Old Friends

How often I have heard the words, "Life is short!"

How seldom have I truly embraced them the way I did the past few days.

Old friends, and I mean we, the truly old, got together and spent a very productive time enjoying life.

Playing our favorite Upwords game. Going out to eat and ordering what we love instead of what is necessarily good for us, pub hamburgers and pot stickers the size of nectarines! Biscuits and curried hash, sugared pecans and spiced cookies!

Meeting kindred spirits, enjoying good art, discussing everything with great abandon!

Realize that all the men are in their seventies and all but one of the women in their sixties. How that can be, I don't know. We don't feel that old, but when I look at the picture, we do look it.

When we look at each other, though, it isn't gray hair, or wrinkles we talk about, or even think about. There are discussions about artistic technique, texture, and performances; teaching harp lessons via Skype, where the next gallery presentation will be and what next year's goals are!

We are not some indistinct fading group of elderly people. We are just as alive as ever and maybe more! Years of creativity gather energy over time. No longer forced to let it dribble out around the hours spent working to pay bills and punch clocks, now becomes the hour to set it free and see what happens!