Yesterday was April Fool’s.  Here I am among fools, myself one of many.  That is the straight-up assessment of life that makes the most sense.  And why not?  I celebrated my 70th birthday yesterday, with the help of my family.  My wife offered the most assistance with a really good meal at a favorite restaurant, the gift of a out-of-print book of poems that I wanted and her companionship.

How did I get here?  How could I have reached 70 years of age, not with the health of my 40 year-old-body, but here nonetheless?  Others were not so lucky.  Luck, dumb chance is the main “reason” if there’s a reason that I am able to write this, to greet another sun rise here at Starbucks.  There is the good fortune to draw a durable genetic inheritance.  So far nothing dangerous has “popped up” from the genetic sequence…….  My fingers are still crossed.  Others have been taken out by cancer.

I remember some close calls, where just a second or two variation, and I would have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, certain to suffer serious injury or worse.  One of those times came when as a teenager I was stunned, immobilized by a dive into shallow water.  Somehow disaster did not happen.  Like a rag doll I managed to float for a few minutes on an inflated raft until control of my legs returned.  I reflected rationally that life as I knew it easily could have been over.

There are the near misses, the vehicular high speed accidents that could have happened and didn’t.  You know, when the shot of adrenaline shocks one into total alert mode, —too late to have made any difference.  It was luck, just dumb luck, that caused things to end well.  You have been there too.

Perhaps the greatest hazard that every one of us faces, are the raging hormones which we call “romance.”  If there is one hazard, the hidden rock beneath a rushing rapid, it is the delirium of falling in love.  From a biological vantage point we “know” what is happening.  Nature’s logic is to procreate, to preserve itself by means of a newer-model life form, a baby.  Except, —  the mind numbing quotient of hard work involved in the nurturing of a baby to adulthood is not apparent, is not part and parcel of romantic passion.

Thus we have many love songs about love and loss.  The odds are good that love entails loss.  Not always though.  Sometimes one is lucky and the relationship can be cultivated to endure, to have a long trajectory, a life-long bond.

As I said I have been lucky on many accounts.  I am a lucky fool.  A fool is happy to celebrate, to laugh.

I think that is what all of us ought to be doing, —laughing.

For your mindful enjoyment a great song, by the great Annie Lennox.

Love Is A Stranger

Love is a stranger
In an open car
To tempt you in
And drive you far away

And I want you
And I want you
And I want you so
It’s an obsession

Love is a danger
Of a different kind
To take you away
And leave you far behind
And love love love
Is a dangerous drug
You have to receive it
And you still can’t
Get enough of the stuff

It’s savage and it’s cruel
And it shines like destruction
Comes in like the flood
And it seems like religion
It’s noble and it’s brutal
It distorts and deranges
And it wrenches you up
And you’re left like a zombie

And I want you
And I want you
And I want you so
It’s an obsession

It’s guilt edged
Glamorous and sleek by design
You know it’s jealous by nature
False and unkind
It’s hard and restrained
And it’s totally cool
It touches and it teases
As you stumble in the debris

And I want you
And I want you
And I want you so
It’s an obsession

Writer(s): ANNIE LENNOX, DAVID ALLAN STEWART