EAGLES AND ANGELS
what do you do when your seventy eight years old but your body is that of a thirty year old? I mean I have the wrinkles and grey hair and all that stuff but to see me clothed you’d say that head is on the wrong body. I run, I backpack, I road and Mountain bike, I hike, I work out at the club most days. I love multi day white water raft trips in the deserts of Oregon or just jumping in the car and go explore some place new, I cross country ski or sometimes ride “Fat Bikes” over set tracks in the Methow Valley snows here in Washington. Get it, I’m this one trick pony in love with the outdoors and especially the mountains, I’ve climbed Rainier and Baker and a lot of other mountains and when I’m in places like that, I’m at peace, I’m home. My spirit soars with Eagles and Angels. When I sleep beside a stream flowing from a glacier, it’s magic flows thru me and prepares me for tomorrow’s mountain adventures. I love the world of the outdoors.
The point of these stumbling words is that I am out of touch with most of the world. I cannot relate to women anywhere close to my age. They’ve gone past doing the things listed above. They have other, more gentle life’s callings to follow. I’m not speaking of all, there are many that can do me in the ground in my adventures, trouble is I can’t find them, I’ve looked. I’ve been a “widower” for coming on four years now.
My fantasy would be a thirty five year old that came into my life and knew what an Ice axe is used for or thinks a cramped tent feels like home when she’s on a mountain watching a magenta sunset looking like God himself splashed paint from Heaven or seeing a field of avalanche lily’s too numerous to count, there only for her eye. A person like that, impossible for me, of course, would be the magic I found when I was forty four and she was twenty four. She was never more than a step behind me, no matter the adventure. Almost thirty years we lived a life most might envy. Travels to see other countries , Volcanos to climb, week long bicycle trips along the Oregon coast to the California border or The Canada’s mountains, or bike and barge from Amsterdam to brussels. She spoiled me for women my age and that’s a shame I guess for I’ve got a lot of healthy years left to understand what solo means. To dream of a time gone by that held magic and wonder and all that all could mean. I’m not crying you see, my life is almost full, it just lacks that thirty five year old, impossible to obtain, dream girl to fly with those Eagles and Angels and me.