently move, a pace at which I used to be able to run without effort. I was both happy for my wife鈥檚 happiness and鈥ot melancholic, but鈥ensive. Contemplating the difference between my now and my how-it-used-to-be; contemplating what might be ahead. That my wife has鈥攇ods willing鈥攆ar more life ahead of her than I do. That I鈥檝e been able to care for her in difficult times, probably won鈥檛 be able to do so if and when.
Just a moment of watching my wife disappear. Seeing her one instant, not seeing her the next.
Another day. Heading out for one of my daily walks. 鈥淚鈥檒l be right back,鈥 I call to my wife. 鈥淪ee you soon.鈥
Not so very long ago, a tenth wedding anniversary, then a fifteenth: each observed quietly, just the two of us. And? Another ten years, another five?
Even after this time together, my wife still wonders how it happened to happen. Again asks, 鈥淲hy us?鈥
Fair question. Some 7.7 billion humans on Earth? Born in cities 8,000 air miles apart? Born into different languages, different language 鈥渇amilies鈥? Not to mention intricacies of male鈥/鈥 female dating & mating, cohabitation, householding. Differing sleep cycles. Age differences. Perhaps the odds were against us. But, somehow, we鈥檝e been鈥攏ot proven to be, but have seemed鈥攃ompatible, well suited. A good match. So far.
As I wrote in Here and Gone, one of my wife鈥檚 wicked 鈥渟olutions鈥 to the question of 鈥淲hy us?鈥 has been to describe our past life. We鈥檙e together because we were together before. Of course manifested as different selves then, in different roles. Stipulate that way back when she was (far) more in charge.
Not that we鈥檙e talking only former lives. There鈥檚 also the next life, even what my wife terms 鈥渢he next-next鈥 life. How long it may take, you see, for me to regain, say, my musician鈥檚 chops so we can perform together.
Do you wonder if I believe in previous lives or ones to come. Do I imagine a moment my wife and I encounter each other, hug, as in an old movie, say, 鈥淒arling, it鈥檚 been ages.鈥
And does she? Well, frankly, as the politicians in Washington can鈥檛 not say when they鈥檙e about to misrepresent or deceive, frankly I try to keep an open mind. And not just for domestic tranquility.
Two thoughts:
1. My wife is very good at teasing, masterful at keeping a straight face.
2. How disprove, for instance, reincarnation?
Though 鈥淲hy us?鈥 has yet to cost either of us any sleep, I have my own take on the issue. No doubt it鈥檚 professional bias, but I鈥檝e suggested to my wife that what鈥檚 important is what we鈥檝e made of our fifteen-plus years together. That is, story we鈥檝e been telling ourselves. Are telling ourselves. Story we鈥檝e become, though I remind her that even in just this one life it鈥檚 not final.
Story we鈥檙e still becoming? Making my point, I鈥檓 careful not to mention, say, Chinua Achebe鈥檚 Things Fall Apart.
So: heading out the front door. 鈥淪ee you soon,鈥 I call.
And, I鈥檝e said to my wife more than once, when we鈥檝e encountered yet another health problem of mine, having to discuss eventualities: 鈥淎fter I鈥檓 gone…鈥
And, something she鈥檚 said, but only a few times. 鈥淎fter you鈥檙e gone…鈥
惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠
Honolulu. Break of day. Again this small beach. Ghost crabs, low tide, nearly spent waves. Ocean: living and breathing membrane shore to horizon. My church and office. Writer, alchemizing water into words.
So many years here. Time keeps passing. A few years ago, more heart trouble. My surf buddy, a doctor, asked, 鈥淒o you want to live until you鈥檙e eighty-five?鈥 Arguing, 鈥淚f you don鈥檛 get a second opinion, you might die anytime.鈥 But to live if things get worse? When things get worse?
More than forty years ago, morning twilight at my church and office, I鈥檇 nod hello to a woman 鈥済etting on in years.鈥 Or 鈥渟howing her age,鈥 as people also put it in my Boston childhood. Or, they鈥檇 say, 鈥淪he lived to a ripe old age.鈥 Ripe, but as with fruit, suggesting a trend toward overripe.
Or, back in the day, someone 鈥渄ropped dead.鈥 鈥淜eeled over.鈥 Keeled! I was in my twenties on an oceangoing sailing vessel before I saw the noun inside the verb. Visualized a hull, capsized ship.
But about that frail elder before sunrise: 鈥渨rinkled as sea-sand and old as the sea,鈥 as poet Edith Sitwell wrote. Very short, stooped, recently widowed. Given her struggles with the slippery stairs, down from the seawall and back up after each brief swim, her several daily visits to this small beach seemed strongly motivated. Admirable; compulsive. As, two times a day鈥/鈥 day after day鈥/鈥塭very single day I鈥檇 head out to surf鈥攁dmirably; compulsively?鈥擨 wondered how often this woman had to enter the ocean.
