I sat down late, in the leather chair at the thick table,

The buyers and brokers in attendance.

A couple so young sat across.

I had been young, not that young.

Papers plead for a signature,

Is that me?

It is now.

Each page, a year in a life,

Sign off on the house.

Where is the sign off on the life contained herein?

Child one, you are hereby signed off, as you are also, child two.

And where do I sign for child three?

I tell the buyers "Don't let the noise bother you. You will get used to it"

Then I remember,

No noise.

There's only been silence for years.

No child's play or adult drama.

Thank you very much and I hope you will be happy in your new, my old house.

"After all, how many chances do you get to be happy?"

My wife explained to me as she left with her new friend.

I see this houselessness, I would never presume a home, As an adventure, one of life's many

Grubbing my way through each day, nights are easier

I convince myself this is a temporary setback, a bump in the road.

Once I dump the ankle weights my agility will return.

But there are always new weights being clamped on.

I exchange one for another,

Hoping for a difference

But finding none.

Why do we write?

Why do we have this need, obession to write?

We create characters.

We create plots.

We determine outcomes.

We decide who wins and who loses.

Take a guess, why we write.

When feeling overwhelmed by different responsibilities

you dig deep to find purpose

keep in mind

There may come a day

When no one is dependent on what you do today

There will be

A series of bright sunny with potential

Days

That excite you, fire you up

The fire will die down and a lonely chill will takeover

I have shamed

I have been shamed

I like shaming others better

I feel so superior

Satisfied that I have shown the light

To someone who has gone off the beaten path

And is in need of an ear slapping

When I am shamed I cower

Then plot my revenge

No one told me or indicated in anyway that I became old

No one held the door open or gave me their seat

The exception being a woman finishing the drink I bought her

She told me I was wasting my money.

I didn't feel that way

I watched her leave

Her scent trailing

I remembered it.

There was a time when they didn't walk away.

The moment I decided no. I'm not trying to get up that washed out hill. I was in my side by side vehicle riding the trails in the woods and realized I'm not up for those types of challenges anymore. I returned home sat at my desk and felt heat for a second that seemed like from a foundry blast furnace wash over me. It was the moment of truth burning off the bullshit focused, to reveal a clarity I hadn't had before. The message received. My days of youthful potential are over. The days of wine and roses are over. There is barely time to reconcile any of the mistakes of my life. It is, what it was and I must live the effects for the time I have left. There is no wiggle room, no way out. It's not that everything was a disaster. Many things in this life were quite good and I can look back with satisfaction. But I always thought I could have another chance. Another opprotunity to a do over, fix things that went wrong. But there will be no more. That caused fear to appear until I paused to assemble it and put it in its proper place among all the archives of years past. Now I'm glad I had this revelation. I can detach from knawing thoughts of incompetence and let the simple notion of "you win some , you lose some" rule the day.

I live in Hemingway country, the area where he and his family the spent the summers of his youth. It's a beautiful area of lakes and trees and was the setting for some of his stories. I've had drinks in the bar he used to frequent in Petoskey Michigan but of course not with him. But my favorite author with Michigan ties is not Hemingway. It is Jim Harrison who died in 2016. Mr. Harrison wrote many novels and poetry but he also wrote a food column for Esquire and other magazines. In 2001 he compiled these columns and published a book titled The Raw and the Cooked. This is no cookbook. Jim Carvalho of the Tucson Weekly said "Calling The Raw and the Cooked a book about food is like calling the Old Man and the Sea a book about fishing". I reserve it for reading during summer evenings on my deck facing what is called around here, Challenge Mountain, a ski hill for handicapped children. Also I'll only read it when the wind is just right to keep the insects at bay while not being too strong to flip the book pages. I must have my favorite cabernet within reach. That's essential. Reading these columns without accompiment of wine would be doing a disservice to the essence of what they portray. I'm not sure if Mr. Harrison intended these columns to stand in for his physical presence after his death but for me they do. I feel like I'm having a drink with him right here in front of me as he tells the stories that prove there is more to food than just eating and there is more to drink than just drinking. I only met Mr. Harrison for a mere moment at a book signing after an evening of him and two of his good friends in the round at Michigan State University which had been enormously entertaining. Now I read and re-read this book and feel he remains very much alive as one of my favorite drinking buddies.