I am a sexagenarian vampire.
I had no choice about becoming a sexagenarian. Actuarial odds being what they are, most of you reading these words will one day become sexagenarians yourselves. You live long enough, and you automatically enlist among the sexagenarian rank and file, often baffled as to how those hours and days sped so swiftly by. (You can probably tell I’m fond of the word sexagenarian).
But the vampire that lives in me needs some explanation.
I had no choice about becoming a sexagenarian. Actuarial odds being what they are, most of you reading these words will one day become sexagenarians yourselves. You live long enough, and you automatically enlist among the sexagenarian rank and file, often baffled as to how those hours and days sped so swiftly by. (You can probably tell I’m fond of the word sexagenarian).
But the vampire that lives in me needs some explanation.
First, rest assured I don’t have fangs, I wouldn’t drink blood even during a Maasai cocktail party, and I can’t flit around bat-like beneath the street lamps in the middle of the night. Sleeping all day in a coffin like your run-of-the-mill vampire would give me the creeps—I much prefer the memory foam mattress my daughter and son-in-law recently gave me—and swooshing about in a black cape might be acceptable in Asheville, my former residence, but would likely lead to my arrest here in Front Royal, Virginia.
Of course, all of us share some characteristics with these evil creatures. A stake driven through the heart would kills us just as dead as it would Count Dracula, and most of us, like the good Count, would avoid anyone wearing a necklace of garlic, a traditional defense against vampires. If you’re like me, you prefer your garlic finely chopped and served up in gazpacho or pasta sauce, not as a piece of reeking jewelry.
That said, I nonetheless find myself possessed of two of the telltale signs normally associated with vampires.
First, I avoid looking at myself in mirrors. Vampires shy away from mirrors because they cast no reflection in the glass, which strikes most of us as odd, but it’s apparently a dead give-away. Side note: if you have friends or relatives you suspect of being a vampires, simply tell them a bit of spinach has become lodged in their front teeth and hand them a small mirror. If they refuse the mirror, wave a bit of garlic in their direction and see what happens.
Like vampires, I shun mirrors—not because I can’t see myself in the glass, but precisely because I can. The sight of my aged face—and if I am stepping from a shower before a full mirror, my aged body—is always a shock. Like many sexagenarians, when I think of my physical appearance I see in my imagination a thirty-year-old, forty tops. Gazing, or even glancing, into a mirror shatters that illusion. So years ago I learned to perform my morning and evening ablutions—shaving, brushing my teeth, combing my hair, and so on—without really seeing myself in the looking-glass. It’s an easy trick to pick up. In shaving, for example, you simply focus on the lathered cheek and the scraping of the blade, and leave the rest of the face out of the picture.
Of course, every once in a while, sometimes deliberately, sometimes not, I do find that face in the mirror floating before my eyes. “The horror! The horror!” Kurtz whispers in Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness, and I whisper along with him as I take in the wrinkled brow, age spots, graying hair, crow’s feet, laugh lines, rubicund cheeks, and circles beneath the patriotic eyes, patriotic because typically my cornea and iris are colored red, white, and blue.
One such encounter, even of a few seconds duration, can put me off mirrors for months at a time.
Then there’s the matter of sunshine.
According to some legends, vampires blister or die when exposed to sunlight. Like leprechauns and some other mythical folk, vampires can only walk the earth in the darkness of night. Come dawn, they must return to their caskets, pull closed the lids, and dream of the next throat into which they can sink their wicked fangs.
I find myself in the same boat—or coffin, if you will. For several years, I have gone to a dermatologist for skin cancer caused by a lifetime enjoying the sun. On each trip this good physician burns away a few spots from my forehead, then admonishes me to avoid the sun and wear either sunscreen or a hat when outside. Because I dislike hats and smearing gobs of oil on my face, I frequently expose myself to sunlight, feeling guilt at what used to be one of the greatest of pleasures, the splashing of sunlight on my face.
Once the doc suggested I try some medicinal cream, Carac, a lotion that, if applied daily for a week or so, would burn away my tiny bits of cancerous pods. I thought he told me the cost of this potion was $80, but when the pharmacist handed me the tiny cylinder, smaller than a tube of toothpaste, he said, “That will be eight hundred dollars.” I won’t repeat here the thoughts that shot through my head; let’s just say they will likely be my last words should I someday die in a head-on crash with a tractor-trailer truck. “Of course,” the pharmacist added, “with your insurance the cost is only $200.”
