On Thursday last I began a day of fasting–medically prescribed–that surprisingly didn’t affect me as much as I thought it would.

In fact, it felt good.  The indignities of aging are many and well-documented, but oftentimes the process on the way to the indignity is overlooked.

I felt purer as the day progressed and the process in preparation for Friday’s procedure continued its cleansing duties.

It cleared my mind, all manner of thoughts formed, like clouds in the summer sky as you lay on your back looking for faces, objects, places.

Hamlet’s soliloquy from Act 3 popped into my head: “…Whether ’tis nobler in the mind/To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,/Or to take arms against a sea of troubles/And by opposing end them…”

Which seemed relevant as my body ages, requiring additional maintenance, suffering ’slings and arrows’.  Perhaps the outrageous fortune is that I’m here, now.  Will old age be a ’sea of troubles’?  I stand against it for now.