I was sixty-four years and ten months old, walking across campus in the early afternoon after teaching my student-athletes about sports-betting addiction in freshman composition. I was heading toward the multilevel parking structure when an enormous young man approached from the opposite direction.
He was about twenty, perhaps six-foot-five and easily three hundred pounds. Dark-rimmed glasses gave him a studious, slightly nerdy appearance. His black pants were stretched tight, while an enormous T-shirt had been tucked into them with a commitment to fashion I did not entirely understand.
As we passed, he suddenly stopped.
He was staring at my feet.
“Those look super comfortable,” he said. “Are those the Ghost Max 3s?”
I looked down at my gray Brooks running shoes.
“Yes.”
Apparently, my testimony was insufficient.
“Can I see the bottom?”
I stared at him.
He explained that “Ghost Max 3” was printed somewhere on the sole and he wanted visual confirmation.
Now I faced a logistical problem.
I could remove the shoe, which seemed cumbersome. Or I could remain standing and somehow present the bottom of my foot to a six-foot-five stranger in the middle of campus.
I chose the latter.
I planted my left foot, leaned my torso forward, and extended my right leg behind me until I had achieved something resembling a Romanian deadlift crossed with yoga airplane pose. There I stood—a sixty-four-year-old writing professor balancing on one leg in a parking structure while a three-hundred-pound college student conducted forensic analysis of my footwear.
He examined the sole.
There it was.
Ghost Max 3.
He erupted with delight.
I had never seen anyone so happy to authenticate a running shoe.
He thanked me profusely, and I returned to an upright position with whatever dignity remained available.
Ordinarily, I might have found such a request intrusive. Why should a complete stranger stop me and demand access to the underside of my shoe? What was next? Would he need the serial number? Should I produce a receipt and two forms of identification?
But I wasn’t offended.
I understood him immediately.
He was me.
Not literally, thank God. If I suddenly became six-foot-five and three hundred pounds, my entire wardrobe would become an emergency. But psychologically, I recognized the condition.
The young man had the fever.
I have suffered from the same fever for decades.
When I’m fascinated by something, normal social boundaries become surprisingly negotiable. I have accosted complete strangers wearing Grand Seikos, Seiko Monsters, and Tudor Pelagos. A man innocently drinking coffee while using a Lenovo ThinkPad can suddenly find himself being interrogated by me about his processor, screen brightness, battery life, keyboard travel, and thermal management.
He had planned to drink a latte.
Now he’s discussing nits.
So when this young man stopped me to investigate my Brooks Ghost Max 3s, I couldn’t condemn him. Hobby obsessives recognize one another across categories. Watches. Computers. Running shoes. Different objects, same neurological disturbance.
Still, I had to admit that I had never asked a stranger to perform an acrobatic maneuver so I could inspect the bottom of his shoe.
That was advanced work.
And yet something else about the encounter struck me.
I wasn’t embarrassed.
Presumably, other people were walking through the parking structure. Someone may have looked over and seen an aging bald professor suddenly assume yoga airplane pose while an enormous young man crouched nearby studying his sneaker.
At an earlier age, I might have become acutely conscious of the spectacle.
What do these people think I’m doing?
Do I look ridiculous?
Should I explain?
At sixty-four years and ten months, I couldn’t have cared less.
This, I realized, was The Late-Life Ninja State: the stage of life when you remain perfectly capable of recognizing how ridiculous you may look but discover that the opinions of random witnesses have lost most of their power over you.
This is not the same as becoming oblivious.
The ninja knows.
The ninja simply doesn’t care.
Age takes plenty from us. Hair disappears. Knees become temperamental. Metabolism develops a sense of humor. Restaurant lighting becomes suspiciously dim. You begin making small involuntary noises when rising from chairs.
But perhaps age gives something back.
You gradually escape the imaginary tribunal.
For much of life, we move through public spaces carrying an invisible audience inside our heads. How do I look? What will they think? Did that sound stupid? Am I dressed correctly? Did anyone see that?
Eventually you begin to understand that almost nobody is paying attention.
And the few people who are paying attention don’t matter.
The stranger who watched me balance on one leg will not be discussing the incident at dinner.
“Anything interesting happen today?”
“Yes. At approximately 1:17 p.m., I observed an older man displaying the sole of his Brooks Ghost Max 3 to a very large student.”
Even if he does tell the story, what have I lost?
Nothing.
Retirement has been making me think obsessively about the things age takes away: income, professional identity, routine, colleagues, relevance, automatic social contact. But perhaps I should keep an inventory of the things age removes that I am delighted to lose.
Embarrassment belongs near the top of the list.
The Late-Life Ninja State is not indifference to other people. If anything, it may make human encounters easier. Once you stop devoting so much energy to managing your appearance, you become freer to participate in the strange little improvisations that life keeps offering.
A young man wanted to see the bottom of my shoe.
I showed him.
He was delighted.
I was amused.
Nobody died of embarrassment.
And somewhere in the near future, I suspect that young man will walk into a shoe store and buy himself a pair of Brooks Ghost Max 3s.
May they cushion his considerable frame.
May they carry him many comfortable miles.
And may he someday reach an age when, without hesitation or apology, he too will stand on one leg in a parking structure for a complete stranger.
Cinemorphosis 
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