I wake from a dream, one of those delicious score-settling shows where you pummel some long-dead opponent. If only I could program my dreams! But life’s no trans-Atlantic flight with ten dozen entertainment options. You watch what’s shown, no choice, no escape except screaming into the light.

            Waking I felt glorious, toasty as a freshly baked muffin in a napkin, Jane’s susurrus consoling beside me, Henry occasionally shifting in his homey crate. What time is it? My waterglass blocks the red readout on the bedside clock. No matter. A weekend, Sunday I think, though retirement’s mostly Sundays.

            I should get up and write. This is my time, brain replenished, undistracted by beeps and clanks, when words may lazily swirl from me as, in early boyhood, soft ice cream curled into its cone. An adult or older sister driving you to the ice cream store in summer’s interminable twilight was a special treat. The ice cream was hardly gourmet by today’s gelato standards. Didn’t have to be.

            Yes, write. Or maybe not. I write whenever I can because time’s so short. I think of Sir Walter Raleigh in the Tower the night before his execution scribbling his last – and best – poem. Failing to write I feel derelict, scapegrace, lout – but for some reason, not tonight. I’m relaxed for once, not tense. You might think from my account a giant audience awaits my lucubrations. No, just you guys, we happy few. My responsibility, as I deem it, is not to my readers but to my chance: have I made the most of my time?

            Mind you, I’m not rebelling. I love writing, wither when I don’t. I pity victims of “writer’s block”, squeezing syllables like recalcitrant pimples. These days I never do anything I don’t enjoy – the luxury of retirement. If I suffered writing, I wouldn’t bother.

            But this warm wee hour let me muse. The moon must be nearly full it’s so bright outside. Soon I will take Henry out so we both can pee but later.

            Musing is a gift of age. You’ve more to muse about and fewer constraints. Young, we focus on the future; in our middle years, on the pressing present; old, on where we’ve been and how things turned out. The result of any life is startling to its occupant, far from all expectations. Whatever I foresaw it wasn’t here, Jane, Henry, this moon-bright night and warm-muffin sense of being where I belong.

            With musing as with most human activities, we improve with practice. In our career years, we likely lack both time and inclination to reflect. We’re busy doing, barging headlong toward our prize, get out of my way! Some doors in memory we don’t open lest what’s stored there discredit. We may dream of escapades that would humiliate if hinted at – don’t even go there!

            Old, with less to lose, we’re freer to muse. Ambition shrunken, sinews slacker, we pose less danger to ourselves. Old, it’s harder to embarrass oneself, age being embarrassment enough.

            I’m sometimes chaffed for introspection. Am I besotted with myself, always gazing inward?

            Opportunity, not admiration, draws me to the story of me. I can afford the best seats, no partial view. The more I look the more I see. Musing’s so amusing why nose elsewhere! Open any door in memory, rummage a bit, and wow.

            In America, we’re taught to do, not to be: if we’re not doing, we’re done for. That’s backward. To see, we must gaze; to hear, we must hush; to be glad, we must be still. Emptiness is bounteous.

            Maybe now I’ll write.