J. Barrie Shepherd

I’ve never … been this old before, shivering on the threshold just inside the newly opened door of my ninetieth year. Four-score-and-ten stands next in line. One whole score – twenty full years more than the psalmist’s age-old allocation. I’ve never … worn a body like this before, no longer willing – even able – to do the things it used to do so easily and well, like standing, walking, kneeling, bending, fastening tiny buttons, trimming toenails, tasting food.

“Tomorrow to fresh fields and pastures new.” – Aging in place … or out of place has little or no appeal for me. Given the choice, I’d much prefer to “youth:” to plunge my way back upstream like a fierce mating salmon thrusting against onrushing torrents, and toward the goal of an ever-livening vigor and mobility of flesh, fresh new curiosity of mind, spirit too, renewed appetite for all that mystic life can yet reveal. But that is not “on offer,” as they say in the UK.