Essay: Captain Midlife Sends a Valentine

Valentine's Day approaches. So many hearts still to be won, muses Captain Midlife as he studies his magnified decaying face in the shaving mirror, while striving to put the picture of T.S. Eliot's Sweeney out of his mind.

Out of his mind, indeed. The quavering romantic nature flops like a landed fish but never expires entirely, our middle-aged boy discovers. Debts pound at the door like crazy firemen; responsibilities rise like dunes on the Cape; girls in their 20s call him Sir (Oh, call me Captain); and still our hero hopes. Will love come to Captain Midlife? Has it been there all along? Stay tuned as the insomniac, not-yet-ancient mariner rests his head on the railing at a Knicks-Bulls game in which he is Air-Jordaning three feet over the rim | one moment and the next eloping in a Chevrolet Impala with that remarkably attractive blond behind the refreshment stand, the one lathering mustard on the franks.

He could build a wonderful life with her; he is absolutely certain of that. They could pass delightful days discussing the netherworld of basketball arenas, talking of crowd control, relish, ramps. Or would it be better to start life over again with the lady cop in the subway? She looked mighty fetching in blue. A life of summonses and judo. Or the solemn woman at the rent-a-car counter? A prospect of long nights spent writing their initials inside little circles. The cashier at the A&P? The jogger with the Westie? The Captain confesses that he is much taken with that lanky public defender on TV, the one who never smiles and who dresses like Alcott and Andrews. Late dinner conversations on civil rights and torts (Have a tort?). How about Alcott, or Andrews?

You see, Captain Midlife has never got it into his thick if frangible skull that his life is exactly where it is, consisting of a loving wife, three loving children and a loving dog, which, while no Westie, has much fine oddness to recommend it. Well, sometimes he understands this, and sometimes he does not. When he does not, his mind packs up its belongings and sets sail like Ulysses (the very first Captain Midlife), hopping from port to port, dreaming up a storm. The Captain knows too well what the voyage of Ulysses was all about. Circe gives the old come-hither. Calypso does her little dance. The Sirens sing. No need to tie the buzzard to the mast. He's been tied there all along. The Odyssey: one long wild fling.

But in reality the Captain stays close to shore these days, and there he often amazes himself by falling in love with his actual surroundings. Middle age expands one's range of loving, discovers Captain Midlife. The objects of his deepest affection are things he once ignored or took for granted.

Such as his house. Suddenly the Captain finds that he cares strongly for his house: tables, doorknobs, chests of drawers. Finicky as a clerk, he keeps his house shipshape, puts up a shelf, arranges the flowers. Is that you, Captain Sloppy? Everything in its place, replies the Captain, who finds himself included in the everything.