My New Year Message
I turned 72 in September, which is a sort of achievement.
A couple of days ago, I watched the episode of The Crown featuring the wonderful Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret. I should have been more shaken up by Manville's portrayal of the devil-may-care princess's strokes and decline. After her initial stroke, Margaret chose to keep smoking and drinking and partying , and her lifestyle soon killed her.
I'm still here after my 2017 stroke. Probably because I don't smoke, I take my meds, and I cut back on my drinking and partying.
Since my medical calamity, I've written two books, a screenplay, a short story and now a weekly column (in addition to my musings here). I cheered my wife Camille Peri as she finished writing her greatest literary achievement, A Wilder Shore, the chronicle of the bohemian marriage between Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson, which will be released by Viking Penguin in August 2024. We watched our oldest son Joe Talbot win the Best Director Award at the Sundance Film Festival and other plaudits for his remarkable achievement The Last Black Man in San Francisco -- and we'll soon celebrate the college graduation of our youngest son Nathaniel (Nat). I'm so so grateful I lived to do and see all of that.
So it's true -- since my stroke, I've led a full life. I have fun. Yes, I'll always be physically fucked up -- I'm permanently wobbly, walk outdoors with a cane, can't drive etc. Life and its sorrowful news break my heart every day. But I'm glad I'm still alive.
These days, I spend as much time thinking about the past and close ones who've died. Hey, I'm old. But I'm still surrounded by family and friends. I look at flowers and trees with a new sense of wonder. I play old, favorites popular songs and classical pieces -- and I seek out new ones. Books and movies and TV shows too. I cry and laugh and FEEL more surprisingly. I find older women, women my age, interesting and erotic. They've led full lives, too. They have many stories -- and secrets -- to share.
Is that the best way to go out? Is it better to fade or implode? My (relatively) steady life ? Or that of Princess Margaret? We all die sooner or later.
I'm not looking forward to the New Year. The presidential race is already a shit-show. Yes, Bobby Kennedy Jr. is in the race, thank god. I welcome his candidacy despite what the NYT, NPR, MSNBC, AP etc tell you ad nauseam. RFK Jr. -- among the major presidential candidates -- is the only one who honestly articulates what is ailing America as it enters its turbulent period of imperial decline. He's the only candidate who talks about the rampant corporate corruption, political chaos, gluttony, environmental destruction and violence. Yes, and the monstrous rise of Big Pharma. But Bobby won't jump again in the polls until he tells the full truth about Israel and Palestine.
America desperately needs to have a national dialogue about its future -- one without acrimony and bitterness. We desperately need a new, national, citizens' movement for peace and justice. But I don't see that happening. Instead, we're fragmented and stupefied.
Are we old ones leaving something of worth behind, some guidance for the younger ones? I suppose that's why I practiced the oppositional journalism I did, why I wrote my books. I'm so glad when I hear that they have enlightened and inspired younger readers.
And so as the beast slouches toward Bethlehem, as we stumble into 2024, I'm not hopeful. But I'm still breathing. So are you.
What are we going to do about it?
(By the way, this illustration came from the Wonewoc (Wisconsin) Public Library. Support your local library.)
