Though not technically a retirement home, where I live is mostly a club for the Friendly Elderly. The paprika-colored brick houses stories of nearly a hundred retirees, some of whom have trudged the same carpet in their condos for over 20 years. The building is a quiet secret, nestled into forest off a main road and overlooking the river a mile away.
If you are under the age of 50 and join me here, word will quickly spread, via Game Night and congregations in the mail room, that young folks are moving in. Tiny loaves of banana bread will appear outside your door, as if by elf magic. Women pushing shuddering walkers across cold lobby tiles will call out for you to be sure and join them at the monthly breakfast gatherings.
If you live in a tiny sliver of the top floor, your elevator button is designated as “PH.” Don’t refer to it as the “penthouse,” because that’s weird and embarrassing, but often residents will jab the button and joke that they are sending you to the “poorhouse.”
The elevators may end up being your favorite part of the whole thing: the relieving delight of a solo ride, or the fleeting intimacy of pleasantries as neighbors hop on and off; call-and response bleats marking each floor as the cars pass each other in their dark channels.
In one, a corded phone remains in an emergency call box. A tiny packet of mustard recently appeared there, a gift from Boo Radley if Boo had just returned from Sonic and needed to unload his extra condiments. I don’t have to convince you how delightful this is.
During early-morning descensions to the lobby, I recommend holding the elevator phone to your ear and listening to the droning dial tone, twelve floors down. You might half-expect a voice to come on, perhaps the same neighbor’s voice that will appear on your voicemail each birthday singing a warbly song. What the voice will say is: you belong here.
{And you will belong here because whatever your external age, and however efficiently-working your knees still are, you are actually an old person. Welcome, friend. See you at Game Night.}
