"so when you look into the sun,
look for the pleasures nearly won,
or was it better than to run,
than to spend the summer singing,
and summer could have come - in a day."
I have always loved that song, (Jethro Tull Stand Up), and now I see that winter can also come in a day. This week Mr. Bill reached the end of his pond maintenance activities. I still hope to keep it nice enough that he and my sister will be able to enjoy it to the fullest, but neither of them can do the physical labor any more, and it happened in a day. This is sincerely freaky. My brothers and sisters and I are older people now, and I didn't notice it happening. Still don't see it in myself, but according to all that is good sense, atrophy is there or lurking. And right now I'm also understanding that being uncomfortable with such things leads to babble. I just babbled because it bothers me that we are old. Not so much because old is bad as because there aren't any other stages between old and dead.
Time for some Ripple.
No, not the wine of my hedonistic adolescence, the Grateful Dead song (of my hedonistic adolescence).
"There is a road, no simple highway
between the dawn and the dark of night
and if you go, no one may follow,
that path is for your steps alone
Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow"
Hearing it makes me feel more comfortable, and now I have decided that losing the ability to do hard physical labor isn't necessarily a bad thing.