Torschlusspanik

There's a German word for it - torschlusspanik - meaning there's not enough time, meaning the fear that the time to act is running out. A last minute panic. In ancient days it meant hustling back into the village before the gates closed and locked a poor pilgrim out for the long, cold, dangerous night. Growing older puts the emphasis on this: do I have enough time to do what? To finish doing what? To get it all done? To get what done? So, growing older and laboring under the impression that there wasn't enough time left, all of a sudden, I need as much time as I can get. It's - as the great Yogi Berra said - deja vu all over again. My son, his significant other, and my grandson are moving back home - Here! - Our house! - Home! Back home. Just when we thought it was safe to float a little. Just when we no longer needed eyes in the backs of our heads. Just when we thought we were finished struggling with a little boy's shoes and socks. Just when we thought we were finished with eternal sniffles, constant colds, outright flues. Just when we thought...I don't know what we thought. It wasn't unexpected. We felt it coming. Still. What now?

We first bought our house forty years ago - mid career, pre-kids. The deed dates back to 1828,  a big, old, white sided Catskill farm house with a hand stacked stone foundation. Nothing fancy, but big, and we bought it with every dish, fork, spoon, knife, towel, and sheet in stock, even some of the furniture, the beds and dining room chairs and tables in particular. It had been operating as a hunting lodge with thirteen bedrooms each with its own sink with a spring on the faucet that turned it off automatically. What the hell are we gonna do with all this house I wondered and said so aloud? I think my exact words were, "What the f***..." etc. However, it came with 104 acres attached to the Catskill State Forest Preserve. Forever Wild. Sold. We knocked out rooms. It became livable. Guests came and didn't want to leave. Lots of them. Many left hiking boots, skis and snowshoes behind. They'd be back. Come the Fall my hunting buddies and I would criss cross back and forth then come back inside to a hot beef stew made by Jamie. She was never a farm wife but the best companion imaginable. Summer. Fall. Winter. The house was full. Not so much in mud season but full otherwise. And then came GreenePlays. As if we didn't have enough to do. Jamie, I, and the sisters Brooke and Lynne Adams began a theatre in a barn devoted to new plays. Forty actors and crew living in our house night and day. A cook from Texas who shuddered in the morning chill. A crew that co-opted a large storage room as a dorm and nicknamed it the Rambo Room. Even a production that moved to NYC. Back to my original question: what're we gonna do with all this house? And now we're gonna do it all over again.

I can only say, "Wish us luck." I am eighty-two and Jamie was just seventy-six, so we're in for another ride, a new beginning. Deja vu all over again. Are we excited? Thrilled? Feeling blessed at having a daughter right next door a jump across the brook , and son and grandson within the walls? You bet, but limitations are obvious, and I'd be lying if I said, "No problem." The combined aches of mine and J's feel like a cold wind blowing through a scrap metal bone yard. The fourteen stairs from first floor to second are inching towards Everest. Milky Ways and speed are no longer ways to pour on the energy. Gotta stay healthy, alert, steady, eat well, drink water...Tomorrow I need to go to the elementary school to begin the process of enrollment for kindergarten. Pick up the packet from the principal's office. The principal's office! Jesus, I haven't been in high school for three score and more years, yet I'm still rattled by the thought of going to that damn principal's office. Chester Katemcamp was his name. My first principal at the elite high school I attended.

And should we get a new puppy, too?