These are my secrets. And these are my other secrets.

I have one thousand scarves.

I want to be a rodeo rider.

I bury my tea leaves.

I am hybridizing a red rose with a redder rose.

Once I fell in love with an assassin,

which would have been all right,

except I hated how his skin smelled of knives.

My volumes of piano etudes, sonatas, nocturnes,

preludes, fugues, variations on a theme, 

scherzos, valses, and concertos,

stacked one upon the other,

would total four feet seven inches high,

although the volumes are dispersed to several locations,

and some are hidden even from myself.

I play the piano every afternoon from four to five,

and afterward drink a cup of mint tea

and eat a single piece of almond shortbread.

I am growing an almond tree. I scent my environs

with almond oil.

I sometimes dream that my children are friendly 

with dangerous animals.

Today I met with a student who smelled of candy and flowers.

Once I picked squash beetles from my plants by hand.

Once, I lived in a village where the migrating butterflies

covered the shrubberies, the walks, the pavement.

In my heart of hearts, I am judging you, 

but only as practice for when I become a judge.

In my heart of hearts, I judge myself, 

but only as practice for when,

in my heart of hearts, I judge myself.

Primary are the colors of all the walls 

of my proto-crypto dream house.

It tolls for thee, but not today. And probably not tomorrow, either.

Dear reader, I have been thinking about mortality a lot as of late. A lot, as in a lot a lot. I recently wrote a poem called "My last will and testament," which, fine, but I have a slightly nagging feeling that I may have crossed a small line.

The objective reasons I am always going to this cold and lonely place in my fevered brain:

1. my grandma.

2. Betty the dog.

3. my children have grown and left the house.

4. my husband the historian is working on the project of his retirement, with all the plans and preparations and talking about money &c. that that entails.

5. I have more grandchildren in my life than I can count on two hands. (I will pause, so that you may reflect.)

6. I am a poet and may be disposed to fits of melancholie.

7. My hair is grey. -Ing.

8. I am older than I once was.

Whatever. Last night, in Summer Hours, there was a wonderful but heart-wrenching scene in which an older woman, mother of three grown children and grandmother to many, after a family party and after everyone has departed, sits in the dark and basically says (to her long-time housekeeper), "I'm old and when I die all kinds of things will die with me--my memories, my secrets--and that's as it should be. My children shouldn't be burdened with all of it." I sobbed (I have worked out a technique where I can sob almost soundlessly, so don't worry about my cinematic compatriots--they didn't miss a thing.) and sobbed. I thought to myself, I am going to end up like that lovely Frenchwoman, alone with my thoughts and my memories and my stuff and my secrets but probably without her long elegant figure, sleek coiffure, blah blah blah sob sob sob.

Except that the woman in the film, elegant of figure and sleekly coiffed, had just celebrated her seventy-fifth birthday.

Yes, that's seventy five, as in, just shy of four score years.

And I, dear reader, am fifty-one.

I need to get a grip. I am not in the autumn of my life. I am in the latter part of the summer. Like, early August. Mid-August, tops. I am not in the evening of my life. I am in the afternoon. Mid-afternoon. For crying out loud, I am in the picking roses and sipping lemonade and making a delicious dinner part of my life.

I am going to work on the project of not preparing so assiduously for my own decline and fall. Rather, I will prepare for a lot of happy years ahead. I think it's the only practical thing to do. To wit: you will not see me in a mini-skirt, but you will see me riding my bike. I will probably keep using inappropriate slang because I can't resist the newfangleness of it all. I am going to stop referring to my house as the coffin they can bury me in (so I don't have to sort through and/or move my stuff). I'm going to enjoy every minute with my friends and my darling husband and my stellar and adorable children and my delectable grandkids. I am going to throw more parties. To borrow a phrase, I'll be old when I'm dead. That will be plenty soon enough.