(2 of 2)
This is no country for middle-aged men, Captain Midlife has concluded. Or middle-aged women either, he adds hastily, a person for all seasons. Too much is expected of middle age, too much self-assurance to accommodate the too much power. Better to be chomping on one's salad days. The Captain's children have no difficulty maneuvering through the holidays, flapping like flamingos.
But Captain Midlife is a blinded navigator, frozen at the helm with a hoary smile on his face impossible to read except by other ninnies in their 40s and 50s, who, like him, through no fault of their own, have been handed control of the world. Control of the world? What a snap! It's control of oneself that takes real skill. Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's. An entire stage of life compressed into a symbolic five-week journey of light and dark, crying and singing. And here comes Captain Midlife, dopey as the day is short, hollering orders into the gale, hailing other captains as they pass one another in the night, captains of industry, of law, of medicine, even of ships; every one of them a champion faker, every one knowing that under their stupefying bonhomie thuds the pulse of a hysteric.
Captain Midlife would like to speak with Gorbachev this week. Not about the missiles or Nicaragua -- about middle-agedness. "Mikhail Sergeyevich, don't you feel like throwing in the towel sometimes?" Captain Midlife was watching when Tom Brokaw, another middle-ager, asked, "man to man," what do you think and feel? But Gorbachev could only answer state to man, and the more certain he sounded, the less certain he looked. In middle age the gulf between what you are and who you are is too wide to cross, too -- what? -- extreme. Who knows what turmoil lurks in the hearts of men old enough to remember The Shadow? The Captain knows.
That's about all he knows, besides a few dozen carefully recycled facts, and the tricks of his odd trade, acquired mostly against his will. The rest is a persistent silent prayer that within the boisterous tugs of war, a quiet Intelligence presides, a tone, a voice, a river. Middle age is such a foggy place. Rarely does the Captain catch sight of something clear, and then it seems available only by telescope. Gratitude, generosity, renewal. There! Just for a moment. There!
A woman the Captain loves is dying of cancer in this season. In her eighth decade she has learned to accept life in its small and most cherishable doses: the devotion of her daughter; a few close friends; the animals she hovers over because she realized long ago that she was one of them. Around her country cottage, clouds like barrels rolled in pitch inflate the sky, while at his troubled and uncomfortable distance Captain Midlife stammers consolations wholly unnecessary for such a woman. He beats about preparing for her death. She calmly prepares for Christmas and pokes the fire.