Who Knows?

A near-perfect day. Began with a 22 miles bike ride that included a stop at the charming Ice Cream Shop in Arcadia, then jump into the back lake to swim and then to the front, a thousand-stroke swim between the two in perfect-temperature silky water. Read on the beach and then canoe out toward the horizon, turn around and canoe back. Up to the house to put together a quinoa-salad dinner.

 

While chopping vegetables, I decided to play some music on Spotify, something I rarely do. Found the playlists I made for our RV trek across the country in the early months of Covid. One of them was titled “Rock Ballads” and so this music from my emerging life as a high school/college kid became the soundtrack for chopping peppers, tomatoes, red onion, avocado, cilantro and more. No quicker way to time travel: Because/ And I Love Her/ Something Stupid/ Spanish Harlem/ Save the Last Dance for Me/ On Broadway/ Groovin’/ Traveling Man/ Johnny Angel/ If I Fell/ Yesterday/ Michelle/ In My Life/ Early Morning Rain/ Pack Up Your Sorrows/ The Last Thing on my Mind/ Fire and Rain/ Homeward Bound/ Moonshadow/ Teach Your Children/ So Far Away/ Lean on Me/ Leaving on a Jet Plane / The Sounds of Silence, etc. etc. and yet again, etc. Damn! Those songs were good!

 

And then came Judy Collins singing “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” Ka-ching! When I listened to that song with a sense of aching 50 YEARS AGO, little could I imagine the depth of that question! 50 years ago! Sat on the beach with a group of folks my age and with the revelations of bathing suits, couldn’t help but notice the varicose veins, sagging flesh, enlarged bodies of us all. That’swhere the time goes! 

 

On the bright side, the conversation was sparkling, the shared wisdom of our aging selves peppering the day’s news. And back to the physical side of the matter, don’t think that I could have imagined at 21 that my 71 year old self could bike, swim, hike and canoe as I did today. Nothing more to add, no new insight into the ever-present phenomena of “how did that face get in my mirror?!” no reminder to savor more fully each gifted moment (which I just did). Just the quinoa salad cooling in the fridge and now, Joni Mitchell singing “The Circle Game.” Indeed, round and round we go and I, for one, am grateful to still be on the ride.