Okay, here are two items I picked up in this morning's gleanings, and they are tough to deal with in a brief blog on a Friday morning in October.

I'm on a mailing list for Zoomer, the magazine and movement being promulgated (!) by Moses Znaimer, trying to persuade all women over the age of 60 to look like drag queens and the men to think they're like Christopher Plummer even if they can't look like him. They do, anyway, think they are. So this morning I got a Zoomer pitch that starts with a stat and ends with a warning:

"The good news is we're living longer. The second fastest growing group of Canadians are centenarians, those over the age of 100...The bad news is that it comes at a cost." The warning is that we're going to run out of money before we run out of breath. So be prepared. Thanks.

And then I was going over some of the notes I save for blogs and came across a reference to a poem by Philip Larkin (1922-1985) in a discussion (by a columnist in the New Yorker, James Wood - I have an admirable clipping file!). Wood's concern is in the title of his essay - "Is That All There Is?" And that, of course, made me think of Peggy Lee (1920-2002) and her song, "Is That All There Is?" (1969) With the wonders of the internet now I looked it up and listened to a video of her singing it, dealing with life, with 1) a fire, 2) a circus, 3) love ("He went away and I thought I'd die but I didn't") and finally, 4) the end. Each time she asks, "Is that all there is?" And her antidote? solution? No, antidote; there is no solution: "If that's all there is, then let's keep dancing."

That brings me back to Larkin. In his poem, "Dockery and Son", the poet/narrator describes a meeting with a former school chum. I won't go into details. But he concludes:

Life is first boredom, then fear.

Whether or not we use it, it goes,

And leaves what something hidden from us chose,

And age, and then the only end of age.

Me again: So. I guess we should all just keep dancing. "Bring out the booze, and have a ball, if that's all."

When my children were little I had a very good imagination. I tried to think of anything that could happen to them or that they might do so that I could protect them, ward off accidents, keep them from harm's way. Even so, we had our share of emergency trips to the hospital or a visit from a 911 van, and those were always for unforeseen, unimagined events I had not envisioned. I was always measuring, judging, estimating how far I could reach to catch someone in case of a fall, how close a pot handle was to the edge of a stove and whom to call if someone stuck beans up his nose.

Does anyone use that cautionary warning? The other one came from the only story my mother ever told: "Epaminondas, watch how you step in them pies."

When I started down the basement stairs with a load of laundry, and pregnant at that, I'd say to the girls (by that time four and three years old), "Tell me the number you'll call if I fall." I had taught them 911, you see, in case I wasn't able to use it.

I've been thinking of that recently as I have reached the age where accidents can happen and I am trying to be aware of prevention. I haven't gone so far as handles and bars all over the apartment but I have banned scatter rugs and I turn on lights instead of trusting myself to find my way in the dark. I think of how far boiling water might splash if I drop a pot of spaghetti, how hard I could land if I fall off a step ladder, and - my worst fear - what would stop me if I missed an escalator step. (I can't see them very well, it depends on how they are marked). Well, it's not fear yet, it's apprehension, well, more like caution.

I remember after Bill died how careful I was when driving. I knew that I had to take very good care of my children's only parent. At least I don't have to worry about that any more. They will survive very well without me.

Besides, I gave up my car.