Posted on by rjonakait

Not the Place to Die

On a previous trip to Florida, we had identified a continuing care community that interested us, but on our most recent visit we no longer liked it. My nephew asked me what had changed our minds.

The spouse and I have toured about a dozen continuing care places, or as I put it, places to die. We have concentrated on Type A communities. That means that the community has facilities for four types of care—independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing facilities, and memory care. The fee structures require a hefty sum to enter and then monthly fees that are also hefty. In a Type A community, however, the monthly fee does not increase should a resident move to a higher level of care. In other words, if I am paying $7,500 a month for independent living, I will continue to pay $7,500 if I move into assisted living even though the facility provides more care than I received before.

What I get for my monthly fee is similar from place to place but never precisely the same. Of course, the fee covers the rent for my apartment, utilities, real estate taxes, and usually weekly or biweekly housekeeping services. Some sort of meal plan is included. Sometimes this is a meal a day or thirty meals a month. In others, residents draw down from a set amount of monthly money. For example, residents may be “given” $350 each month, and this decreases each time the resident orders something. The food is generally cheaper than it would be in a commercial restaurant. The facility may have healthcare such as a nurse practitioner on site, and there is no additional charge for a visit to the nurse. They have aides for an emergency such as a fall. All seem to provide transportation weekly or semi-weekly to grocery stores, perhaps a mall, and religious services. The monthly fee also includes the use of the facilities such as a fitness center and meeting rooms. Many, but not all, have a swimming pool.

The places to die that the spouse and I have visited have 300-400 residents. Many have small, freestanding homes, often called villas, and two or three apartment building that connect with each other. The interconnected buildings almost always contain the public facilities—dining rooms, fitness center, etc. That ability to utilize facilities without going outside has seemed attractive, especially if the mobility of the spouse with her disability becomes worse, and she starts to use something like an electric scooter to get around.

The Florida place that interested us was larger — about 1,200 residents. That increased size allowed it to support better facilities than other places. It had five or six restaurants, while others have two or three. It had at least two fitness rooms that were well-equipped and staffed, good meeting rooms, a theater, and an aquatic center that many resorts would have been proud of. This included two swimming pools, one of which was an excellent lap pool, a spa, and two nearby pickleball courts.

It did not have the usual interconnecting buildings. Instead, in addition to some villas, this “village” had six or so separate 8-12 story buildings set around two “lakes” on seventy acres. It was necessary to go outside to utilize many of the facilities, but that seemed ok in Florida where the sun always shines (right?).

One of the buildings was brand new. It had lovely apartments with interesting floor plans. We have lived in a distinctive place for a long time and are spoiled by it. Moving into an ordinary apartment box, while perhaps inevitable, is not our first choice. So this was appealing. The place also cost less than many of the continuing care places we had seen in the north.

On our first visit we were only there for a couple of hours, and we didn’t think we should decide based on that. The marketing department said that we could come back for a two-night stay, and we decided to do that. Our concern was not the physical plant, apartment designs, or costs, but something more intangible–would we feel comfortable with the residents.

The spouse and I are lucky in having a broad circle of interesting friends. From our careers, we know scientists, lawyers, and academics, but we also spend time with full-time moms; a NYC reporter; an international correspondent; a marine engineer; investment bankers; Wall Street speculators; artists; a private equity entrepreneur; school teachers; a corporate financial officer; the head of an adoption agency; New York City government officials; architects; potters; bankruptcy specialists; a minister; nurses; owners of a boutique clothing company; restaurateurs; caterers; real estate managers; authors; workers in the tech industry; analysts for the Fed; a furniture company manager; an owner of a bar. You get the idea.

Most of these people are of my generation, but they are not stuck in the past. They often refer to an experience from earlier in their lives, but usually this is done to advance something in the present conversation. We may be old, but we don’t just look backward. When you are younger, fresh input comes from work and social life. That is less true at our age, but our friends are still mentally vibrant; they still want to learn; they are aware of current affairs and fashion and sports; they read all sorts of things, watch different kinds of streaming shows, go to plays and movies, attend concerts and exhibitions. I am lucky to have friends who regularly bring something new to the conversational table and who, in doing so, keep me more mentally alive.

The spouse and I don’t expect to duplicate our circle of friends in some new place, but we hope to find people who, because of their curiosity, knowledge, and activities, will be interesting to be with. We selfishly hope they will help keep us mentally alert and engaged. So we began to look for clues to see whether we might easily meet the kind of residents we hoped for in the place to die in Florida.

Our starting place was with the events calendars. All the places to die put out a weekly or monthly calendar of events. These include bus trips to grocery stores and places of worship, but also on-campus events such as sewing groups, knitting bees, watercolor classes, creative writing workshops, book groups, choral groups, bridge groups, improv classes, often serious lectures, entertainment from the outside, resident entertainment, and so on. We became concerned about our potential place when we realized that although it was three times the size of other places, it listed fewer activities than other places. I expect to be personally interested in only a few of the activities, but a variety of programs in which many participate signals something about the vibrancy of the place.

