Class clown in high school – Sargent at arms through sorority life-stand up and seated comic in rooms and at tables- good at cajoling an hysterical grandchild back to smiles and giggles -Red Skelton type delivery, as he also cracked up at his own jokes. –Fast forward to signing in at funerals. Wow – feels as if I am in a “Room Without a Window.”I had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and woke up “64.” All the adages of how quickly life happens and how to really enjoy the living while you can doesn’t come into play until it one day does. Now I grab the moments when I don’t have to look over my shoulder for the next challenge. There is nothing new about feeling your age until the activities that fall at your doorstep smack of different. With a few more limitations, barely, I plunge ahead, continue my everyday with the same verve and discretion as always. Hopefully we preserve the good times differently. On a good day we take on more, on a great day we feel invincible. The “only ifs” turn into the “do it nows.” I now collect memories- with abundance. More old pictures, tapping into to old friendships and cherishing the times when troubles were fewer and anticipations were filled with less frailty. I look forward to the good stuff coming with more frequency and the times of dismay and disappointment being handled quickly.

And then— I wake up one day and the “The Room without a Window” has a glimmer of light shining thru. I open the proverbial blinds, I air out the cobwebs and I realize there was always a way out of that windowless space.