There's a 94 year old man who lives in the same apartment complex as my parents. His hands are knarled with tree-trunk veins and goosebumpy, yellowed fingernails. I suspect he can't see much through coke-bottle glasses, but he still, fascinatingly, has all his coarse brown-grey hair. Every morning he takes the elevator down from his apartment to the small gym in the lobby of my parent's building, ensconsed in a wheelchair bearing an orange flag, the kind you'd see on the back of a child's bicycle.
I've seen him there almost every time I visit my parents: rowing, achingly slow. Lifting ten pound weights up up over his head on beef jerky arms, grimacing with the effort. I always wonder if his teeth are real as he bares them and then immediately think: nothing is real after 94 years.
He makes effort to talk to me everytime he sees me, and I lean in my ear toward his mouth to hear him because his speech sounds underwater, and it seems to take a lot of effort.
"Young lady," he called to me as I was punching buttons on the treadmill, getting ready for a run beside him as he painstakingly teetered on the rower.
"I'm not sure i'm that young,"I answered and I smiled because he has lived triple my years, of course I am young to him.
"Young lady,"he repeated, and stared at me through those crazy coke bottle glasses, watery grey-blue eyes,"Do you want to know the secret to longevity?"
"I do,"I say, and I smile because he has told me this before.
"Whisky every night,"he says with a conspiratory wink,"But only one. And." He pauses as he always does: "You have children?"
"One,"I say,"A little boy, almost 5."
"One child,"he says,"Any more'll just give you stress. One is enough to know what that love is all about. Everything in moderation: whiskly and kids."
I nod and thank him again, and set the speed on the treadmill to 8. No, 9. 9 with a motherfucking hill, I want to kill this. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as I crank up Nine Inch Nails on my iPod. I am not good at moderation.
***
I work my ass off at the gym everyday I find it hard to go slow on our Sunday gentle runs along the sea wall. I sleep with my Blackberry by our bed (to Corey's chagrin) in case there's a work problem in the middle of the night and I have to address it immediately.
I've always been the type to obsess - about work, home, sport, men, spirituality - everything. I'm heavily disciplined in my eating most of the time except when I'm not: then I'll go for the cheesecake ice cream and the baguette with butter and brie. Most fitness books I read eschew alcohol but Corey and I like to go out and drink sangria on patios on weekends. This isn't always done in moderation. I inhale books in one sitting, retain friendships with blind loyalty. I fell in love and moved in with Corey less than 3 months after we met. There is very little moderation in anything I do. And I think that's OK.
In fact, I think it's cool to go off the deep end every so often. I think it might be necessary to keep everything else in check. Yes: I could subsist on lean protein and spinach, work out everyday, and refrain totally from beer and wing night on Wednesdays. I could take deep breaths and wade out once in a while instead of hucking myself in full force without checking for rocks and currents. Maybe I'd live a few years longer. Maybe I'd live till 94 if I toned it down a bit.But I'd prefer to work hard and play hard full tilt.
I might not know until I'm 94, but I suspect that there is no single answer to long life and happiness. I'm willing to forego the advice of a potentially very wise old man: and do things fast and furious and determinedly until I don't want to anymore, when I will go onto something else. Undoubtedly, I'll do it with as much fervour and vigour and borderline recklessness as I do with everything else. And that's OK by me.
***
What do you think of the adage "Everything in Moderation"? Totally wise? It seems to be the common belief but I wonder how many people refute it to do their own thing.
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