SIXTY MINUTE WEEK

Weeks have become minutes on this final leg of my earthly sojourn. It’s one way I’m like everybody else. These daze I’m sure only of the seasons, new moons and some estimate of clock time; all the rest is a blur. And been this way so long it’s now the new old normal. Say what you want about us geezers, but to get our decades confused we must have been around… Whatever that means.Ever descend gradually from sleep and wonder which of many prior beds you’re waking to? Sometimes I don’t quickly recall without opening my eyes, and might be asleep again before finding out. Right back in the time machine. Gotta love retirement!About four years old, still new to having my own room, I slipped one dawn from a dream of sharing flight with a lovely dove. She and me, beyond touch of any other thing, dancing together in unbounded space, a dream so sweet its fading as I woke was my first conscious taste of deep personal loss.So dear the feeling, I lay still as possible, consciously, defiantly, hopefully holding eyes shut to will myself back there. And made it by golly, regaining the heights and rejoining my perfect love! Only for moments though. Our second tryst vanished like steam when my mother’s call broke the spell. Not many years later, that same Mom (now 91) just happened to phone my girlfriend’s house precisely in time to preserve our virginity for, well, a while anyway. Some saints you have to give their due.

The moment seemed endless, but was probably only half that.

Steve Toltz

Here’s what soaring pilots need to know — and normal people too. For more than sixty years since the morning I fell from that nascent state of dreamtime grace, in the same way boffo lift still roils overhead after you shoot yourself down, there’s always a dove for each of us floating up there forever, awaiting our return… Been there all along.When power poles start to look like fenceposts you know you’re getting somewhere… If time foreshortens much more at this rate we’ll be measuring parsecs in milliseconds. Wherever you wanna go on this flight, it’s now or never.