One Day Looking Up at 40

This is the last day that I am looking at up at forty from the grapes in the vineyards. I am waiting to be picked. Tomorrow, I will be what they call over-the-hill, but...

I will be over the hill, standing at the hilltop, looking down at the grapes of decades that represented my first life and my formative years.

I will be in a new form-- a lovely wine-- that will age and ripen and progressively get better with each passing year. I will be chronologically, metaphorically, and spiritually, off the vine.

And I can hardly wait.