I imagine my mind has a million places and when I’m put together and focused and present, these places communicate effortlessly with each other. Gentle waves of bright energy fly through my brain grabbing exactly what they need – a past memory, a piece of knowledge, a feeling. The result – what flows out my mouth is exactly what I intend. My words sound coherent. I feel coherent, like I fit perfectly in my skin. My body and mind flow as one. I feel in one piece.

When I was about 13, my best friend at the time and I memorized every word of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence.” We wrote down the words by playing, pausing and rewinding a cassette tape, which we had recorded by placing the tape deck beside the radio. Yes, I’m that old.

A pelican came to my beach. I watched with both interest and amusement as it swooped down time and time again trying to catch a fish. While it glided through the sky with incredible grace it impacted the water with a heavy, loud clumsiness. It seemed to ignore the water’s surface to focus only on it’s silver prey just below. I found myself rooting for a successful dive. It didn’t care. The only difference between failure and success was a brief pause to throw back its neck to swallow the fish in one mighty gulp. And then up to try again. The boldness of this bird drew me. It’s prehistoric appearance made me acutely aware of its lengthy existence on this earth. I reflected on this wonderful bird. I welcomed it to my beach, recognized its beauty and felt a little smug with my appreciation of this miracle of nature.

If we manage to avoid cancer, heart disease or diabetes, get great genes and don’t develop Parkinson’s, MS or Alzheimer’s, and don’t crash a car or get hit by one, get struck by lightening or slip and break our necks, we could get really lucky and live to a hundred or more. Given the states of the first and last twenty years of our lives, we really only have 60 years, at our luckiest to make our mark on the world.

At his wedding, my youngest son stood up to give his much anticipated speech. His reputation as a public speaker is well known and he didn’t disappoint. His two older brothers had spoken about his eccentricity and how, as much as they love him, he is the weirdest guy they know. Half way through his, on point, hilariously funny speech, he calmly addressed his brothers’ comments by walking to the centre of the dance floor, pulling down his pants and slowly mooning everyone, possibly performing the first ever groom-moon.