For Sara, as we enter our 60th year

To age gracefully. That's what she's thinking about today, on her 59th birthday. Gracefully? Are we such ballerinas? Did we do the first 59 gracefully? Boisterously, impulsively, trustingly, foolishly, forgivingly, deliciously, extravagantly, wonderingly, amazedly. I called Sara from the sunsoaked beach in Eilat, between dives through boisterously coloured fish, all of us swimming, yes, gracefully amongst the corals. Let us enter gracefully into this next phase. Gracefully means balanced. Balancing acceptance with triumph.
I accept the changes.
I will triumph over the changes, fight them, hold them off. I will eat whole grains.
I will balance gracefully between accepting myself as I am, and triumphing over the tempting pull of gravity, laziness, apathy, fear, hesitation, age. Moment by moment I'll find my right balance.
Over the phone as she baked apple pie with a whole grain crust, and I breathed unsnorkled air before my next plunge into that mysterious undersea world, Sara told me that she always sees shooting stars on the night of her birthday. And now, I see a note that there will be meteor showers tonight, the annual perseids. For a world where exciting changes happen, meteors topple out of their orbits, and we grow older, however we grow older. For Sara on your birthday: may we age fabulously.