Friday November 12th
The end of the year is speeding towards us again. I have the two large sheets of my own paper calendar hanging on my office-closet door, now covered in large green stick ums as reminders of things I mustn’t forget. Another private concert on a Sunday afternoon to look forward to, various friends declaring they are arriving from Los Angeles for lunch, let alone birthdays and anniversaries surrounding the end of the year. ‘Five hundred and twenty more weeks until I am eighty-two’ John said in passing the other day and it stopped me cold in my tracks. Ten years sounds like a long time, planning for ten years ahead feels far into the future, but reduce it to weeks and somehow those weeks have been flashing by and are almost here. It almost took my breath away.
It is seven weeks until the end of the year now, each day the empty paper calendar on my door becomes fuller, colored stickers indicate weekly occurrences and big green patches are growing by the day, dates I must not forget. It also occurs to me that while I am proud of my good eyesight and would at one time have written a calendar in scrawled handwriting, the color coding I now use can be seen at a distance even by the most challenged pair of eyes. Yellow for my pool classes, pink for Carol’s call to London on Monday, turquoise for my sister’s call, and so it goes on.
I have decided to add red to the calendar. Red for the yoga mat sitting on the garage floor waiting for me each day.
