Happy Birthday

When I looked in the mirror this morning, I saw that it was me and was not me.

I'm both someone familiar and someone I'll never know.

Just before I turned 50 I asked a friend who was 60 what it was like to turn 50.

He said, o, you disappear.

When I turned 60 I asked myself to remember what it was like when I turned 50.

I remember it was just like turning 40, but ten years later.

Now when I look in the mirror I see I could spend the rest of my life not looking in the mirror, but looking instead at the sea, the stars, the trees and other things of the natural world, and live a very happy life not looking at myself.