Diamond wedding

From now on, I can join the priority queue. Diamond Jubilee has arrived: 60 summers completed.

If it is a historical reference, we can say that I double the Cape of Good Hope. The first Lusitani contact with the southern promontory of Africa gave rise to the term Cabo das Tormentas. Then, with force pressure in Lisbon, the new, softer name emerges. Will it be like this with me? Another encouraging fact: the southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas. There are new things to discover.

Is 60 the new 40? 60 really is 60, with all its glories and misfortunes. I continue what is called “maturity with health”.

Practically speaking: I have more late than future. My house is much more attractive now. My bed is an unusual company. Watching a good series lying comfortably has become my go-to knife. I no longer need to visit the new three-star Michelin restaurant that opened in a Ligurian village, three hours’ drive from Genoa. Are you facing mandatory menus with foam and smoke? Start. I’ll make hard-grain pasta at home, with fresh tomatoes, basil, buffalo mozzarella and a drizzle of good olive oil—with two or three people close. This is my three star heaven. This is my 60 year old conscience.

A libido that explodes daily (and uncomfortably so at the age of 20) is now a slightly more spaced out experience. A wish to spend a week camping in the Gobi Desert, without showering, came true. I love bathing with a passion and am happy with the water flowing in my house. In me, Marco Polo is losing some of its momentum.

I have never been so sad. What happens is the end of greed, the end of anger with things, the sheer haste which must have marked my existence. Anxiety recedes. I already know that I am and will be incomplete, that I will not see everything, that I will not know everything. I accept the coincidence of life and know that beauty is in its fleeting nature.

I think Shakespeare, at my age, had been dead for eight years. The cool thing about being 60 is thinking I’ll never be like him. It was and still is my privilege to read it. its enough! I’m doing a diamond wedding, and I’m still burning coal. In the end, I convince myself that diamonds are of little use in the coldness of life… I hope to finish reading well into my 70s.

And you, dear reader and generous reader? Do you fear something when you see the final stop approaching?