“Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and already carried past us, and another follows and is gone.”

From the mediations of Marcus Aurelius

Dionysus Cup - a shallow wine cup depicting a Homeric hymn about the wine-god

The Time Machine function of Facebook occasionally arrests us mid-cycle as we scroll through our morning cup of caffeine. Occasionally, I am pleasantly surprised to read something I have no recollection of ever having written. Having marked my 77th trip around the sun yesterday, I was algorithmically reminded of remarks I made eight years ago, then turning 69.

"So this is the last time I get NOT to be 70 years old, a landmark that has always separated me from the "Old People." Of course, it is just a number, and some of you on the other side of this imaginary line may be offended by that last remark. Please don't hit the delete key yet! I will attempt to erase that imaginary line (and, hopefully, undo any umbrage.)

This last week was a good one in many ways. I was invited to a pre-birthday dinner with delightful Halibut steak and carrot cake, and I wandered through the mountains on my motorbike. Along the way, I intersected with a large coyote, a lovely red fox with a shimmering pelt, one strong-swimming beaver headed upriver, and a bald eagle that paced me through a canyon. I've always felt these chance encounters with wildlife were special, seeing them as Totemic portals to the natural world of our ancestral origin.

Which leads me back to marking time. Again, I thank those who remembered and took the time to send their love. A card, gift, or call from a friend is a restorative elixir soothing your journey as you glide back in your mind to times past, times spent with the sender." 

We don't tend to think of" memory" as a superpower - but it is. Memory is the glue that binds the past to the present. Admittedly, some of us have more of this mystical neural power, our portal into the past, than others. However much we still possess, it is the most precious gift, the one we most cherish and hope never to lose. Perhaps those are the two most potent forces in the universe - love and memory. Each of us is blest to have both at any age. And so, here's to looking back and looking forward to what is to come, Amare Tempus! The River never sleeps.