How often? Just often enough to stay afloat, I concluded.
Afloat. Now, more than forty years later, for me today it鈥檚 not riding waves. Knees aching, no popping up off the board as I take the drop. Instead, a very slow swim out the channel to the reefs. Then past surfers lifting and falling during the lulls, carving waves when the next set arrives. Into open ocean.
First swim of the day, second with the goatfish at sunset. Black bathing suit. Black neoprene cap for shaved head, black two-millimeter-thick, long-sleeved wetsuit jacket: wind chill, blood gettin鈥 thinner. Goggles. No fins. No 鈥淎ustralian crawl鈥 as we called it on frigid New England lakes when I was a skinny, shivering, blue-lipped child. No crawl, just a calm and steady breaststroke. Pull, glide, kick; breath in, breath out. Breath autopilot set to, setting itself to ON.
Hypnotic. Beyond intent. Might this be what positive spirits term 鈥渁quatic mindfulness meditation鈥? Concentration鈥/鈥 serenity鈥/ 鈥bliss?
Nope. No dry-land therapies, please. Is the deep blue not indifferent, unsentimental, without memory? In the ocean, one has to consent to surrender.
On land, one usually moves on the stable horizontal, not aware of even worms just underneath. Terra firma. On this mirrored surface, however, it鈥檚 inescapable there鈥檚 much going on right below鈥攖he mostly unseen, often imminent.
Water can also break up anything structured, anything not in the moment. Regressing you back to what Mircea Eliade called 鈥渢he undifferentiated mode of pre-existence.鈥
Sometimes, when I鈥檝e returned to shore, shedding cap and goggles in the shallows, wetsuit jacket intimating commitment to strenuous immersion, someone asks how far I went. I could say, 鈥淎 half hour or so outbound,鈥 though I鈥檝e never timed it. Wearing a watch in the water? No. Machine time versus dream time. It鈥檚 not that time doesn鈥檛 pass either way, but humans have lived most of the species鈥 existence without timepieces. Without time measured in pieces.
Nonetheless, it鈥檚 out toward the interface of sea and sky far enough to, but only so far as to鈥攔eflexively鈥/鈥 inadvertently鈥/鈥 prudently鈥remember (?) to turn around. Though who鈥檚 doing the remembering, or, what part of who, is unclear.
At last, approaching the beach, taking a rest. On my back. Afloat. Looking up: moon; frigate bird; two fairy terns; planet. Occasional rainbow sign. Double rainbow. 鈥淏etween the earth and sky, thought I heard my Savior cry,鈥 goes the spiritual.
But how or why convey any of this to someone who asked only, 鈥淗ow far did you go?鈥 As novelist Bernard Malamud responded to an interviewer鈥檚 interrogative, 鈥淲hat is the question asking?鈥
鈥淗ow far did you go?鈥 I鈥檓 tempted to reply, sometimes do reply, 鈥湶汛潜舸前觳光榠.鈥
This archipelago. Eight islands; atolls, islets, seamounts. Fifteen hundred miles SE to NW across the Tropic of Cancer, from 154掳40鈥 to 178掳25鈥 W longitude and 18掳54鈥 to 28掳15鈥 N latitude.
If the askers don鈥檛 know much about where they are, they nod assent, like mariners receiving their bearings. But if a fisherman, surfer, sailor, or waterman does the asking, and I say 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠? We laugh. From this coast to the island of 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠 is more than thirty miles. 鈥淕oing to 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠 was tough,鈥 I like to add, 鈥渂ut coming back was a nightmare.鈥
Channels: growing up, I imbibed something about bounded bodies of water. Nantucket Sound, and, Over There, the English Channel, Strait of Gibraltar. But not, back then, the 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠 Channel. Or, its Hawaiian name, the Kaiwi Channel.
A brutal swim, 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠 to O鈥榓hu, though not impossible. For great water athletes with escort vessels carrying food, lubricants, and safety gear, it鈥檚 twelve, fifteen, or seventeen hours at the shortest crossing鈥檚 twenty-six miles. With, predictably, ferocious winds and currents, high surf, stinging jellyfish, tiger sharks, and, as sweetener, volcanic ash鈥攙og鈥攖o impair breathing.
As for swimming from O鈥榓hu to 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠? Seems only two remarkable swimmers have ever carried it off. Not, even, yours truly. Just a running joke. Like telling basketball鈥搄unkie friends who know better that, regrettably, I can no longer dunk. As if I ever could.
