Edward Lewis Wallant has not disappointed. In fact, his ”The Tenants of Moonbloom” has proven richly satisfying…in its depiction of a life on hold. Contrast this with the sort of video crap I watch in the morning while on the exercycle. Here it’s all action. Chase scenes, bullets flying, anything to get the adrenaline up and distract from watching the clock. Half an hour is all I can stand. And it’s exactly what I need. On this particular morning, I found it very difficult to sustain 30 minutes. Sometimes it’s like that. Sometimes the will to work out has worked itself out of my system completely.

Thus the enjoyment of Moonbloom, New York’s most over educated rent collector, playing his trade for his slumlord brother in the 1960s. He has tried his hand at so many things, this guy, sustained interest in none of them, and now we find him in his early 30s, when life gets real, schlepping about Manhattan with a receipt book in his ill-fitting suit and his job. The latter actually consist almost entirely of chatting with the denizens of his brother’s buildings. Bohemians, school teachers, writers, the extremely elderly, tattooed Holocaust survivors, a family trying to cling to a lower middle class existence. And so go his days, so go his weeks, so goes his life.

And what attracts me to his life? Certainly his quality of being lost. Or more precisely, purposeless. To be clear, I never had the luxury of his existence. Or so it seems to me. Once injured at age 21, my life became all about striving. To survive. To grow. To prosper. Still, there comes a time when striving must stop.

These days I am acutely aware of my mortality. Several friends have died in the last few years. There is simply that. And my body is giving out. This is an overstated and vague description of what so far amounts to a bunch of orthopedic and neuromuscular complications. Whatever, all this weighs upon me. Genuine distractions seem few. Next week’s travel will be an interesting test. How will I feel during, and after, a major change of scene at Lake Crescent, Olympic National Park?

Travel used to be a regular distraction in my life. In many ways, I substituted geographic mobility for the personal variety. And the results are distractions. That I know northern Gloucestershire better than I know much of California, for example. And so what? Anyway, for the first time in 18 months, next week Jane and I will leap on BART, the regional subway, head for San Francisco Airport. And willingly surrender my wheelchair to the baggage personnel who may, or may not, deliver it to Seattle Airport intact. And if things go OK, off we will drive for pleasant diversion.

And what about the concerns that currently press upon me? Will I be thinking so intensely about death and incapacitation? One certainly hopes not. But either way, throughout the trip, the grim reaper of COVID-19 will be with us. It’s with all of us, of course, all the time, which is what defines this time. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Meanwhile, I do wish I could take the days as they arrive, one at a time. This everyone assures me is the secret to life. I am trying.