constantly, the choices French fries or garden salad soda or water fruit or cheesecake and then there’s yoga or stay in bed fast walk or stroll pay bills or computer scroll pull weeds or jump in the pool life is a bunch of menus that lists healthy options with the pull of darker cravings all I know is I want the end of my life to be a happy color

like a god, the Colorado River has blessed us with water for a very long time perhaps a summer pilgrimage is in order fly to Denver, rent a car, climb high into the mountains until you reach a blanket of clean Sierra snow bend and kiss a fresh crystal sip from an icy stream fill a small bottle, bring it home set it on an altar and pray to it every day with any godly fortune, you’ll never need to drink from that sacred bottle but if you ever must swallow it that

I stand back and take a good look in the mirror At my age, didn’t my grandparents look older than this? when I was 5, they seemed timeworn already tilting and slow, wrinkled, gray and fragile, patting my short blond mop I look closer and okay, there are gray and creases with signs of decay on my face and body but I think my 74 is younger thinking and acting than there’s was, with more playfulness, snappier thinking and a greater worldly awareness and yet, I do find my