The calendar, it turns out, was somewhat misleading. The spouse noticed that there was no listing for mah-jongg (a deal-breaker!!!). When she mentioned that to someone, she was told that Joan so-and-so in Building A hosted mah-jongg, as did Mildred thus-and-such in Building C. For such facilities as the fitness center and the aquatic center, it was one community. However, for other purposes, the place seemed to break down into smaller building-by-building communities, and it felt as if you might not be entirely welcome in the Building A community if you resided in Building B.

Every place to die we have visited has a library. The best seem to have an acquisition budget; others are dependent on resident donations. I never expected to find all my reading in these libraries, but most of the libraries seemed to have some books I might like to read. The Florida place to die, however, did not have one library. It had one for each building. I suppose if the weather was inclement, it would be nice to go the lobby and find something to read, but by not consolidating the books, each building’s collection was skimpy. And most of the libraries we have seen had a shelf or more of books written by residents. I did not see that in this “village.”

Presumably some reading was going on. The calendar listed a book group, which later in the month was discussing a novel. But I thought that a place of over a thousand retired folks who had a lot of time to read might have multiple book groups, perhaps one for literature, another for history, and others for current events or poetry. Even my local bookstore has multiple book groups, and the attendees are working and raising families in addition to reading books.

What clinched our decision that we did not want to come to this place was our two meals with residents. The marketing person who took charge of us knew that our son was transgender and that, no doubt, is part of the reason our first night we had dinner in the more formal dining room with a lesbian couple, Maude and Phillie. They had been a couple for a dozen years. Phillie had been in a previous relationship of thirty-seven years, which ended when her partner died. They both had Philadelphia roots and had lived mostly in New Jersey. Maude had been a hairdresser who had gotten involved with organizations for the deaf. The other said that she had been retired since she was thirty-five, but I think she had been involved with real estate agencies.

We did learn from them that this Florida place had an active LGBTQ+ organization with over 220 members. Other communities we had visited often touted that they had gay residents, but this was remarkable. That was encouraging, and they should some interest in our son. My reaction changed when I asked them what constituted a typical day for them. They looked blankly at each other. One finally said that they went to the pool two or three times a week. And…..? They confessed that the amount the place allocated for food covered only about fifteen meals a month. They kept a full pantry, and then–giving me the inside scoop–they said they shopped at a Walmart supercenter because it had better prices than the nearer Publix.

The next day we had a poolside lunch with a couple originally from North Carolina where Lorraine had been a third grade teacher and her husband Clay a public school librarian. She said little other than that she was in charge of the place’s thrift shop, open four hours a week, and complained that few realized how much work it took to operate it. Other than an adamant “Yes” when the server asked if anyone wanted dessert, she literally said nothing. She looked surly, as if she had been dragged to a free lunch against her will. Clay’s volubility, however, helped to eliminate any awkward pauses. He told about his days at the village. Two or three days a week, as he had that morning, he went to aquatic aerobics. A couple of mornings he went to the gym. Other mornings, usually with a friend, he walked around the seventy-acre campus, stopping, I am sure, to chat with anyone he came across. Clay smiled proudly and said that others called him the mayor of the village. Clay said that the previous night, they had gone to one of the village’s cultural events—a cover concert of three crossover R&B stars, which he pronounced excellent.

When we told him about our dinner the previous night, he labeled Phillie “a real pistol.” He then went on to say that he had been talking to friends from home and told them that he and Lorraine were going out to dinner with another couple, Joe and Bob. His friends, he said, were amazed. They had not known anyone before who knew — much less dined with — an actual single-sex couple. I felt awkward hearing a story that I might have heard two decades ago.

Clay continued by saying that their travels had made them more sensitive to cultural differences. As an example he cited their trip to Morocco where he said they had made friends with their guide. The Moroccan pointed out that gender relations were much different in his country. For example, he had never kissed his wife in front of her parents. As they were walking, however, the guide took Clay’s hand. This clearly made Clay uncomfortable, and Clay said that this would not have happened in the good old U.S. of A. The guide said that this was a gesture of male friendship in his society. Clay clearly still felt uncomfortable with his memory of walking down a foreign street with another man holding his hand. I wondered why he was telling me this story.

Our assigned dining companions over the two meals were different from each other, but in a way important to the spouse and me, they were very much alike. They did not ask anything about us. That is a slight exaggeration. Clay did ask the derivation of my surname and what I had done for a living, but there was no follow up. And literally, none of the four asked the spouse anything—where she grew up; her education; her career; her hobbies. We certainly gave openings for conversation. We thought we might be early for our lunch, so we carried books. Lorraine and Clay did not even glance at them, much less ask about them. I wore a tee that said, “Be careful or I will put you in my blog.” No comment. The spouse said that we were going to take a trip to Provence in the fall sponsored by my alma mater. Nothing. And so on. Maude and Phillie were the same. They were all more than happy to talk about themselves (and a bit about our son), but a real conversation was beyond them. And in talking about themselves, they did not indicate that they read anything, watched movies, or attended lectures. They were pleasant people on one level, but….

