During a break in the rain today, I went for a run. I was happy to see the fog settling down over the bridge. The hidden landscape was green and lush.
At the park, I found the azaleas in peak bloom.
Seeing them, I 'shrieked with delight.' Actually, I didn't, but I've been thinking about what might make me shriek with delight since I read about someone doing it after they learned that an American had been selected as the new pope. Someone else talked about how 'thrilled' her children were going to be. It was hard to fathom living in world in which fervor for nationalism and organized religion -- two strains of the same cancer -- was still so unrestrained.
I was comforted by the knowledge that at least some of my cynicism was generational, which I learned while reading another article (paywalled, in the Economist if you want to find it) about how Generation X has 'suffered' more than other generations, both in terms of the attention we receive (measured by Google searches), and a number of economic indicators (wages, home ownership, etc.) I felt a small thrill of validation when I read that my generation was 'cursed.'
For years, I've suspected that my siblings -- all of whom are technically boomers, thanks to a large age gap between me and my next oldest brother -- didn't understand me because I'm gay, but it now occurred to me that our generational divide was at least as important. I had grown up listening to their music and watching their television shows and movies, but they knew nothing about the music and movies I loved. I remember once asking my oldest brother if he had ever heard a song by the Smiths, and he said that he had not. (Lol.) There's a language that people from the same generational cohort often share -- and part of this language comprises cultural references that inform a kind of perspective or 'outlook' -- and while I, despite being a foreigner, was relatively fluent in the language of their generation, they not only didn't know how to talk to me in the language of Generation X, they didn't even know it existed. No wonder I was 'half a person' to them.
I've learned that being 'Gen X' is often accompanied by a sense of isolation -- sometimes harrowing, sometimes comforting -- that's hard for boomers (and millennials, by virtue of their numbers, and even Gen Z, who are still very earnest) to understand. A few months ago, I was reading an op-ed in the NYT about a 56-year-old woman whose father had dementia, and I said to myself, 'there aren't that many 56-year olds in this country -- I probably know her,' and when I looked at the byline, I was amused but not exactly surprised to see that she had been in my freshman-year literature class in college. We had been friends and spent a semester abroad in France on the same program. Being a part of Generation X, though, I didn't try to contact her. I'm sure she would understand; if anything, she would probably be annoyed to hear from me.
Although it can be legally and economically fraught to belong to a cursed generation, it's sometimes nice to be ignored. I had a similar feeling recently while watching a French thriller set on the shores of lake known as a gay cruising spot. 'This movie never could have been made in the United States,' I said to Stephen, who agreed. It captured an aspect of gay culture that most straight people in my experience have no idea exists, or if they do know, it's not something they ever talk about.
In the same way that most boomers have no curiosity about Gen X, most straight people have no curiosity about gay life.
But to live in the fog, where life is hidden -- even neglected -- and (sometimes) all the more beautiful as a result, is maybe not so cursed after all.
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