As I say, all my life I have loved the sunshine. Looking at the light dripping through the trees and dancing across the lawn from the inside of a house, or watching the midday sun burn the sand on a beach from a covered deck, brings certain delights, but it’s never the same as the feel of the sun on the flesh so enjoyed in the easy and innocent nonchalance of my younger days. Now all that has changed: what once pleased and gratified has now become an enemy.
Being a sexagenarian brings its challenges, but being part-vampire is no picnic either.
Who knew?
Of course, all of us share some characteristics with these evil creatures. A stake driven through the heart would kills us just as dead as it would Count Dracula, and most of us, like the good Count, would avoid anyone wearing a necklace of garlic, a traditional defense against vampires. If you’re like me, you prefer your garlic finely chopped and served up in gazpacho or pasta sauce, not as a piece of reeking jewelry.
That said, I nonetheless find myself possessed of two of the telltale signs normally associated with vampires.
First, I avoid looking at myself in mirrors. Vampires shy away from mirrors because they cast no reflection in the glass, which strikes most of us as odd, but it’s apparently a dead give-away. Side note: if you have friends or relatives you suspect of being a vampires, simply tell them a bit of spinach has become lodged in their front teeth and hand them a small mirror. If they refuse the mirror, wave a bit of garlic in their direction and see what happens.
Like vampires, I shun mirrors—not because I can’t see myself in the glass, but precisely because I can. The sight of my aged face—and if I am stepping from a shower before a full mirror, my aged body—is always a shock. Like many sexagenarians, when I think of my physical appearance I see in my imagination a thirty-year-old, forty tops. Gazing, or even glancing, into a mirror shatters that illusion. So years ago I learned to perform my morning and evening ablutions—shaving, brushing my teeth, combing my hair, and so on—without really seeing myself in the looking-glass. It’s an easy trick to pick up. In shaving, for example, you simply focus on the lathered cheek and the scraping of the blade, and leave the rest of the face out of the picture.
Of course, every once in a while, sometimes deliberately, sometimes not, I do find that face in the mirror floating before my eyes. “The horror! The horror!” Kurtz whispers in Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness, and I whisper along with him as I take in the wrinkled brow, age spots, graying hair, crow’s feet, laugh lines, rubicund cheeks, and circles beneath the patriotic eyes, patriotic because typically my cornea and iris are colored red, white, and blue.
One such encounter, even of a few seconds duration, can put me off mirrors for months at a time.
Then there’s the matter of sunshine.
According to some legends, vampires blister or die when exposed to sunlight. Like leprechauns and some other mythical folk, vampires can only walk the earth in the darkness of night. Come dawn, they must return to their caskets, pull closed the lids, and dream of the next throat into which they can sink their wicked fangs.
I find myself in the same boat—or coffin, if you will. For several years, I have gone to a dermatologist for skin cancer caused by a lifetime enjoying the sun. On each trip this good physician burns away a few spots from my forehead, then admonishes me to avoid the sun and wear either sunscreen or a hat when outside. Because I dislike hats and smearing gobs of oil on my face, I frequently expose myself to sunlight, feeling guilt at what used to be one of the greatest of pleasures, the splashing of sunlight on my face.
Once the doc suggested I try some medicinal cream, Carac, a lotion that, if applied daily for a week or so, would burn away my tiny bits of cancerous pods. I thought he told me the cost of this potion was $80, but when the pharmacist handed me the tiny cylinder, smaller than a tube of toothpaste, he said, “That will be eight hundred dollars.” I won’t repeat here the thoughts that shot through my head; let’s just say they will likely be my last words should I someday die in a head-on crash with a tractor-trailer truck. “Of course,” the pharmacist added, “with your insurance the cost is only $200.”
As I say, all my life I have loved the sunshine. Looking at the light dripping through the trees and dancing across the lawn from the inside of a house, or watching the midday sun burn the sand on a beach from a covered deck, brings certain delights, but it’s never the same as the feel of the sun on the flesh so enjoyed in the easy and innocent nonchalance of my younger days. Now all that has changed: what once pleased and gratified has now become an enemy.
Being a sexagenarian brings its challenges, but being part-vampire is no picnic either.
Who knew?
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