The Advantages of Age Q&A - Kevin Sessums, 68, writer, pilgrim of the world

Chefchaouen

AGE

68

WHERE DO YOU LIVE?

Here.

I guess I should explain.

Over two years ago, I sold or donated everything I owned and became a pilgrim in the world where I now live mostly in small rooms rented from Airbnb and often share bathrooms and kitchens. It feels effortlessly magical yet mindfully manifested, ascetic yet scintillating.  It is a simple life lived in a grand way, a grand life lived in a simple one.  It’s as if Merton and Merlin were boyfriends in an open relationship and reeled me in. 

I continue to learn how to navigate this pilgrim's life with a map now of surrender and simplicity and instinct and spiritual reality and gratitude.  That surrender to instinct - and the reality which plays into the budgetary aspect of the simplicity as well - caused me to change my usual summer plans of heading back to America this year.   I will stay away from America for a time after the election.  I am American-born but no longer feel American. I am working through a profound sense of sadness and loss because of that but it is the right decision for me to make at this point in my life. 

So …. no matter where I am, I am here.  Never there.  That is part of the pilgrimage, too: learning to live in the present moment of the spiritual here.  It took on a bit more of the mundanity of geography, however,  as I made this decision not to return to America. 

I have learned to say "here" when asked when I am anywhere,

“Where is your home?" 

"You mean Paris?" I am asked now where I answer this question.

"You mean Morocco?" I was asked there the last couple of months

when I lived down there. 

"You mean London?" I will be asked again in London when I return in

January.

"You mean Vienna? You mean Prague?" I will be asked in December.  

In each place, I answer,  "No. Here."

Tangier

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Write.  All I have left in life is life itself … and that.  I’m a writer.  That’s all I am now.  I have shed all but that.

TELL US WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE YOUR AGE

I feel no different than I did when I was a six-year-old boy.  Still a sissy.  Still a seeker.  I just stopped running away from home and now carry it with me as I run toward what awaits.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE NOW THAT YOU DIDN’T HAVE AT 25?

Contentment.  Not happiness.  Trying to be happy is just another reason to fail.  I gave up trying to be happy.  I seek contentment where happiness and sadness exist side by side.  Sometimes they hold hands.  Sometimes that might even have a fun little fuck.  It’s about balance now.  It’s no longer about the battle.

WHAT ABOUT SEX?

What about it?

AND RELATIONSHIPS?

One thing about getting older for me is that desire has morphed into longing.  I no longer spend all that energy I once spent trying to find some sex.  Plus, I’m a gay man who came of age in the 1970s so having sex was a political act in lots of ways.  I have a had a lot of sex.  A lot.  Doesn’t interest me much any more. But I do have longing.  Honestly, all I really want is for someone to hold my hand in a movie.  I long for that. 

Sometimes this life lived as a solitary person in the wider world can get lonely but then I realise that my romantic relationship is now with my life.  I have a romantic attitude about life for the first time …  about mine.

Paris

HOW FREE DO YOU FEEL?

Honey, you’re talking to a pilgrim.

WHAT ARE YOU PROUD OF?

No longer being prideful.

WHAT KEEPS YOU INSPIRED?

Kindness.

WHEN ARE YOU HAPPIEST?

See the answer about contentment. 

WHERE DOES YOUR CREATIVITY GO?

It doesn’t.  It stays here with me.  Sorry, that’s a bit glib.  I’m sentenced to a life of sentences.  Hmm … more glibness.  See the answer about being a writer. 

WHAT’S YOUR PHILOSOPHY OF LIVING

Keep it simple.

AND DYING

Keep it simpler.

ARE YOU STILL DREAMING

Yep.  Forever Jung.

WHAT WAS A RECENT OUTRAGEOUS ACTION OF YOURS?

Agreeing to answer this questionnaire. 

Chefchaouen