Before Life's Liquor In The Cup Runs Dry

I've learned part of the The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám and one of the lines came to my mind as I sat on the sofa with a glass of wine balanced on the arm.

"Come my little ones and fill the cup, before life's liquor in the cup runs dry." 

And the wine was nearly finished...

...and it occurred to me that the level of wine left in the glass might show how many years I have left to live. So when I was born I had a full glass. Now I don't.

So I'd better get on with all those things I want to do and keep putting off.

Strangely the thought was not morbid. Maybe I didn't really believe it, but certainly more than half my life has already gone.

There's a Buddhist saying "Those who are mindful will never die." I personally take it to mean that if you are awake to life you'll enjoy it better. And when you die you won't know it. There is a sort of infinity there, everything you'll ever know is what you know when when you are alive.

Hmmm. Can't explain this better.

(Old photos of me leave me almost untouched now. The memory of what I was yesterday is more alive than the memory of what I was 10 years ago and what I was 50 years ago. The memory seems  dead. The contradiction is that I can feel the nostalgia, but it is not me.)