Just published a piece about my breakfast club in a national newspaper. Take a look at 
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/first-person/article-im-retired-and-miss-my-co-workers-so-how-do-i-replace-that/

The big question: what to I want to do with the time remaining to me in this lifetime?

        

Ulyssess

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone ...

 I am become a name; ...

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

And  something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

I'm old. Why can't I sit back in my rocking chair and watch the world go by? 

The answer, my friends, lies within Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem. 

(https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45392/ulysses)

  Ulyssess

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink 

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd 

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 

That loved me, and alone ...

 I am become a name; ...

For always roaming with a hungry heart 

Much have I seen and known; cities of men 

And manners, climates, councils, governments, 

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; 

And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 

I am a part of all that I have met; 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades 

For ever and forever when I move. 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life 

Were all too little, and of one to me 

Little remains: but every hour is saved 

From that eternal silence, something more, 

A bringer of new things; and vile it were 

For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 

And this gray spirit yearning in desire 

To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; 

And  something ere the end, 

Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 

Getting older

Too be truthful, I'm not so much getting older as simply old.  Of good health and sound mind (not quite but close enough), my challenge is to find something to do that is meaningful or at least time consuming ( I have too much of it)  I have done all the stuff  required to be among those who have had a fulfilling  and rich life, and as well I have volunteered for various worthwhile causes.  

      And yet the fact remains - I don't know what to do with myself.  I go to bed early because the day has been too long, and I want to get up early because I'm bored with lying in bed.  No I'm not complaining simply presenting the current state of affairs in my contented but bored old age.  And now I'm ready for the solution.

      In some way it is in finding a more profound way to love – myself, my wife, my friends, all whom I meet during the day.  (visit invitation.acalltolove.ca and then read the first story in http://webhome.idirect.com/~thepilgrim/lastrites/Index.html

And you? How are you handling getting older? Don't tell me your busier now that you were when you were working or something to that effect.  How is your life really?

Things that I sense are possible in my future.

One thing that I realize in my future, maybe closer than I think, is my own death.  I have  a lung condition that I have been gone to some length to know very little about; however I can feel that it is limiting my energy and doesn't augur well for the future. Although after some medical examinations I seem to be good for any number of years.  This does not preclude the certainty of my death.  Being in the blessed state of self proclaimed senility I chose to ignore the all to current fears of my generation: dementia, stroke, diapered existence in an old people's home.   Instead I imagine the death I would like to achieve.  I am hoping to make space -- physical, psychic room, to allow my life to play itself all the way out -- so that rather than just getting out of the way, aging and dying can become a process of crescendo through to the end.

More to come. What about you? any thoughts about your 'big event'?

Around The Bend  March 19^th

 What I plan to explore can best be covered by proclaiming that I am an old guy and a little "around the bend," in that I don't have all my marbles.  In other words this is my cover.  And it begins with my birthday horoscope.  I was 82 on February 22^nd.and my horoscope for that day read as follows.

Pisces Feb 19 | Mar 20 – 2017

 Would you like some free healing that's in alignment with cosmic rhythms? Try this experiment. Imagine that you're planning to write your autobiography. Create an outline that has nine chapters. Each of the first three chapters will be about a past experience that helped make you who you are. In each of the middle chapters, you will write about three things that are current and present in your life. In each of the last three chapters, you will describe a desirable event that you want to create in the future. I also encourage you to come up with a boisterous title for your tale. Don't settle for My Life So Far or The Story Of My Journey. Make it idiosyncratic and colourful, perhaps even outlandish, like Piscean author Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius.

Homework: What are the main dreams you want to accomplish by 2025? Testify at