Thus my own private 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠 until not long ago, after open heart-surgery back at age seventy. I pause to acknowledge my surprise yet again writing this number. Seventy; 70. But I鈥檇 survived the operation, heart-lung bypass machine allowing my heart and lungs to be still for鈥 few hours. Truly extracorporeal! Gifted surgeon splitting my sternum. Professing himself not miniaturist but minimalist: small-as-possible incision facilitating recovery.
And then, several years later, total knee replacement. Brilliant techniques and technology. Rehab strenuous, some healing, but then setbacks. Chronic pain, that euphemism. I was in bed, bedridden, rider of my bed. 鈥淗aggard rider,鈥 I鈥檇 tell myself, remembering Sir Henry Rider Haggard, author of King Solomon鈥檚 Mines, a childhood favorite. Some play on words! I was majoring in self-pity, minoring in misery.
If you live long enough, you learn there are lines you once read that stayed right with you. Set in a prison in Stalin鈥檚 gulag, Solzhenitsyn鈥檚 In the First Circle was first published in English in 1968. In the novel, mathematician Nerzhin remembers a proverb: 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 drown in the sea, you drown in a puddle.鈥 Post-surgery, that was me all over. Drowning in a puddle.
Back in my forties, thinking of Queequeg鈥檚 canoe-coffin in Moby Dick, and reading about a retired seventy-two-year-old who died surfing, I thought it wouldn鈥檛 be a bad way to go. Out on the waves one day during a surfer鈥檚 funeral as ashes were strewn and leis placed, I imagined being cycled and recycled in the tropics. To return as warm rain.
But now, bedridden, rider of my bed? Poet Marianne Moore came to mind. 鈥淭he sea is a collector,鈥 she wrote. And, 鈥渢he sea has nothing to give but a well excavated grave.鈥
I thought also of Tennyson鈥檚 Ulysses, ship at the dock, setting out 鈥渢o Sail beyond the sunset, and the baths鈥/鈥塐f all the western stars, until I die.鈥
And I recalled Ahab鈥檚 melodramatic exchange with his first mate in Moby Dick: 鈥淪ome men die at the ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of the flood;鈥攁nd I feel now like a billow that鈥檚 all one crested comb, Starbuck. I am old鈥攕hake hands with me, man.鈥
Bedridden. When my wife, checking on me, would read my grim mood, she鈥檇 inquire, 鈥淲hat are you grinding on?鈥 Not that I was up for being interrogated. Too much to say, too much that couldn鈥檛 be said.
One day, however, channeling Ahab, I came up with, 鈥淚鈥檓 going out with the tide.鈥
鈥淲hat鈥檚 that supposed to mean?鈥 my wife asked, reasonably enough.
I took some time. 鈥湶汛潜舸前觳光榠,鈥 I responded.
Though my wife has spent much of the last decade in Hawai鈥榠 with me, her time is not in the moana, ocean, but hiking in the Ko鈥榦lau Range. Or at her halau鈥擳ahitian dance school with its kumu, teacher. This dancing: on dry land but waves! cascades! torrents! of relentless drumming. Layered frenzied pitch chattering, impelling the dancers鈥 shaking鈥/ 鈥塺otating鈥/鈥 gyrating hips and pelvises. She鈥檚 determined to improve her fa鈥檃rapu, ami, and ruru. And oh, the regret of not having started as a child! My musician-wife also studying the percussion, sometimes herself one of the halau鈥檚 drummers.
鈥淪o what about 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠?鈥 a Tahitian dance zealot asks a querulous husband. For her, 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠 is an island we鈥檝e yet to visit.
Another pause. Choosing my words. 鈥淚鈥檓 going to swim to 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠.鈥
鈥淎nd?鈥 my wife said, trying to move the exchange along.
Though I wasn鈥檛 myself, lately鈥攏ot hardly鈥攕he鈥檇 assumed I knew what I鈥檓 doing in the ocean. It was my thing. Always had been, she gathered. Also, given how curt and ill-tempered I鈥檇 been, if I said I was going to swim to 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠, then, very well, I was going to swim to 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠.
I was tired of withholding.
鈥淚鈥檓 going to swim to 惭辞濒辞办补鈥榠,鈥 I told my wife, 鈥渂ut no way I鈥檓 going to make it.鈥
Thomas Farber has been a Fulbright Scholar, awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and three times National Endowment fellowships for fiction and creative nonfiction, recipient of the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize, and Rockefeller Foundation scholar at Bellagio. His recent books include Penultimates, Here and Gone, The End of My Wits, Brief Nudity, and The Beholder. Former visiting writer at Swarthmore College and the University of Hawai鈥榠, he teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.