From the Publisher: Senior Moment

Juliette Binoche in The Taste of Things Credit: Courtesy of Carole Bethuel/IFC Films

The second of two kids and a late-stage baby boomer, I always imagined myself on the younger side of life — like I was getting away with something. But there’s no denying that, demographically speaking, I’m now officially old. When I turn 64 next month, I’ll be one year away from qualifying for Social Security and Medicare.

For the first time, last Thursday night, I bought three senior citizen tickets at the movies, which Merrill’s Roxy Cinemas in Burlington generously defines as for those age 62 and up. My dear friend Erin wanted to see The Taste of Things, a beautiful and intentionally slow-moving film about the relationship between two gourmets in 1889 France. We were ready to witness the simmering love affair between Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel play out among woodstoves and copper pots in almost real time — our speed.

Watching them whisk, though, required choosing the right theater; after purchasing tickets, I had led our group into the wrong one. It dawned on us during the previews, which were so violent and vertiginous that Erin had to cover her eyes. By the time we got situated in the room that was actually showing the film we intended to see, it had already started. Fortunately we had only missed a few minutes of Magimel navigating the corridors of his beautiful but dimly lit country house. Even in the dark, I could see that most of the people in the audience looked like us.

This week’s cover story confirms it, quantifying the statewide demographic shift that officials have been warning about for years: By 2030, one in three Vermonters will be north of 60 years old. “Getting On” launches a yearlong series we’re calling “This Old State,” in which Seven Days investigates how that milestone could impact Vermont’s workforce, emergency services, housing stock and health care delivery systems.

Not all the news is bad. We’ve already reported on community nurses serving elders who choose to stay in their rural homes, dance classes for seniors and other creative “solutions” to the challenge.

It feels weird to be part of the “problem.” When I moved to Vermont, in 1978, it was still a hippie haven. Lots of enterprising, resilient, countercultural young people had moved up here in the 1960s and ’70s as part of the back-to-the-land movement, enough to increase the state’s population by a larger percentage than it has achieved since.

These folks, who are 10 to 20 years my senior, are technically baby boomers, but not the selfish, resource-consuming kind that have earned a bad rep; those have flocked to Florida. The elders I admired made Vermont the funky place it is — read: not New Hampshire. I worry that their admirable choice to live simply — and, in some cases, far from services — has placed them in harm’s way.

Anticipating hazards related to aging requires self-awareness, willingness to imagine worst-case scenarios and, frankly, resources. I’m pretty sure facing mortality, swallowing your pride and asking for help are not on anyone’s bucket list.

I learned this from my late mother, who never wanted to bother me with her health problems. As a result, almost every one of them turned into an emergency. I’d get a call — or a voicemail message! — from the retirement community where she lived in Maryland, saying my mom had just left in ambulance, but with no information about what ailed her or where she was going.

At what point does your independence becomes someone else’s burden? That’s a question every senior citizen in Vermont — and the country — should be asking.

My aging friends and I faced a different dilemma after the movie at 8:35 p.m. on a Thursday night. We were hungry. Feeling French, of course, we chose Leunig’s Bistro & Café, just a block away. Although he didn’t seem overjoyed to see us at that hour, the maître d’ gave us a lovely table by the window. We savored the food, as Binoche and Magimel had in The Taste of Things, but had clearly thrown a bit of a wrench into the restaurant’s closing plan.

By the time we got to dessert, they had started vacuuming the place. We weren’t ready to wind it up just yet.