The last night we ate at an informal restaurant on campus. The servers were interesting and funny, and the food, as it had been at the other meals, was good. As we looked around the room, we saw a man come in by himself. He sat down and to our surprise, opened a book. We finished eating before he did. On our way out, I stopped at his table and said, “Are you reading anything good? I am always looking for book recommendations.” He said that the book was about a lad growing up in Ireland, but he did not like the novel enough to recommend it. I pressed on and asked if he had read anything good recently. He paused and said no and continued, “I am not much of a reader.” I smiled, and as we started to leave, I could swear his eyes locked onto mine saying, “Please don’t go yet. I am lonely.”

We were more than ready to leave this place where we thought that we might like to live. Perhaps if we had to, we could carve out an acceptable life there, but….

If we needed a clincher, venturing outside our building to visit other places on campus was a trial. Florida was experiencing an early, but deadly, heat wave which was compounded by excessive humidity. Breathing was difficult and movement exhausting. Florida politicians may not believe in climate change or want to acknowledge global warming, but that will not stop its reality.

Posted on by rjonakait

The Enduring Peter Brook

I never met him. I don’t think I ever even saw him, but Peter Brook, who died earlier this month at the age of 97, influenced my life.

I did not go to live theater growing up…unless a high school production of Our Town counts. Perhaps there were other forgotten school shows. Did the town have a community theater? I don’t remember it. But there was no professional theater, and our family was not the sort of family that would go to the larger city to see any.

In college, however, I took a course in modern drama. We saw a few classic movies—I remember M and Treasure of the Sierra Madre–but mostly we read plays. I found almost every one of them interesting, and I still remember many of them. On the other hand, I don’t remember any specific lecture by Alan Downer, the professor. They must have been informative, however, for I feel as though I have a fairly solid grasp of the development of modern drama, and that had to come from him.

There was a professional theater associated with the university, and I remember seeing Hedda Gabler, and I probably saw other productions, and I do remember seeing a roommate in a student presentation of Mother Courage. Playgoing, however, was akin to hearing the Modern Jazz Quartet, going to a ballet, or attending a fencing match; I had not experienced these things growing up, and I wanted to. I certainly had not yet learned the real power of the stage.

That changed soon after I moved to New York, and it came about because of Peter Brook. I was lucky enough to attend his now legendary Royal Shakespeare Company production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I learned that night that a script can be read, but that a play must be seen. This was not Shakespeare of the drab printed word, but the creation of a magical world on the stage. It drew me in. It was more immediate than any movie could ever be. It required live actors, a stage, and an audience. And a special director who used a nearly bare stage, trapezes, unexpectedly outrageous costume, twirly thingies that glowed in the dark and produced an ethereal sound. I laughed out loud, was moved, and learned that the theater could present an experience that could not be had anywhere else.

I have now seen a half-dozen or more of Peter Brook’s other theatrical productions, some in the last few years since The Brooklyn Academy of Music, and The Theatre for a New Audience, a block away from BAM, were his American homes. They are both mere blocks from my own home. Each production that I have seen had something of interest that could only be done with live actors on the stage.

I was lucky enough to experience another of Brook’s legendary efforts, The Mahabharata, the production that christened the opening of The Harvey Theater at BAM. In the heyday of movie palaces, the building had been one of those gilded theaters, but, like almost all of them, it had closed as TV rose to prominence. It became a bowling alley, I am told. However, I had only known it as a bricked up, decrepit building like many of its neighbors.

The Brooklyn Academy, in collaboration with Brook, decided to turn it into a live theater in the mid-1980s but not into a sleek, modern space with plush seats. Instead, Brook liked the look of decay the place had. The cracked plaster and paint-peeling walls remained. Backless, hardwood benches were installed because this was what Brook wanted for his staging of the ancient Sanskrit epic.

For some theatergoers, Peter Brook is such a powerful figure that they claim to have seen his Dream when they could not have. I think of that when I claim to have seen his Mahabharata. Those benches (subsequently replaced with human seating) were unbearable for a one-act play; the Mahabharata was a seven, or perhaps nine, or maybe even an eleven-hour play. (One could attend it over several days.) I don’t know its actual length because I did not make it to its conclusion. I am only confident that it did end because I have been to that theater many times since, and The Mahabharata is not still on the stage. The seats were uncomfortable, yes, but following the complex interaction of gods and humans was dizzying, and the spouse and I had little idea what was going on. At a break in the “action” (were there even intermissions?) the spouse and I sneaked out, forgetting that where we exited was also a place where actors gathered awaiting their entrances. As we embarrassedly slipped by them, in the days before cellphones, I nonsensically mumbled, “Babysitter problems” to explain our departure.

So I learned from Peter Brook that theater could be magical and produce an experience that could not be had elsewhere. There have been many more special moments since I started going to plays, and there have been many special productions. I now go to the theater a couple dozen times a year, and something important or magical or special does not always happen, but it happens often enough that I continue going. And I thank Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream for initiating me into the joys of the theater.

But I also learned from Peter Brook that theater sometimes comes with uncomfortable seats and puzzling plots. Then, you just have to get up and go home.