Talking on a misty morning provokes profound reflections

Got up early this morning to give a talk about FAVL at the Sunnyvale-Sunrise Rotary Club. I like breakfast, so not problem! A warm and gracious audience, asking good questions about our efforts to produce local books and the summer reading program. After, as I was driving out of the parking lot of the Sunken Gardens golf club, where the Rotary meets, I saw through the mist a group of six Japanese women golfing (well, I presumed, given the location, time of day, etc.) Just the previous night I finally finished a wonderful novel, The Sound of the Mountain,by Yasunari Kawabata. It is a delightfully slow meditation on aging and family, and the the main character, the elderly (for the time) Shingo, notices the natural world in a way that I only aspire to. There is nothing "particularly" Japanese about the novel; it is a universal story, though there is plenty of Japanese culture in it. So the profound reflection? I love getting older (I'm in my forties). I know I'm going to regret saying that in thirty years. But the ability to make ever more connections in my head, with my past life as a person, is a really nice feeling. "Sweet," as the kids say.