Then Again - Diane Keaton [62]
I have no grandchildren. I’m not sure at my advanced age that I want any little copies running around. I don’t feel capable of such a responsibility.
My friends are my cats, Perkins and Cyrus. They depend on me for entertainment as well as food and lodging. Being home a lot and having no company but them is an invitation to carry on some interesting conversations. I looked at Perkins in the eye this morning as she was sitting on my bathroom sink, her two lime green eyes locked with mine, and I asked her just what exactly were her goals in life. I was curious. She spends most of the day running from things like footsteps, voices, other cats, people, rain, wind, and radio noise. I wonder how Perkins gets anything worthwhile out of life. Cyrus obeys me when I order him off the counter, but he doesn’t remember to stay off permanently. He does remember to check out the refrigerator whenever the door opens. Finally it’s clear to me that he remembers what he wishes to remember. Quite human.
I read the Los Angeles Times every day, Newsweek magazine weekly, and as much fiction as I can squeeze in. I have an IBM electric typewriter that I use with pleasure. I keep a daily journal. I like books, cats, nice people, good food, bourbon and sometimes gin, writing words, being alone. I LOVE: my husband, my four children, my sisters, my one day at the bookstore, sunsets, the bay in front of our house, my Jaguar, Mary Hall (now), and myself (sometimes). I have weekly visits with a psychiatrist, who is trying to help me see myself in a better light. I have two or three close friends I can talk to openly. Gretchen, Margaret, and Jo. I go months between visits with them. I don’t talk on the phone much. I don’t offer invitations to people, because I fear rejection. I’ve been rejected a number of times. I enjoy working in the darkroom and doing a variety of art projects, with nothing to show for it, of course. I guess I’m a fragmented person. I do nothing really well. I have, at the moment, no motivation.
In Response, Diane at Sixty-three
I’m sixty-three, once five feet seven, now five six. The feelings and thoughts that overwhelmed Dorothy could and do mirror much of what I feel as well. Advanced age? Oh, yeah. Good at anything? I can still memorize lines. Do I fear rejection? I’m an actress. Fragmented? More than most. The difference is—Dorothy at sixty-three was finished raising her four children. At sixty-three, I’m doing what Dorothy did when she was twenty-four.
Yesterday I found Dexter and her new boyfriend of three days, Ben, on video chat. When I confronted her, it was simple: “I’m a video-chat addict, Mom.” A video-chat addict? Does that mean she has an addiction to Facebook as well? How else could she have acquired three hundred fifty friends in less than three weeks? There are so many surprising aspects to Dexter, like how brave she was with Dr. Sherwood, her orthodontist, after he finally recognized that the tissue growing over the screw closing the gap from her missing tooth had to be removed, just as she had told me months ago. When we rushed to the oral surgeon, she never uttered a sound while he extracted the tooth. What a sturdy person; how resilient in the face of pain and fear; how unlike me, her anxious mother.
Then there’s “Duke’s World.” Yesterday I picked him up after school. He barely slammed the car door shut before he launched in on how unfair it is that his friend Jasper, age seven, should have an iPhone when he, eight-year-old Duke, does not. Magnanimously, he offered to buy it with his own money. Knowing he doesn’t have any money made me admire his chutzpah. When I told him I wanted to think about it, he said, “How long?” “For a while.” “When?” “Duke, I’ll tell you later.”