"Life is just a bowl of cherries--maybe popcorn."

Let’s try something here.  I’m feeling creative…and “elderly”…and admiring Shakespeare’s sonnet 73.  Understand this—I don’t feel sorry for myself, I’m simply seeing what is—and what is, is.  I love my life, and I love my wife—a treasure that keeps me on an even keel.  But in this sonnet, I see that Will was writing about me and he didn’t know it.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves or none or few do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.

Well, yes.  That time of year in me is 87, and the yellow leaves (which soon will fall) represent all the things that I once was able to do and where none or few am I now  capable of. The bare ruined “choirs” where the birds once sang sweet music for me represent the life that has passed me by, and where all the abilities that once I had are now shaking against the cold;  no longer are they burning bright with fire.  What is left for me is writing, and perhaps that’s the last leaf on the bough—but stubbornly is holding on although all the others are gone--my teaching, my coaching, my jogging, my golf, my stage performing, etc., etc.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death’s second self that seals all in rest.

If the passing of the day into twilight represents the passing of life into the twilight years, then I find myself now in that twilight zone that comes after the sun fades in the west—and which, inexorably turns into black night—or the last light of life.  (But my last yellow leaf still has not fallen).

In me thou seest the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

So, my dear, there remains in me, a glowing fire, Which feeds on the ashes of my youth and all the experiences that are allowed to one before the yellow leaf falls. If you see all this, and you understand all this, according to the Bard, it should make your love more strong  to love that well which you will betimes lose when the last leaf falls--and who knows when that will happen? Aha! The Shadow knows.

.....Incidentally, I received an email today from Ned McAdams a student from the class of 1957.  They are going to celebrate their 55th at a reunion in Atlantis here in Florida in February.  Rhoda and I have been invited as guests of honor, so I better write something wise, profound and funny before we get there.