I lied a few times to get a student discount after I’d long since ceased being a student. That was before the proliferation of photo IDs. I was carded for my ID when buying alcohol until I was well into my thirties, which used to gall me to no end. I haven’t been in the states as a senior long enough to take advantage of senior discounts. I remember feeling a bit morose when, out of the blue, I received my AARP member application in the mail.
Up until I left St. Lucia spring a year ago, people generally guessed that I was in my late forties or early fifties and I looked in better shape than a lot of American thirty-somethings (I’m 62) which was a deception, but a gift of fate and a welcome one. Since then I’ve spent a hot summer in the Yucatan interior exploring Mayan ruins, was hospitalized while in Cuba, then,. feeling the pangs of mortality and the ticking clock, I sailed 10,000 miles solo from Cuba to Ascension Island and back to St. Lucia. I barely made it into Barbados where I spent a week in a hospital due to exhaustion. Then the short hop back to the farm on St. Lucia.
When I got back here my produce buyer, who was visibly shocked at my appearance, but always one for the unblemished truth, said I looked like I was in my seventies. My hair is noticeably thinner and grey at the temples (the beginnings of malnutrition), my beard is now snow-white, my skin like dark, wrinkled leather and I’ve lost a lot of muscle mass. I have a slight stoop that I hadn’t had a year ago. I’ll get some of it back with a decent diet, proper hydration, rest. Regular yoga should straighten out the stoop. But most importantly, it is valuable to know, beyond all doubt when it is time to scale it back and keep the distances between friendly ports a bit shorter. I’m older now and I look it, and that’s OK. Now maybe people will stop asking me to lift heavy things for them.